Parent-teacher conferences
Parent-teacher conferences are stressful for kids I guess. Last year we took Madeline with us to the conference to talk to her teacher. And like every other teacher, that teacher loved Madeline. She said straight out that Madeline was the top student in class and she makes teaching fun. She said she’s not supposed to have favorites, but Madeline was one of her favorites. And she basically said every good thing you can possibly say about a kid. But of course, like any good teacher, she wanted to let Madeline know that there were still things she could work on. And she was obviously reaching for anything at all to say that Madeline needed to work on, so she mentioned something like, even though Madeline was probably the best writer in the class, maybe she could use more commas in her sentences.
That was it. Maybe use more commas. That was the only slightly negative thing her teacher could think of. Commas. And so what did Madeline say?
She said nothing. She started to cry uncontrollably.
She’s the best student in the class, her teacher loves her, she’s the perfect kid— but she should use more commas sometimes. And that brought her to tears.
So this year we gave Madeline the option of coming to the conference. I reminded her how she cried last year over the commas, and she didn’t have to come if she didn’t want to. But Madeline said she wanted to come and she definitely wasn’t going to cry again.
So this year, of course, her teacher loves her. She’s the best student in class, she makes teaching fun, she gets along with everyone. And this year the teacher couldn’t even think of anything even slightly negative to say. I guess she solved that embarassing comma problem.
But at the end of the conference, I mentioned jokingly to her teacher that Madeline had cried at her conference last year. Her teacher said well she has nothing to cry about this year. And guess what Madeline did? She started crying.
