Word: grades
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...remember I was talking to my literature teacher shortly after our ninth-grade finals were over when the teacher who taught some of the other classes for the same course barged into the room in a visible state of distress. She interrupted our conversation with loud cries to the effect that her students had learned nothing and that she might as well have been away windsurfing all year instead of lecturing...
...story. A black Little League teammate reminisces about the 11-year-old Bradley threatening to call the mayor of Joplin, Mo., if a local hotel didn't rent the black kid a room, and the 56-year-old Bradley chews his lip and looks at the floor. His second grade music teacher sings his praises, and he gazes into the distance, even forgetting to thank her as she goes by--until his wife, Ernestine Schlant, elbows him and he hauls himself out of the chair and gives the old lady...
...look forward to parent-teacher conferences about as much as I do to periodontal surgery. The night before conference day, I usually have one of those dreams in which I'm in fifth grade playing dodge ball--naked. At my kid's school, we parents wait our turn in the hallway, drinking decaf and trying to hide our anxiety behind our briefcases. When I'm ushered into the classroom, I wedge myself into a Lilliputian desk. Mrs. Widget smiles down with practiced patience. She begins. Nine minutes later, it's all over, and we're shaking hands. By the time...
Lily Eskelsen is a 20-year veteran of parent-teacher conferences, both in her years of teaching sixth grade at Orchard Elementary School, just outside Salt Lake City, and as the mother of two sons. She says both the ingratiators and the intimidators have it wrong because they're concerned with power relationships rather than partnership. "Parents," she says, "should think of themselves as part of a team with the teacher and the child"--and shouldn't tussle over who gets to be quarterback...
Parents should ask for specific suggestions and query the teacher on her goals for the year in particular subjects. If your conference comes just after a report card, don't let the teacher burn too much time going over each grade; you can do that on your own. The conference should focus on areas of concern--yours and the teacher's. It is helpful to take notes during the meeting and keep any schoolwork the teacher passes along, in case amnesia strikes...