Faculty Fibs

Back in school, I never quite understood parent-teacher interviews. This annual ritual was the one night that, to me, made every teacher a liar. For those that aren’t familiar, at my high school, parent-teacher interviews always consisted of cramming every teacher from your grade into the school hall, you and your respective guardian would then work your way around said hall until your guardian has received commentary from every one of your teachers regarding your overall performance. This would happen once, maybe twice a year and was compulsory. I always dreaded this one night in the year, not because I misbehaved in class, nor were my marks something to be punished on, I just dreaded hearing from every teacher, year-in and year-out, the same choose your words carefully overtone that I heard in my interviews and, more importantly, overheard in others.

Some years, I would often wonder why I didn’t just fake illness so that I didn’t have to go, I guess I just had a glimmer of hope that it would be the year that one of my teachers would sit the both of us down and say "Your son is lazy. His school work is his last priority. It was a colossal pain in my arse when he missed that exam and if he is consistent in his marks, he's going to be a janitor." That’s all I wanted, just something that indicated to me that what they were saying was accurately reflecting what had actually been happening, no matter how overstated, the interviews needed an approach that would be the influence behind some solid parental discipline. Instead, the things they would say were always worded and sugarcoated in such a way that their optimism often drowned out the raw truth. Whenever a teacher does this, and they all do, I think that they could just about say anything and it would sound good. I mean, if you're going to bash my mother and I over the head, doing it with a metaphorical candy-cane isn't going to get the job done. In all seriousness, I'm not saying that they need to be rude or insulting about it, I’ve just always felt when a teacher has been stuck with a class where the only reason that students choose to sit in the front row is because the back row is full that having an equal understanding with parents is key; doesn't that make sense?

Parent-teacher interviews were/are just another redundant form of communication. Teachers needed to be taught to leave their hearts at the entrance along with everything but their firearms, and not the other way round like they have evidently always done and failed with. Having a classroom of disruptive morons, then denying that fact come interview night will only leave you with the same classroom of disruptive morons. Unpunished morons, I should add. I've said it before; you can’t deal with an aggressive situation with a non-aggressive solution.