Conferences Evening Two: Electric Parent Boogaloo

2005-02-05 at 9:09 a.m.

I don't know whether it was me, or whether it's the nature of having Algebra and Geometry for subjects, but again I had parents straight through. And I don't know again whether it was me or the classes, but I didn't have any teachers blaming me for their son's/daughter's grades. I was worried about that: "My daughter's an A student and she's getting a C! You are clearly a lousy teacher!"

I did have several parents saying, "Rebekah's not a C student, so we saw that and wanted to ask you what's up." My stock reply was, "In general, I agree with you--the work I see from her is of a much higher caliber. So let's look at her progress report, shall we? Here's where the problem is--the tests and quizzes. What do you think of that, Rebekah?"

And in general, the kid could say they hadn't been studying, and this shouldn't surprise.

My greatest jaw-drop, though, came from Stinky's mom.

Stinky, let me tell you, is a big kid who sits in the back of my class--no matter *where* his official seat is--and sighs heavily whenever asked to do work, rolls his eyes when I tell him I can't give full credit for "doing it all in his head" and refuses to do homework and refuses to do classwork--I mean out and out just says no. And then he fails tests because he's only here two days out of five.

So Stinky's mom shows up, and sits down with me and asks why Stinky's failing.

"Well," I say, trying to carefully pick my way through the Your Child is an Ass minefield "his absences are really interfering with his progress. But even when he *is* here, he's reluctant to participate in class and refuses to do his homework. Even when I create special problems just for him."

"Maybe he might learn better from a male math teacher." she asks/tells me.

I pause, taking stock. "If that's the path you want to take," I say slowly, swimming deep in the depths of You Flaming Asshole, "then perhaps you should pursue that." And by all means, I silently add, get your asshat son out of my class. No wonder he treats me like shit--he's totally backed up by it at home. What clinched it for me was when the mom went on to explain how he hadn't liked Ms. J___, one of the coolest history teachers in the school, but when she went on maternity leave, he'd done much better with her replacement Mr. B___, the man for whom the word "blowhard" was coined. (This man had a half-hour discourse with the entire office on the hierarchy of black southern culture. Note that this man is as close to dead white male as one can come while still alive. After hearing him talk about "Myuu-lattos", I decided to remove myself from the area before I heard him use the word "octaroon" and I'd spontaneously combust.) Dude, if Stinky prefers Bloward to Ms. J, he ain't gonna like me one eensy weensy bit, and I'm so beyond cool with that. I so cool with it that get Stinky the hell outta my class. I'm not gonna battle his family's bigotry to the expense of the other three dozen students in class.

Because, gods know, you need a cock to teach math. And that having a cock-free teacher should totally be an acceptable excuse for getting a 30% in a class. No, I couldn't do my homework--my teacher has boobies!

File this under: things I'd considered might happen, but didn't really, because who thinks that way anymore? and if they do, who admits it?

(It barely fits on the file tab--I have to write really small.)

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