Parent Teacher Interviews!

Charles and I just sat through our first parent-teacher interview.  When Charlotte first started school, I was looking forward to this moment.  None of the angst of worrying about what your teacher might say about you to your parents when you’re not looking.  This time I’d be on the safe end of the proceedings.  Reality came crashing home with the form we were given to nominate our preferred interview time.  Would we like a three-way interview involving Charlotte as well?

Hell no, we want the dirt and the dishing of it may not be as blunt if she’s there too.  Wait.  Dirt?  Suddenly all my fears as a parent came crashing in.  I’m sorry Mrs B but it appears your daughter is as dumb as dog biscuits (unlikely given her history).  I’m sorry Mrs B but we’ve rapidly come to the conclusion that your daughter is a genius…unfortunately it appears to be the “evil” kind.  Frankly Charlotte frightens us and we think it would be best for everyone if she were home schooled (far more likely).  Or worse case scenario – have you noticed anything…unusual about your daughter?  I only ask because the class hamster keeps dying and we happened to notice…

Yes there are many things you don’t want to hear as a parent in your PT interview.  Amazingly none of it came up.  Charlotte is polite, friendly, eloquent.  Her work is always done, of a high quality and usually rainbow flavoured.  She reminds her teacher of her own kindergarten-aged daughter.

The only moment of parental embarrassment came when we were asked whether we had concerns and we mentioned her atrocious, almost illegible handwriting.  We described how appalling it was for a good two minutes while the teacher’s brows slowly knit together in confusion.  She stared at us like we were morons for a few beats and then picked up a sample of Charlotte’s work, flipped to a page of writing and held it up.

“Um…well she writes on the line, she has good spacing and you can clearly see what the words are…”

We stared in open-mouthed awe at some pretty darn good writing really.

“…so I’m not really sure what to say,” Mrs P concluded, “Except that I think she’s pretty good for a kindergarten kid.”

We blushed, shuffled our feet, muttered dark things about not trying much when at home and then backtracked as fast as possible.

Once at home we discussed how well she'd done and asked her, given how lovely her handwriting is at school, why it's so bad at home.
"Because," she sighed in exasperation, rolling her eyes, "I'm not at school!"


God help us when she makes it to high school.