Curriculum

There. I'm done with curriculum nights. This year I only had to attend two, even though we have three children still wading through the muck that is public school (haha, just kidding, I LOVE PUBLIC SCHOOL....most of the time)...two of the kids attend the same school which stupidly schedules all three grades on the same night (the high school does, too!) so I was only able to attend one while my lovely husband attended the other. So, forevermore I will not know a whit about her teachers because I did not get to meet them personally, and husbands are notoriously bad at deciphering teachers (um, they do....science stuff?).

Here's my take on "curriculum night". Please don't spend a lot of time talking about the curriculum. Just write it down and provide a nice handout that I can take home and never read. I mean, read over thoroughly! Since I only get ten minutes to get to know you, dear teacher, please spend at least five of those minutes telling me a little about yourself. Did you always want to be a teacher? Do you enjoy children? Are you just in it for the summers off? Then, spend the next five minutes answering questions. Done. Ten minutes and no boring me with the details of your curriculum which is probably on your website anyway. But getting to know you? That's why I'm here. Are you nice? Creepy? Funny? Burnt out on teaching?

Chances are you'll never remember my name or my face, but you have my child in your class every single day.   I won't get the chance to tell you about my child, about their strengths and weaknesses, what they're excited about, what makes them tick. So, at the very least, tell me about YOU, so I know who's influencing my child each and every day. We get one chance to meet you, for ten minutes and it's likely the only time we'll see you all year. "You only get one chance to make a good first impression". So true. Make it memorable!