I had my first parent-teacher phone call today.
I was putting it off for a while. For some reason I get nervous about these things. As usual, I had no reason to be. The student’s mother was gracious, understanding and supportive. Now she’ll kick her son’s ass so I don’t have to. He’s a good student, interested in music, but he would rather be defiant and disruptive than learn music theory. There was no answer when I called a second student’s parents, and when I called my third student’s house, I believe the student picked up the phone. I don’t think the parent will get the message.
In other news, I just finished downloading Beethoven’s complete symphonies, piano sonatas, and string quartets in full CD quality (not mp3). It only took a few days (with stops and starts). Awesome.
I think one of the reasons you might get nervous is because you feel like you’re bothering the person, and you don’t want to. Also, no one likes to be the bearer of bad news…
So it was a success. It all worked out at least with the one parent that you got to speak to. It’s scary calling a parent, because you never know how they might react. Now you can just hope that the behaviors will start to improve. The end of the school year is hard because no one wants to be there on a beautiful day.