Parent-Teacher Conference

This blog entry is just for the grandparents. Everyone not related by blood to my children will probably get nauseated by the end of the third sentence. Grandparents, though, being what they are, will soak up the entire thing.

We had Scooter's Parent-Teacher conference yesterday with his first grade teacher. Last year in kindergarden we had a lot of, um, issues to deal with.

Things like hitting other kids, fighting on the playground, not listening to the teachers, that sort of thing. So we approached this year's conference with some trepidation. In addition to Scooter's first grade teacher, his music teacher, PE teacher, and the principal (or "Head of School" at Blake likes to title the position) attended the conference.

She Who Puts Up With Me and I were outnumbered two to one.

The first thing Scooter's teacher said after we all sat down was, "Well, I really haven't seen any of the problems I was warned about. Scooter gets along great with the other kids, they all look up to him, and he's only had one incident since school began."

Then: "He loves to read. He'll read anything I put in front of him. I haven't figured out his reading level yet, but he's at least a second grade level."

And: "When we are doing classroom activities, he's very focused. He'll usually finish early, and ask to do more."

And: "He's clearly mastered all the math skills we expect of a first grader. He had no trouble with any of the tasks I gave him."

And: "When we have self-directed learning time, Scooter likes to write. That's very unusual for boys in first grade, and he's a great example for his classmates. He says he's working on a book, and here's the table of contents he wrote."

And: "He's always trying to help his classmates. Sometimes when he sees one of them misspell a word, he'll offer a correction. Usually he whispers so as to not embarrass the other child. This is sometimes annoying to the other kids, since they want to figure it out for themselves."

And so it went for the first 25 minutes of our half-hour conference. Page after page of class projects and assignments, each completed well above the expected standards and accompanied with glowing words about how well he's doing this year.

Finally, in the last few minutes of the conference, the music teacher spoke up. "I'm a little concerned," he offered, "because Scooter tends to be disruptive in music class."

"And he likes to yell a lot in gym," added the PE teacher.

Is that it? I thought. A first-grade boy who likes to yell in gym and is sometimes disruptive in class? If that's the worst thing his teachers are concerned about this year, then we've got a lot to be proud of.

Of course I didn't say that. I nodded solemnly and agreed that this disruptive behavior would have to stop, and we'd work on ways to bring it under control.

I waited until we were in the parking lot before doing my victory dance.