Fearless and Fabulous in First Grade

     I don't know about you but for me math time was my least favorite part of school.  I hated it with every part of my being!  Literally... I loathed it!  Why you ask?  Because I was not a good math student, or so I thought.  Math was where I felt less than equal to the other kids in my class.  Way less equal, like not even on the same page as the others.  I was that kid in the pictures from way back in the day sitting on the stool with the "Dunce" hat on.         Everyone seemed to be able to answer the questions that the teacher asked and I was still calculating the answer in my head or on my paper.  I know I wasn't the only one feeling that way, but the pressure to be able to respond as quickly as some of the other kids were was frustrating to say the least!  I can remember many times thinking to myself, "How can people like math?"      When I started teaching I was determined to not let any of the kids in my classroom feel the way I had about math.

     Parent teacher conferences are fast approaching and planning for them can be stressful.  With a class full of students a teacher can quickly get overwhelmed by the feeling of needing to push out tons of information within a small window of time.  With conference times usually a mere 15 minutes this really can seem daunting.      There is the traditional parent teacher conference where the teacher sits and discusses the report card, the behavior, the academic concerns and then graciously thanks the parents for coming in and escorts them out the door.  Now, my own experience, as the parent, with this whirlwind traditional conference is this...  I left feeling like it happened so fast it was all a blur and I usually could only remember bits and pieces of the information.  The academic jargon that was relayed to me went in one ear and out the other.  What I really wanted to know was the teacher's personal connection to my child.  What did she feel were my child's successes