Wednesday, March 17, 2011

There are times when things get so bizarre that one has no choice but to stand in awe of how strange they are. Attending our son’s high school open house this evening proved to be one of those occasions.

Our son has been having difficulty with one particular teacher the entire school year. And the stories we hear him share daily have had us concerned. So neither my husband nor I wanted to miss the opportunity to see this teacher face-to-face.

Arriving in the classroom, we introduced ourselves and then things got…well…they went drastically downhill from there. The teacher, having just introduced herself, then turned her back to us, saying, “Just a minute.”

We couldn’t quite tell what she was doing, but I swear, if I hadn’t known she was human, I might have wondered if she was a cat, coughing up a hairball. She remained turned away from us for at least a full minute. Long enough for my husband to begin shuffling his feet and wonder if we should leave and for my son to try his darnedest to not crack up. Seeing him lose his battle, I nudged our son, fearful that if he lost it, we’d all start laughing. I mean, really, there we were, standing, looking at the teacher’s back as she, I swear, was going through the motions of what appeared to be pulling the world’s longest hair out of her mouth, despite her hair not falling below her shoulders.

Ew!

It’s at times like these that you just want to quietly creep away, hoping to not be noticed. But, we stood our ground and eventually the teacher did turn back around. We asked how our son was doing in her class. Not that we didn’t already know—he’s a straight A student with a few A+’s thrown in for good measure.

But this particular teacher is one of those who’s beyond negative, literally unable to see any good in folks. So she proceeded to tell us how he wasn’t applying himself enough.

What? He’s a straight A student! What more does she want?

As if to prove her point, she brought up the project he’d just turned in. Well, the one he’d tried to hand in on Monday, but that she refused to accept, having decided to change the requirements. Over half the class’s projects were rejected, the students being told to make the corrections and then turn them in the following day for a significantly lower grade.

What?! That’s not right!

Anyhow, my husband and I stood there and listened to the teacher spew her venom, allowing her just enough rope to hang herself with before we commented that our son had followed the instructions as outlined in the syllabus and should have had his project accepted by her.