3 Weeks In

This week was the busiest and most tiring week so far. We had meetings, we had Back to School night, and I had piles and piles of things to grade. I attended all of the meetings, which went quickly & painlessly. This weekend, I will tackle 90% of the grading. It won't take too long, since it's all homework and classwork & a credit/no credit situation. As for Back to School night... it was the smoothest one I've had to do so far.

I really don't like meeting parents, probably due to the fact that I know they all have different expectations of what a teacher should be. Some of them want me to be the Grammar Nazi English teacher that will beat their children over the head with spelling, grammar, reading and writing. Some of them want me to just pass their kid, no matter what. And some of them DGAF what I do, as long as their kid learns something and I have a reason behind my actions. I'm betting that all of them expect me to be (or at least look) older. I used to try to impress upon them that I was that intimidating teacher (to the kids) and that they can trust me with their child's education by trying to be overly professional sounding, even though I look like I graduated last year. I don't do that anymore because it's ridiculous. I got tired of worrying if they automatically judge me as incapable due to my appearance, which I have no control over. (My mom would probably say they were just jealous of the fact that my family ages well, even though she once commented on how my 7th grade science teacher looked too young)

Truth be told, most parents are afraid of me just because I am The English Teacher. I know we've ALL had an English teacher that was a major bitch, no matter what you did. I had a few teachers like that throughout school--nothing you do will ever be good enough, they have ridiculously high expectations, they find it rude if you sneeze or cough without asking you first and punish you for ever smiling. Oh, and they correct your grammar at all times and look down on you if you don't speak or write "correctly". You don't know how many emails I've received from parents that have a note somewhere in there mentioning how bad their grammar and spelling is and to not grade them (or their student) on it.

Based on this, I went into this Back to School night with a different mindset. I dressed nicely (which netted me a lot of compliments that day) and I came up with a great plan to use the Promethean board to show my class website, the syllabus and the online textbook. These parents want to know that I mean business and I know what I'm talking about, but they don't want to be intimidated by me. I finally took the same approach I have with their children and applied it to them: I may look young, but I am an adult. I let them know that I know what I'm talking about, I've done this job before and had success, I'm approachable, and I'm more than willing to listen to their concerns. I don't care if the kids are intimidated by me, but I don't want their parents to be.

Unfortunately, this approach does not work on parents who like to intimidate teachers. Nothing I can do about that, though.