Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Back to school night
Tonight was Jake’s Back to School Night. We went last year, but I mistakenly brought Jake along with me. When we realized our mistake, we left after The Pitch. Didn’t seem fair to make him be the only kid sitting in a room full of parents.
The Pitch: they start every Back to School Night with a plea . . . with several pleas. Pleas for volunteers. Pleas for more money over and above the tuition (it’s a private Catholic school, for those of you just tuning in). Pleas for recruitment of more students. I don’t mind this, since it’s all about survival. Or at least I wouldn’t mind it if the room weren’t in the 80s.
And that’s with air conditioning. Outside it was well over 110. They had watering stations and ice cream, and they told everyone to go to the library if they got too overheated, since it’s the best air conditioned building on campus. But we still were supposed to crisscross the campus, going from one classroom to the next, following in miniature our child’s typical school day.
My impressions thus far:
I like Jake’s calculus teacher. I’m reserving judgment about the rest.
I’m reminded of the fact that educators must double as entertainers and stand-up comics (am I right, Sis?) Some of Jake’s teachers Have It and some Have It Less but none was so dry as to make me want to claw my eyes out and drink bleach. Which is more than I can say for some of MY high school teachers.
I really, really wanted to ask the English teacher a question. I had questions for the other teachers, too, but each “period” was the same: ten rushed minutes during which the teachers all said “email me, don’t bother calling me,” and speed-talked class expectations yatta yatta yatta.
What I wanted to ask the English teacher: You know these essays you assign wherein our child is supposed to draw from his life experiences? Well, if he hasn’t had an experience like that, can he make shit up? I keep trying to convince Jake that it’s okay to make shit up, but he hates to lie. I don’t call it lying, though. I call it comedy.
The turnout was amazing. I kept thinking, Don’t you people have lives? But then I remembered that I was there, too.
And paying for it. I have to go rehydrate. See ya.
D.
We just got a letter from our sons’ school announcing a new Director (probably a good thing) and the non-renewal of a number of staff members, including two of my favorites – this after they didn’t renew someone we really liked at the end of last year and made her go before the end of term. Gad! The whole school thing is such a crap shoot!
Sounds like Jake’s is pretty good. We are limited in our choices, since we want bilingual…
110. Even though I could buy a really nice house down there, we’d have to live in a place where it hits 110. I get cranky at 85.
I kinda miss those back to school parents’ nights, but I surely don’t miss paying tuition and those appeals for annual giving. All of our five children attended private schools for K-12 except for the oldest who finished up his last year and a half in public high school after he was expelled from private school. It’s a long story but after 27 years I can laugh about it. Our #4 child was just about a week old, and my husband had just gone out of town on business, when I got a call from the headmaster saying our #1 son had been expelled for drinking & driving (his father’s prize BMW) on a field trip. The new semester had just begun, tuition and cafeteria fees just paid, and there would be no refund. My husband hurried home and enrolled our son in public high school. It was a hard lesson for all of us, but the ultimate beneficiaries were the younger kids who grew up hearing the story over and over and as a result were more cautious with their behavior.
Bummer, I keep putting in the wrong email address. Sorry.
Yes, teachers have to be entertainers; it’s not enough to just get the subject matter across because if that’s all you’re doing up there, you’ve lost most of the kids in your class.
You weren’t encouraged to make an appointment if you had further questions? Here’s a tip: most teachers don’t WANT you to have further questions, but if they have a work ethic, they’ll at least give you their e-mail.Yeah, Back to School Night and 10 minutes per class gives you very little time to check out your child’s teachers. I give out the syllabus, so then the parents can’t bitch that they didn’t know about the rigor involved in Honors English.
And I know this sounds bad coming from an English teacher, but what I tell my students about drawing on life experience is this: if you have it, use it (it makes the essay better and easier to write), but if you don’t, then make it up…who’s gonna know the difference? As long as you fulfill the task (showing you can write, organize, etc), who cares if it’s true?
Kira: at Jake’s school, they let his 9th grade English teacher go. No tears shed at my end, since I wasn’t impressed with the 9th grade “honors” English class (wherein Jake hardly had to write a thing). But I think Jake liked him.
Dean, you could always do like Karen does, and stay indoors as much as possible.
Lucie, if the worst that happened to #4 was an expulsion, then it was a very cheaply learned lesson indeed.
Sis, yes, they make it very easy for us to email them. I may email him this weekend and ask about making shit up.
Oh, and he had one policy I liked. If a student doesn’t turn in his assignment, he has to stay after school to finish it. No late assignments credited. So the kid has to do the work but gets no credit for it. The principle is this: the student figures out there’s no escaping the work, so he might as well get credit for it.
A nice idea, but how does the teacher MAKE the student finish it for no credit and after school to boot? Since you pay to have your kid go there, does the school kick out kids who don’t make up the assignment?
It’s Catholic school, Sis. The kids all do what they’re told 🙂
(No, really — it’s remarkable how polite the kids are. Jake hasn’t been bullied. Not once. Not even a hint of bullying. It’s uncanny.)
I figured as much but thought that maybe there might be a few bad asses there. That’s the beauty of a private school; they get rid of the drek, and the bullying factor is important.