tutor to two-two tuckova, part two

hey guess what i went to on tuesday night? an AWESOME parent teacher conference. who knew, right?

Friar Tuck couldn't go so i stood in the little line outside the classroom reading my new margaret atwood book (love!) and pretending not to listen to the woman who likes to complain about how much she hates the teacher, how much she hates the school, how her precious boy has never done anything wrong and she has had it up to here and blah. this woman is very good for me because she makes me feel a glimmer of something like sympathy for the teacher.

not that i haven't expressed hatred for the teacher, because i have. but i don't think Squire Tuck is pure and i don't think we're without blame in the problems he has. and i haven't stood out in the hallway in front of her classroom unleashing a non-stop tirade against her door. i've dumped my tirade here so that i could go into the meetings with my hands free, ready for whatever kind of working together could be accomplished.

anyway, so the teacher (she doesn't know Squire Tuck has a tutor, shhh) says that she's seen a vast, marked improvement in his attitude and in his schoolwork since the last meeting. she's very pleased. she's delighted. she's amazed. it's true that she has also sort of half-heartedly started alerting us to upcoming tests, for which the tutor has been thus able to help Squire Tuck study. i gave her a lot of credit for that, because it has helped a lot to know wtf is going on in school.

this is what i have so far, this series of revelations: 1) this teacher cannot teach Squire Tuck what he needs to know for school (acknowledged 11/2005); 2) i cannot teach Squire Tuck what he needs to know for school (acknowledged approx. 4/2006); 3) Friar Tuck cannot teach Squire Tuck what he needs to know for school (acknowledged 11/2006); however (formally recognized 1/2007) apparently SOMEBODY can teach Squire Tuck, and (like always) when you stop banging your head against the wall and try the door handle, it's like ahhhhhhhff cooourssse!

should've gotten a tutor ages ago.

then i went down the hall to talk to the german teachers who are beside themselves with frustration over how Squire Tuck CAN and yet WON'T. haha, ladies, welcome to my world. "but he's so smart... he's so! smart! he could do anything! he just won't try!" so they were kind of wet hennish. fortunately i was feeling charming and also very favorable towards them because of the fabulous trip to vienna last month, in which Squire Tuck realized that english was Not Enough and that german could be Useful, which is when he started admitting that he had homework. so by the end of it there we all were in the german teacher's lounge shaking our heads and laughing and vowing to work together and holy smokes, y'all. that was probably the first parent/teacher conference at which i neither pressed half-moons of blood from my palms nor cried on the way home nor any of the other things that i was coming to think were like, as much a part of the conference as olives are part of martinis.

i gave the tutor a raise today, btw. he best not get another job while we're gone in february.

Comments

[the patriarch]

Isn't that the best?

[ThatGuy]

I tutored in college. One of my students was a lazy spoiled brat whose rich father owned several large newspapers. Brat was failing calculus and rich father asks:

"What will it take for my son to pass?"

"A monkey's paw."

"What will it take for you to help my son pass?"

"A corvette."

[Jorja]

What an interesting insight to the other side of my coin. (Have I told you that this is my third year teaching school?)