It’s that time of year. Time for the first parent-teacher
conferences of the new school year. Time to hear that Caleb tends to talk. A lot. Mostly at inappropriate times. And
that Josh doesn’t participate enough, although his grades are good. And that
Anna is distracting others in class. Say what?
When I received the email announcing that parent-teacher
conferences were next week at the middle school, I remembered a certain
parent-teacher conference when my now-7th-grader was a teeny-tiny,
shy eight-year-old. I walked into Mrs. H’s 3rd-grade classroom,
honestly expecting her to lavish praise on my bright, albeit quiet, daughter.
Instead, Mrs. H peered at me, unsmiling, exhaled a long-suffering sigh, and
laid it on me.
“We have a whistling problem,” she said.
I laughed. Out loud. And was met with stony silence and an
icy glare. I quickly coughed, while rearranging my features into a mask of
concern.
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“A whistling problem,” Mrs. H repeated, enunciating slowly. “She
whistles and it is distracting to the other students,” she explained, obviously
exasperated.
“Oh.” I wasn’t expecting this bombshell. “Well, she just
learned how, and she’s been whistling around the house, too. It’s a new thing.
I’ll be sure to talk to her about it,” I promised.
“I would appreciate that,” Mrs. H replied, clearly relieved.
This must have been weighing on her mind. Keeping her up at night.
I’m really not sure what other things Mrs. H discussed,
because I was kind of sitting there in stunned disbelief. Seriously, if this
was the only thing she could find to criticize my child about, then I wanted to
be a teacher, too. What was the weather like in her world?
I did discuss the whistling with Anna, and she denied that
it was her. In fact, she seemed mortified that anyone would think that she
would whistle in the middle of class. She said there were several kids in class
who had been learning to whistle, and many of them practiced their new skill at
inopportune times.
And I believed her. At
age eight, she really wasn’t the kind of student who wanted to stand out in a
crowd and draw attention to herself. Instead, she liked to stay under the
radar, keep her head down, and just do her work. Like Josh.
Now, Caleb, he’s a different story. Once he learns how to
whistle, there may be a conference in my future to discuss him being
distracting. But that wouldn’t be anything new. He would have just found a new
way to drive his teacher crazy. He mastered the basic art of distraction long
ago.
Anyway, I plan to attend the parent-teacher conferences next
week. I’m anticipating a good report. My “delinquent” 3rd-grader has
blossomed into a smart, respectful, sweet young lady. Hopefully, there won’t be
any whistling issues to deal with.
