Meet the teachers

Last updated: 01/03/2017 18:09 by AoifeOCarroll to AoifeOCarroll's Blog
Filed under: MummyBloggers
 
You can imagine my surprise and delight to receive not one, but two invitations to parent-teacher meetings in one week. Thankfully, the invitations arrived at such short notice (a week in one case, and two days in the other) that I did not have an opportunity to build up much of a sense of dread and apprehension. As it happened, the events were two very different experiences, prompting me to wonder, yet again, how small humans with the same genetic material and the same environments can turn out like two members of entirely alien species.
 
Mozart In The Jungle  season 3 amazon original thinking unsure
 
Meeting #1
Child Two is in Fifth Year, so you might think that, at this stage, I would stride into his parent-teacher meetings like a boss, completely prepared for what was to come, and armed with all the right questions to ensure a happy outcome. Maybe next year…
 
The only difference from previous years was the reduction in the number of teachers we had to attend (not because they had run away in terror, although I might not blame them for that; but because he has fewer subjects). As before, every commentary ran along similar lines: lovely kid, very polite, completely disorganised, uninterested, and lacking focus.
 
Once again, we sat in the car, me pleading, him stony-faced. Once again, he eventually promised to do better, and I promised dark outcomes if he didn’t knuckle down.
 
season 1 please fx sarah paulson begging

 
Meeting #2
Child Three is the only girl and just starting secondary school, so I did not know what to expect from her parent-teacher meeting. In the end, it merely served to deepen my utter cluelessness about the parallels between siblings.
 
OK, it’s only First Year, but she was still averaging above 80 percent in all her subjects – even the ones she is not keeping on. She is organised, interested, and focused. Where did she come from? I arrived home and, because Child Two was also in the room, I tried to find something from the meeting to be less than enthusiastic about - and the only thing I could come up was an English comprehension test in October, in which she missed two words.
 
thinking oprah hmm concerned oprah winfrey
 
Thinking back on both experiences, I wonder if the entire point of parent-teacher meetings is to assess the parent. Considering how poorly prepared I tend to be for them, “could do better” would be my result.
 
Aoife O'Carroll is a separated mum living in Co Kerry with her two boys aged 17 and 14, and a girl aged 10.
 
Déanta in Éirinn - Sheology
About