Parent-Teacher Conferences

When conferences roll around, I send out an email telling teachers that if they would like me at a conference for one of my students, let me know when it is, and I will try to come. Unlike last year, some teachers have chosen to take me up on the offer this year. And no matter how qualified I am to be participating, I still don't feel quite old enough to be at a parent-teacher conference. It is particularly strange when it is the conference of a 10 year old and I don't think his mother is much older (if at all) than me. Tomorrow's conference is with a grandma, who is thankfully, a grandma age.

Another thing that has become abundantly clear to me this year, is that while poverty and access to goods and services might be connected (in a not so good way), poverty and care really aren't. This year I have met a kid who is arguably living in the most awful, impoverished circumstances possible while still calling the place living quarters, yet she comes to school clean and in clean clothes every day...surprising, since the person who visited the home said that she was shocked that that level of cleanliness was even possible, given the conditions. We have lots of very well-cared for students, regardless of their parents' income. And we have a small number of students who (regardless of their parents' income) are not well-cared for at all. Kids who come to school dirty, in dirty clothes that haven't been washed in who knows how long (white socks that look more like dark brown), with hair so dirty that it's greasy all the way to the tips, on hair that goes past the kid's shoulders. It's sad that anyone would let their kid get that way.