Parent Teacher Conference III

Our first parent-teacher conference was when Vivian was in Ms. Mary's class. It was our best. Since then things have been going downhill.

About 30 seconds into the parent-teacher conference this morning I saw a check mark in the "lots-of-room-for-improvement" column for "Following Instructions" (or something like that). It was glaring because all the thirty or forty other rows had check marks in the "doing-great" column.

So we asked. We were told that Vivian doesn't listen. And she sings in class. And disrupts the whole class by chatting. They move her from her table of friends to other tables in the hope that if she doesn't know someone she won't talk. But they have discovered that she can strike up a conversation with the "quietest student in class". She's been sent to the "naughty corner" but she fidgets and disrupts even from the corner. Her teachers are at a loss. They pleaded with us to "talk to her".

All of this is sugar coated with how bright she is and how she learns anything quickly and remembers things for ever. And that she will lead the class in the Sports Day event. And she is so much fun.

I needed to get an idea of how bad this is. So I ask if she is an average disrupter, better than average or worse than average. The teachers sigh and seem reluctant to speak but eventually say that she's the biggest disrupter in a class of 21 children. There's my girl.

And then they ask if it's true that she's not coming back for the next academic year. They are making rosters for next year and need to know. Right. They try but can't hide the hope from their voices. We tell them that yes, it's true and they try to hide their sighs of relief.

I told the teachers that "talking to her" probably wouldn't be very helpful and we finally settled on a system. From tomorrow they will send a note with her that gives us instant feedback on how she did that day. Which will supposedly help us do something about it.

And Evan, our problem child, isn't even in school yet.

ps. we got back home and Jo and I were casting around for a silver lining. I thought I found one. "Honey, at least we can try to do something about it. Imagine if they had told us that Vivian was very well behaved but dumb as a doornail."