Parent/Teacher Conferences

Wow - this is Post #500. In less than 2 years. That's a lot of writing.

Anyway, last night Ben and I had parent/teacher conferences for Maria and Sam. And it's official, we have two pretty awesome kids.

Maria's in 5th grade now, and almost to the age where we will stop going to conferences unless there is a problem. This is her last year at the elementary, and when she starts middle school next year they do conferences in a completely different way. Anyway, Maria's teacher Mr. Fillman had nothing but good things to say about Maria's academic ability, work ethic, and broad vocabulary. And she's friendly and gets along with everybody. We spent part of the time discussing what he can do to challenge her a little more. No surprises, but always great to hear.

Next we went downstairs to see Mrs. Dulle, Sam's first grade teacher. When we finally got in (she was running behind), she said, "this will be a good conference to end on." We took that as a good sign. Academically, Sam is doing great. Reading is his best subject - according to his recent testing, he's reading at the level they should be at the end of the year, and maybe better, but they're not allowed to test any higher than that yet. He's moved up into a higher reading group as well. Math he does well - I have been concerned because his tests are showing that he is missing some things that I know he can do in the homework. But they're careless mistakes, and getting him to take his time and check things over is probably a battle I will be fighting for a long time. His Chapter 3 test is today, we'll see what happens. And although he hates to write, he can do it pretty well when he has no other choice in the matter. From doing his homework with him each evening, I agree that in the last few weeks everything has started to really click.

His behavior is what I was most concerned about. She said he is doing well, but had some issues at the beginning of the year, but was not specific about what those issues were. I think it just took a couple of weeks for him to get into the routine, and learn to control his behavior a little more. Twice he has had to "move his clip," the most recent being Wednesday when another boy put soap on his face in the bathroom and Sam grabbed him from behind because he was mad. Sam has always had trouble controlling his temper when someone does something to him, and so we talked with him about it. But when I remember some of the issues he had in his Pre-K classroom three years ago, I become very thankful at how far he's come.

Mrs. Dulle also mentioned that he sometimes seems almost unhappy at school, that he seems to keep his emotions inside. She said he is not very often outwardly happy. I'm not sure what to make of that, although he does tell me he doesn't really like school, he never argues about having to go in the morning. I think he's just a very active little boy, and sitting in school for 6 hours of his day is not what he wants to be doing. From my experience as a teacher and especially as a parent to a son, I have a pretty good understanding of how schools seems to be the opposite of what a boy would rather be doing. So as long as he behaves himself and continues to excel academically, I'm not going to worry about it - he's pretty happy and very active at home.