Parent/Teacher Conferences...

I survived parent/teacher conferences.

Most of my parents were happy that I was not your typical history teacher and wanting to move in a direction of everyone learning (including myself) rather than just 'I'm the teacher, you're the student and you have to do what I tell you'. I've had that enough in my own 17 years of school to know that it doesn't work with most kids. So, it went well. I also had many parents telling me that their son or daughter enjoys my class and are learning a lot--this made me feel like all the stress was actually worth it. Needless to say, it's getting better for me.

I did have a few double-takes with a few of my students that came in with their parents. I had a couple of my boys wearing thobes when I'm so used to seeing them in school uniform. Same things with the girls wearing abaias. I wasn't phased at all with the parents wearing thobes and abaias but when it came to the kids, it was different.

Also, I had one mother wearing a veil, that all you could see were her eyes. We shook hands, she sat down (her son right next to her wearing a thobe) and before we start, she pulled the bottom part of the veil down so I could see her face. We talk and when we finish, she pulled the veil back up so all you could see were her eyes again. She got up, we shook hands again, and that was that. I was not terribly shocked as I was thinking, 'this is different'. That sort of thing is common with two women talking in a semi-professional setting but it was the first time for me.