Middle School Conference: Fill & Download for Free

Teacher perspective here.Specifically, middle-school teacher perspective here.Middle school-aged boys and girls both have it pretty hard, but usually for different reasons. Boys tend to struggle more with academic things, while girls tend to struggle with social things during the middle school years.I’d say that a solid 75% of all problems with boys that require a parent/teacher conference or other sort of intervention are for academic reasons. A lot of those reasons boil down to two things: disinterest and disorganization. Both of those are often manifestations of immaturity.Boys mature slower and later than girls.On the other hand, a solid 75% of problems with girls that require a parent/teacher conference or other sort of intervention are for social reasons: bullying, exclusion, social media issues, etc… For the most part, the girls at that age don’t struggle with academics, but really struggle with friendships and the desire to feel included.I’ve never had a boy student complain about not being invited to a party that the other boys in class were having. Almost every year, I’ve been in meetings with my coworkers and a crying girl student and her parents for this reason.I have boy students who legitimately lose their supplies within the first few days of school, because they’re so disorganized. I’ve seen boy students whose entire system for storing papers, from homework to classwork to notes, etc… was to “just shove it in my book bag.” Literally shove it in so it crumples, until their book bag gets too full of paper, then they throw it all away and start over. I’ve rarely seen girls with that problem. Usually, the girls are over-organized at that age: color-coded for each class, different shade of pen for each class, folders, spiral notebooks, etc… And better handwriting, too.If girls could quit being catty with each other/caring about what others think about them in middle school, they’d have a much easier time. Similarly, if boys could just, for lack of a better term, get their shit together, they’d also have a much easier time in middle school.

Exhausting.Enormous quantities of food disappear, and they still want MORE.You become a combination Uber driver on demand and ATM.They ask you to listen to odd sounds and random motions. They call these “music” and “dancing,” although there is no sign of either.School conferences. Visits to potential high schools/colleges. Numerous sporting events/performances.Puberty and heavy drinking. Their puberty, your consequent heavy drinking. I recommend starting early.You no longer lose sleep because of the noise they are making in the middle of the night. Now you get to lose sleep because you don't know where they are in the middle of the night.How do they go through so many shoes?You become the most embarrassing thing in their lives when they are with their peers.Being asked to help with homework and discovering that you haven't a clue as to the level of work they are doing.Early romances and breakups. Their lives are over and they will never recover. Remember point 6, especially the value of heavy drinking.Looking back, you realize what a marvelous, wild, ride it was, and if you are lucky, how thankful you are.

At my son’s middle school, backpacks were not allowed. The kids could use “string” bags, and we were told at orientation that shoulder bags were also permitted.When I went back to school for engineering, I used a messenger bag. It is a shoulder bag that is carried cross-body. Since the narrow strings of string bags cut into my son’s shoulders, I gave him my old messenger bag to use.During his second year of middle school, at our first conference of the year, his English teacher said that he wasn’t allowed to use the messenger bag. I responded that we were told shoulder bags were permitted. She and the other teachers at the conference agreed that that was true.I thought that was the end of it. Two days later, I received an e-mail from the teacher stating that she had checked with administration and confirmed that shoulder bags only “of the type females use” were permitted.The bag had been bought by and was used by a female (me) for several years. It was definitively “of the type females use.” I know the school didn’t have the policy that only females could carry shoulder bags, because the ACLU would have a field day with that.So, I ignored the e-mail. My son continued to use the messenger bag. I never heard another word about it.I still don’t understand why a bag that didn’t affect my son’s learning or education in any way would get that teacher’s panties in such a bunch that she not only brought it up in the conference, but supposedly spent some time with the school administration over it.