First Impressions in 2021: Parent Teacher Conference on Zoom

I’ve learned a lot about first impressions, in the year of our plague, 2021.

A) I’m usually Wrong in my assessment

B) Tone is hard to read in text

C) There’s no point in pre-stressing over might-be issues

Historically, I don’t have the best track record with first impressions– that is, what I first notice about other people, my first read on them. (I have no control over what other people’s impressions are of me– I’ve always been afraid to find out, so I pretend it’s not important).

But my first read on someone is almost always wrong.

Okay, that’s not entirely true. But… painfully accurate.

The people I am initially drawn to most are often the most toxic or dangerous (and therefore exciting and interesting). The people I initially overlook tend to be the ones I really appreciate upon knowing better. This is less true with men. My initial read on men is a bit more accurate. I still swing and miss a lot, but my batting average is higher.

This is all to say, I headed into our parent teacher conference CONVINCED that my kid’s teacher was going to be adversarial.

Parenting a kindergartner during the pandemic is really interesting. We also had the privilege of parenting preschoolers during the pandemic, so we’re a real interesting breed of incoming parents.

I have not been into her classroom or allowed past the gate of her campus. All my interactions with her teacher have been over email (See lesson B).

Long story not-so-long, I log onto Zoom bracing myself to be yelled at for having the kid who dances and gets in trouble for singing, and cuts her hair, and is sent to the office, and is basically all your favorite kid characters like Ramona Quimby and Calvin, and Pippi Longstocking, who you love to read about but is exhausting to raise?

And instead, I see a veteran teacher, smiling, talking about how the other kids don’t always know what mine is doing, but she does– she’s dancing the letters as they sing them, she’s exploring acoustics, she’s bouncing to the beat of her own drum. And I see an ally. And I’m so grateful I could cry (and for once am glad I’m not in the classroom but logged in from my kitchen table), so I say thank you and click off to get a glass of water and a snack.

And I think of how sick I’d made myself in anticipation of this meeting. And how silly it was of me to assume the worst out of a public educator. And how proud I am of my girl for being 100% herself. And how lucky I am that her teacher sees and values that too.