The Teachers Side of Parent-Teacher Conference - Stream of Conscience

I can't believe we have already been in school long enough for midterms and therefore Parent Teacher Conferences. I just spent the last 3 1/2 hours meeting parents and discussing the grades of their "little darlings". Although I am exhausted, I am actually pretty grateful for Parent-Teacher Conferences. It gives me a chance to talk up my good students and make them and their parents really happy, or to help my students who need to do a little work to improve.

Although, sometimes, like tonight I wonder if I am too nice. I want all of my students to succeed and often bend over backwards helping them to get there. With 200 students who should probably be learning the cruel rules of the real world, I should probably not help them SO MUCH. But it is a hard balance, because as a teacher, I feel it is my responsibility to know how they are doing and be there to tell them and help them when they need improvement.

I just can't escape my nature to people please. I want to please the student by helping them succeed. I want to please their parents, by bragging to them about how much their student has improved or how great they are. And I want to please, I guess, the administration by showing them that I am a good teacher and care about my students. In addition to being a people pleaser, I am afraid in my job I am a bit of a perfectionist. I cannot relax and even sleep if I know I haven't given my student every opportunity to succeed. This does not mean all my students pass with A+'s in my class. All it means is I often spend my lunches and after school helping students catch up on missing and absent work.


I guess I just feel that these students are at such a crucial stage in life. I can help determine whether or not they gain confidence in their ability to succeed and therefore set a standard for what they expect of themselves throughout high school and college (even if it is just for history). This is a huge responsibility. If they leave my class and know very little about history, I will be a little disappointed. But if they leave my class feeling like they are "bad" at history or "bad" at school I will feel like a total failure. How else can I boost this confidence if it is not through regularly knowing how they are doing in my class, giving words of encouragement and discussing their grades and behavior with their parents?

I guess I will keep doing what I am doing because I know it is right. :)