Teacher conferences

At D’s school, there’s one day in the fall where parents can schedule brief meetings with up to two of their six teachers. Since I’m not concerned about how he’s doing in any of his classes, I decided to meet the language arts teacher, as she’s the most “important” of his teachers whom I hadn’t yet met, and also to talk with the band teacher about the bored-with-practice problem. I have to say, it’s especially gratifying to do teacher conferences when the teachers are really excited about your kid. The LA teacher is already ready to recommend him for Honors English next year and told me about how well he participates in class and how proud I should be of him, and the band teacher started off with, “I’m so glad you came to talk to me! Do you think D. would like to do Junior Orchestra?” It’s a city-wide thing for which they have to audition, and there are no clarinet openings now, but he recommended that D. try out for it in the spring. He also suggested that D. attend a special “solo/ensemble” event in the spring where the students get critiqued by experts (and high school students sometimes get offered college scholarships “if you’ll come play in our band”). He showed me some music books D. could borrow, and he also took the first steps towards setting us up with a private instructor, who could give D. lessons at school (and thus not cut into his free time, which he might complain about). Several kids already get private lessons, and a few are already in Junior Orchestra, so D. doesn’t need to feel singled out, which is good.

That’s a big block of text. Needless to say, I came home beaming.