interviews

My favorite time of the year. Parent-teacher interviews. Normally I don't stress out too much about them - there's not a whole lot that can go wrong in 5 minutes - but this year I was feeling a little apprehensive. You see, often with high achieving kids come crazy parents. Not to mention everyone, parents included, maybe got a little too attached to their previous teacher. Not that she wasn't wonderful, but there was a lot of freaking outlast year when a stable replacement was hard to track down.

Needless to say I was 100% booked last night. 6:30-9, one 5 minute break. It went much better then anticipated. Almost all the parents were great, very supportive and just stopping by to meet me. Turns out I'm good at ushering parents out the door and staying on time - I ran ahead of schedule almost all evening. The parents of the my most easygoing and generally likeable student are of course people who never smile. He must be adopted. I also had a family feud in my classroom. Sweet! The best part? I was not included in the conversation at all - they simply used my room and chairs. Of course, they were late and then wouldn't leave. Maybe they don't have chairs at home? Je ne sais pas. They may have remembered to say goodbye to me when they finally did leave.

The good part of interviews is invariably many teachers get together and go for a drink afterwards. We had to go out seeing as in switching school boards I left behind being legally allowed to drink in the school. Sigh. Not everything about the Catholics is bad... Anyway, there was probably about 20 teachers who wound up going out (not great numbers if you consider there are over 120 staff members...). It was bizarre at first. My old staff was a fairly close staff. When I showed up I was amazed that there literally were people sitting at the table that I had never seen before. I knew 2 names. Awkward. Someone finally admitted they had no idea who I was either, and some intros were made. Finally I felt at ease enough to insult someone, and voila! acceptance into 'the group.' I think I will include a meeting people goal in my professional growth plan for this year. Seriously, learning 30 names will take effort.

Today I got to sleep in, was served a fresh cinnamon bun breakfast to accompany my Personal Development, and accomplished looking at my Professional Growth binder. Baby steps... Oh, and I also decided that as part of my plan for this year I'm going to start keeping a super nerdy teacher blog. They encourage journal writing for reflexion, but physically having to writing things is almost obsolete. I would never actually sit down with a book and write things out, so I will type them. And share it with those who are interested. ie, my administrator in charge of consulting with me on my growth. He's not actually interested, but he gets paid to pretend so I guess that counts.

The rest of my interviews were fine, a little on the disorganised side, but nothing exciting and no stories. Darn you parents for being supportive and not crazy! You make terrible blog material.