An email appears in my inbox asking if I can possibly meet the following day. I send off a quick reply with my available times. The confirmation comes quickly and I add the meeting to my Google calendar wondering what it could possibly be about.
Is it about the interpersonal challenges I have been working on with a couple of students? It might be about the upcoming puberty session later in the week. Perhaps they want to discuss an argument the child had with a classmate, that I thought was solved, but I’ve been wrong before. My mind continues to whir, trying to guess the topic and anticipate the direction of the conversation.
At the appointed time I am working in my room. The parent eventually arrives, but now I only have a few minutes before I have students in the room. They apologize for being late and bring up the reason they requested the meeting, which is NONE of the things I have considered.
The matter at hand was actually an academic question of something that had happened a week ago. (Though the puberty session was inquired about, so I was only mostly, completely wrong.)
I listened to their concern, explained what had taken place from my perspective, and assured them that if I had a concern I would have contacted them. Their child had shown mastery of the concepts so I had moved on. Obviously they hadn’t. I sure I hope I was able to assure them.
That isn’t quite the end of the story, which ends with great irony, but for confidentiality reasons I can’t write about it. Needless to say, teaching is never dull.
I love the way you capture the thought process after the request. And they were late! Perfect!
ReplyDeleteKristi,
ReplyDeleteI've had these kinds of mysterious meeting requests, too where you wonder and wonder why the meeting was requested. I'm glad it was benign, or at least, the part that you write about here. At first, I thought you were writing about an admin meeting request. When I've gotten those, I don't usually ask what they're about. However, given the last scare I had, I have vowed to always ask what it's about. Makes it easier not to worry so much!