::A Geek in Korea::

Parent/Teacher conferences day was always something you looked forward to as a student. I don’t remember my teachers to be particularly enthusiastic about them, as it was nothing but a series of meetings with people. Now I too know that feeling of dreadful anticipation and the skill required in wording things so that you do not offend a sensitive person.

Our director called us in early to her seminar about the “vision” of the school next year. We were introduced at the beginning of each of the four seminars so that when the meeting broke up the parents would be able to find the right set of teachers to talk with about their children. Then we were excused and allowed to sit around for an hour while the director blathered on about something. We didn’t stick around for it.

While we were waiting for the parents of each group, we made a list of parents we would be facing and spent twenty minutes coming up with praise, or the best way to sugar coat our criticisms. These parents are the people that put food on our table, so keeping them happy while being honest about their son or daughter’s English ability was the order of the day. This can be a fine line.

For example, the first mother that I had to talk to had a very loud, enthusiastic son that failed every single speaking test given to him for months. How can a boy that talks 100% of the class fail a speaking test? He didn’t memorize his speaking homework. Who’s responsible for helping him practice outside of class? The very same mother I would be talking to in the meeting.

Awkward.

The most difficult consultation was when the absolute worst student in one set of classes had a mother drop in for only five minutes. He had failed every single written test, and had a very bad score from both Foreign and Korean teachers. The woman didn’t look pleased to hear he had gotten by in class by being as lazy as possible.

My director was looking very worried that I was basically trashing her son. Then I remembered that the last time I had given my speaking test, he had gotten a perfect sore. It was the only time he had shown effort the entire time for a month. I let her know that I was very impressed by his speaking on the test, even if he couldn’t write, and then went into the general “pander” mode of “more practice, more effort, more success.” My director gave me a relieved look that let me know I had handled the situation very well. I took her to the brink, made her worried, then given her a light of hope.

This was made worse because the meetings were done round table style, with all the other parents I would be meeting hearing all my comments. Korean manners dictate that harsh criticism would cause this person to be embarrassed in front of her peers, so anything you speak poorly of should be done indirectly, through subtle suggestions.

Of course, the Korean teacher who shares most of my students acted as a translator. Some of the students could grasp the gist of my comments, but others needed complete translations, which can lose something. My translator was very good at keeping the mothers happy, which generally keeping to what I was saying.

For every problem child I had to warn a mother about, there were also parents that I ran out of adjectives trying to heap praise on their children. Some of my favorite students in my class had siblings that were polar opposites. I would tell them how great their overachieving child was, then be shocked to find out that their brother or sister was a slacker in another class I had taught. This happened on multiple occasions.

The meetings only took a short time overall, but it tied me up for the entire afternoon. I had thought that it was going to be an easy day, but it was much more stressful than normal class. I can’t believe this was the first time any of my schools ever tried doing something like this before. I learned a little about some of my students that will help me teach them better too. It’s better for everyone now that we’ve had these meetings, and I think they’ll be repeated later in the year.