PARENT-TEACHER MEETING
Yo! How are you all? It’s been a long, isn’t it? I
hope everything’s okay on your side. I’m guessing you might have got an idea of
what I’m about to tell you. So let’s get in.
For a long time, I’m skeptical about what to write and
I had multiple thoughts but couldn’t get to work on them. As I was confused and
annoyed about what to write, the days passed. Today morning while my mom and I
were busy washing clothes. Yes, you heard it right ‘washing clothes’, what else
can we expect on Sunday mornings from mothers? So back to the story as we were
busy my father came to us and said “Okay then I’m leaving”.
I said, “To where?”
My father said “to school”
“Nanna, it’s Sunday” I said.
“You are teaching me?” with a sarcastic smile.
“Save that for later and tell me why,” I asked.
“parent-teacher meeting,” he said.
“SORRY!” I was puzzled.
“there’s a parent-teacher meeting at school” he
replied.
“Does the government do that?” still confused me.
“Yeah, anyway I’m leaving,” he said and left.
From that moment the only thought running through my mind
is PARENT-TEACHER MEETING and that word resonated all over my mind which pushed
me back to my school days. I cursed myself for not thinking about that. How did
I miss it? I hope it played a good part in many of our lives. I still remember those
meetings and feelings that surrounded me at that time.
The first time I heard about this is in my 6th
class. So, coming to mine in our school there would be a parent-teacher meeting
after every unit test. I was pretty surprised on hearing about these I hope
everyone had. The class teacher informed every parent about this by mentioning
it in our school DAIRY and eventually, we have to get it signed by our parents so there is no escape.
In our school, after class hours there would be study hours till 6 PM. And our
parent-teacher meetings used to commence during those study hours, as we sit in our
class for study hours, and if any one of the student’s parents come the
reception would call the INCHARGE and the INCHARGE would tell the respective
student to go to the ROOM/HALL where the meeting would happen. I still remember
the first time how I sat with zero focus on what I’m studying and thinking about
what would happen if my teachers turn on me and how my father would react to all that stuff but it never went that way. We will get into that, firstly I
wasn’t bad at studies and I’m not too good. I was good and always tried to be
better and not even once I got into the top 3. Back to the story that day as I
was sitting tight holding every nerve of mine carefully not losing my calm and
eventually my turn came and I went down to the reception and I saw my father
and I prayed in myself to god to make everything good, we together went into
the PARENT-TEACHER MEETING ROOM and nothing happened what I had feared,
everything went well as I scored 138.75/150 and none of the teachers complained
about me or my score but there were small remarks from both sides and apart
that everything went well for ME but to some, it didn’t, as I stood in that
room I saw some of my classmates being scolded and some are getting good
remarks for their scores and I thought maybe this is it.
As the unit tests and years passed so were the
meetings and things went well till THE 10TH CLASS. In the 10th
things somewhat changed. I started with a low score at that time and in addition to that, for the 10th class, the teachers are HODs of their respective
subjects and I never liked my ENGLISH teacher. We both were never on the same
page. I still remember, in my 7th or 8th class that same
man beat a friend of mine for speaking in TELUGU and that too where in the BOYS’
RESTROOM and I was like ARE YOU SERIOUS, come on man what do you expect us to be while we piss, SHAKESPEARE! At first, I feared him, and later on, that fear
turned into something, and because of that I never had a good equation with
him. I got beaten by many teachers but they were about my studies and the noise
I make and I always end on a good note with them, but with him, it was always the other
way. And in 10th things got bigger and I used to score well in ENGLISH
sometimes good, never compromised in that and things happened, apart from him I
had good equations with other teachers. I don’t hate him but we never got
along. And for multiple reasons that year parent-teacher meeting happened only
once and at that one time I prepared myself for everything that comes at me
regarding ENGLISH but to my utter surprise that particular teacher didn’t
complain much about me and it was less than what I expected, but all that what
I’m expecting came from another teacher SOCIAL STUDIES. Damn myself, what’s
happening with my life, this isn’t what I expected. SERIOUSLY!!! SOCIAL!! The
subject I’m pretty good at, to be honest, I can bet on myself I’m the best in
the class and I scored out of in that subject many times. Okay….okay let
me get into the details of what happened that day. After my utter surprise at
the response from the English teacher, I and my father moved to the SOCIAL
department where two male teachers were sitting, one of them was the one who
taught me from 6th to 9th and my favorite teacher and
next to him was my then 10th class teacher and also HOD of the
subject. My father mistakenly started talking with my old teacher as they know
each other from past meetings and I told my father that he is not the teacher at
that time, my father concluded talks with my old teacher and moved to the current
teacher and he showed my father the score card of the previous test conducted
and I scored 24/25 and I still remember the exact words “your son got these
marks only byhearting not by studying”. I was like WTF!!!!!!! byhearting not
studying, you think that’s what I did all this time, come on man why would ever
do that to my favorite subject? I may have agreed with other subjects, but with
SOCIAL, Would I have gotten 30/25 if I had studied, why don’t you just kill me? After that, I couldn't hear the rest of the things he said to my father as my mind was rotating on the previous sentence. My old teacher sitting nearby heard everything and after that, he called me and said "Don't let these things disturb you, just focus on the finals", and patted my shoulder, that time I really needed that and it felt good. There were times I scored good and bad but never got that kind of response from
any of the teachers and of course, the scolding from my father didn’t surprise
me at all, as I said I was prepared for anything, it’s just the positional
shift of the banter surprised me. That was the last parent-teacher meeting I
had in my school and sometimes I wonder what part of me made him think like
that but whenever I think of that time I laugh out. And in most of them when I
meet my friends in the middle of the meetings facing each other and laughing at each other while our parents talk seriously with the teachers, I
remember one time when my friend and his father were talking to a teacher I
heard my friends father saying to the teacher about him that he starts with his
day with newspaper but not the actual books and they were laughing about that
and I just looked at him and said “manam manam barampuram”. There were many
moments like this and the real fun part is the next day after the meeting we
would share our experiences and we would make fun of ourselves by the remarks made
by our teachers and the reactions given by our parents. Man…school life is much
funnier when we think back.
……..
SO WHAT ABOUT YOU……….
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