Thursday, February 26, 2004

My Triumphant PT Conference

Another round of parent teacher conferences tonight. Those are always a hoot. This year, the powers that be gave us a half day, and absolutely nothing to do until the 4:30 meetings began. I took distinct advantage of my time by slinking off to my apartment, downing two pints of Guiness and a ham and cheese sandwich and sacking out on the couch for fifty minutes or so, after which I got up, scrubbed the alcohol off, put on a badly-knotted tie, and slunk back to the office, a big shiteating grin for the parents bared in almost desperate fanaticism.

Usually, the high-achievers are the ones to show up, and all I can really say is, "Yeah, your kid is great, just great, tell them to keep staying awake and using Sparknotes." This time, a few deadbeat kids' parents showed up, and I got to set the record straight: "Yeah, your kid isn't doing so well, tell them to open the fucking book now and again and start using Sparknotes. It's all Sparknotes, you know."

By seven p.m. I was starving, not having had any dinner, and I'd already rescued a colleague from a bulling parent who wanted to know why kids had to take a class in government instead of just taking the stupid Constitution test. I kid you not. Her exact words.

But one of my high-achievers' parents showed up, and I found myself in a position to actually do some good for once in my sterling six-year career.

The parent is Russian, sixty years old, heavy accent, nice as can be. I've met her once before, but I never did learn how to pronounce her name correctly. Since you only meet with these people for ten minutes tops, it never becomes much of an issue, but with a woman as nice as her, it pays to be considerate.

Her kid is doing well in my, and all classes, except he gets himself tied in knots fairly easily. I showed Mom the grade and she asked me if I saw any weaknesses. "Well, actually," I said, phrasing my words as carefully as I could, "he seems to take himself to task way too much. If we could find a way for him to push himself without giving himself stomach ulcers along the way, that would be very much to his benefit."

(I can sound so damned classy when I want, yeah? It would have helped if I could have punctuated this with her name, though.)

She was nodding in agreement. "He wants to be a doctor," she said (although, to capture the spirit, with her accent, it sounded like, "He vant too be a dochtur"). "I'm sure he will be. He can be whatever he wants to be. I'm just worried I won't be able to see it." ("Vunt be apple too see." Oh my bleeding piles.)

"Now what do you think you're saying?" I asked in mock belligerence. "You'll see it. Don't give me that."

She chuckled. "It's fifteen years later he'll be a doctor. I am not a young woman any more, Mr. L."

"You'll see it. You have to." I paused, feeling myself on very thin ice. I mean, it's not often I discuss women's ages, least of all the mother of a student. But what the hell. Maybe this will get me into heaven some day. "You know the story of Schezerdade?"

She shook her head, and I could see (at least, I think I saw) the wheels turn: This man is a teacher and he's going to teach me something and I respect teachers but I'm not that interested but I should be because he's a teacher and...

"A woman is captured by a king, or an emperor. Or something--I forget which. Anyway, she's sentenced to death if she can't tell a good story. So she spins out a yarn, but leaves it at a cliffhanger right before her time is up. The king or emperor is beside himself--he wants to hear more. So he keeps her alive another day to hear the story. The next day she tells more of the story, but leaves it at another cliffhanger, and saves her life for another day. And so on. And so on. The king is so interested, he can't bear to not have the story completed.

She immediately started cracking up, probably sensing the next part of the "lesson."

"That's what your son is doing. He's your Schezerdade."

It was a full minute before she stopped laughing. Other teachers were looking over in my direction, probably wondering what the hell I was doing, chatting her up or something? "I love a good sense of humor," she told me.

I only smiled and shrugged, not sure whether I'd been telling a joke or not.

She thanked me for my time, got up to go, and then embraced me in the first, last and only bear hug a parent has ever given me in my life. Then she released me, stepped back and bowed. "Thank you."

I only smiled and nodded idiotically. It's a mark of my times that I immediately wondered if I had a potential sexual harassment suit on my hands, but after a while the caution wore off and I thought the whole thing was incredibly cool. I'll probably never see the old woman again--her son is acing my class and he'll graduate in June--and that's a shame.

I really would have liked to learn how to pronounce her name.

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