Parent-Teacher Conferences - International Flavor

We had a long day today of watching the election results, breathing a sigh of relief, and then settling down for almost 5 hours of parent-teacher conferences. I actually only met with 4 parents and Jamie about the same, but we were at school until 8:45 pm.

Interestingly, some parents do not speak English, so translators must be involved. This is usually not a problem and was not for me tonight. I believe some teachers didn't have a translator, so they had to reschedule. I had one conference where the parent understood about 40% of what I was saying but had a someone there with her to translate into Chinese. It went quite well.

My next conference was double translation. I spoke English to one person who then translated it into Chinese and then someone else translated that into Korean. I'm sure by the time the Korean parent heard it, it sounded something like "Your student is an excellent student!" to "You're mule is a stinky fish face!" Such are the joys of teaching in an international setting. Very interesting though.

Tomorrow, the student have half day, but we then have more parent teacher conferences from 1:00 to 8:45, yikes! All of my conferences are at the beginning, so I am pretty much finished by 4:00 or so. I will be spending the remainder of my time writing student narratives.

Student narratives are a paragraph or two description of the how each child you teach is doing in your class. Some teachers have up to 60 or so to write. I am quite lucky in the fact that I only have 32 or so to write. I believe Jamie has a few more than I do. You basically tell the strengths and weaknesses of the student in narrative form and then state what you are going to do to correct the problem as a teacher or ensure that the child maintains their success. I have not written one yet, but I'm sure they are loads of fun.

We have Friday off. We might go into Hong Kong for the weekend, but we are undecided. We'll be making a trip soon to Macau for some gambling and to see Cirque du Soleil at the Venetian Casino in Macau. Should be a great show. We'll keep you posted on those events.

I believe we have settled on Thailand for our winter break. We might stay about a week and a half or 2 weeks there. We've heard Bangkok is a blast and either Phuket or Koh Chang for the beach. Nonetheless, we'll need the rest and relaxation.

I hope everyone voted yesterday and did your civic duty. I'll get some pictures up showing Jamie and I coloring our electoral maps. I also have some older pictures I haven't posted. I really don't even remember what they are off the top of my head. I'll get them up soon, I promise.

Take care America! No matter how you voted... Yes We Can!!!