Parent Teacher Conferences

So I survived my first parent/teacher conferences. Most of them went really well and I enjoyed spending a couple minutes talking to each parent about their awesome children. There were two that weren't very comfortable though. And I think those were the two that I learned the most from. I don't like confrontations. I never have. And I never will. I have learned over the last 40 years how to handle them and how to effectively prevent them most of the time. RM had told me that she loves conferences because she likes getting to know some of the parents that she normally doesn't see. I agree- that was a great part of it.
I had been talking to one of my peers from UoP about conferences and how he liked them. He is going through student teaching with me and we have been on several learning teams together through many of our classes through this master's degree. He had conferences several weeks ago (Washington state starts school in August) He told me that he learned things about his students that he didn't expect and that there were some very sad things he learned too that were disturbing. I remember saying to him "Oh, that won't happen to me-- we don't have those kinds of problems in our community" (I was saying this in response to his statement about a couple of specific things that he learned about students that saddened or frustrated him) Unfortunately, I too learned some things that I didn't see coming and that made me sad or frustrated. It simply amazes me how children can have some issues at home that they are dealing with (not necessarily the fault of the parent- just life circumstances) and yet they are still there at school and still doing their work. I found a new admiration for a couple of my students for sure!
But mostly I enjoyed the conversations. Mostly. I did walk away from one conference frustrated at the parent but I'm sure that will happen with most conferences.
We had our conferences on Thursday evening and all day Friday. Even though we didn't have kids at school on Friday- I was whipped by the end of the day!