Parent Teacher Interviews

There's been talk in the media about the "unhelpfulness" of report cards. Articles on how to de-code the teacher comments, and suggestions of a move towards parent-friendly reports, and perhaps even non-letter grades to measure the child's progress. Whatever. In the end, a face-to-face meeting with the teacher is the best feedback regarding the student. Most teachers will have the child's workbooks, test scores, samples of their classroom work on hand to explain what the report card comments really mean. If behaviour is a problem, then again, speaking with the educators is probably better than an exchange of words over paper.
So, with some trepidation, we booked a time to meet with both Ceilidh's and Devlin's teachers. Devlin was certainly anxious as to what was to be discussed at this meeting, even going so far as to ask to tag along. We denied the request.
The first "interview" was for Ceilidh. Her two teachers were full of praise, adoration and encouragement. We heard that Ceilidh was sociable and friendly, and not discriminatory as to her playmates. In fact, the shyer children gravitate towards Ceilidh because she is so welcoming. We heard that she loves to sing and dance. Her printing is neat, and advanced in that she is already adept at writing out lower case letters. She can recognize all the letters of the alphabet, as well as knowing what sounds they make. In fact, the teachers encouraged us to start Ceilidh on reading as she's adept at phonics. To assist, they've started to send home senior kindergarten assignments for her. It was also amusing and enlightening to see how far Ceilidh has advanced with her artistic skills. A drawing from the beginning of September showed a person composed of a face, legs and arms. No torso. Today, her drawings have people with "bodies" and more detail. There was one with a little girl flying a kite, with ribbons on the kite's tail and a rainbow overhead. Included, was her attempt to describe the scene - she had written a short sentence, sounding out the words. Not spelled correctly, but phonetically sound.
The little girl they described almost sounded alien to us. We were told she always ate the entire contents of her lunch bag without any prompting. So not like the child who comes to the dinner table. She never has to be asked twice to complete any task, and is happy to help out. Again, doesn't resemble the child who needs to be bribed, cajoled, threatened to pick up her toys. The only area of improvement that was suggested for Ceilidh? Zipping up her jacket on her own. That's it!
Then we moved down the hallway to Devlin's classroom. Considering all the earlier behavioural issues, we were a bit leery. There hadn't been any notes sent home in the previous two weeks, nor any detentions, but we were prepared to present a united front about whatever "perceived" problems our son was demonstrating. I think I was, a tiny bit, concerned that the teacher would suggest having our rambunctious, normal (in our eyes) six-year-old boy to be tested for ADHD.
Our first area of concern was the academics. Was he learning everything? Were there any problems? Like I said, the report card was NOT helpful nor enlightening in any fashion. The response was favourable. He was definitely learning and retaining. One encouraging comment was Devlin was able to write meaningful sentences in his journal. Meaningful in that the words conveyed a comprehensible thought. The sentences were also phrased properly, and no danger of a run-on sentences. All the hours of bedtime stories were paying off. He was also ready to move onto the next level of reading books to be sent home. All of this was encouraging to hear, so we moved on the next area of concern - behaviour. It was heartening to hear that Devlin's issues were more of the silly variety that have a time and place (i.e., not in the classroom), as opposed to a malicious bent. Really, it's a matter of maturing and learning to adjust to the new norm. Something that will work itself out over some time. Whew, we breathed a sign of relief. 
So, all in all, the parent-teacher interviews were a success from our point of view. Although I'm not a proponent of rewarding children for behaviours and performances I expect to be the norm, I do think a new packages of Silly bandz for the rugrats are appropriate here.