Parent/Student Conferences: Not That Educational

Today's expedition to Storm's high school for the parent/teacher conference was a complete waste of time. It was fifteen minutes long. The first ten minutes were a scripted set of bulletpoints that the school distributed to each student. The first instruction read, "The parent should remain silent and withhold all questions until the end of the presentation."

So, I did.

After which, I said, "This was a complete waste of time. There's nothing here that I don't know about. We keep close track of Storm's performance, ask about her homework, and about her ambitions." I pointed to the four years plan she had asked Storm to develop. "Storm and I wrote put that together a month ago after a meeting with the IB instructor. If anything, the scripted nature of this presentation seems designed to prevent me from asking you anything pointed or direct."

The teacher spread her hands defensively. "You'd be surprised how many parents come in here and learn something new, something they didn't know about their student." She then turned back to Storm to work through a list of questions she had about Storm's progress. Toward the end, she said, "Many parents don't really have a good grasp on education at the high school level."

"Storm lives a father who's a published author and software engineer, and a stepmother who's a credentialed scientist and journalist. We don't have that problem."

"Sometimes I wonder if Storm feels intimidated by her parents. Do you?" she asked Storm.

"Not really."

It was a very unsatisfactory meeting, mostly because it did what it was meant to do: deflect the parent from being able to ask about what the school was doing, or not doing, on the student's behalf.