Friday at 4:30 I receive an email from a parent stating she knows we didn’t feel the need to have a conference with them at this time but she has questions about reading and would like to meet with me to discuss. Without any more details, my mind jumps to the cruel personal hell I always go through when a vague parent meeting is requested. My mind races to what I must be doing wrong. I worry about how I have slighted this student or let down this parent.
It’s all I think about for the rest of the night. While I have dinner and watch TV with my husband, I keep finding myself stewing, becoming more and more anxious. This is the part of teaching that makes me want to walk away the most. I falsely believed this would get easier over time and with experience, but I find myself increasingly sensitive and more and more paranoid. I’ve heard it called “Imposter Syndrome” and I feel like that speaks directly to my fear.
Saturday, on our way to a wonderful day in Chicago with our son and his wife, with the sun shining and a day ahead that I’ve been looking forward to for weeks, I find my heart still heavy with dread. I can’t let it go. I keep running through what it might be about…their child was quarantined, did I say something during virtual learning that upset them? Do they not feel like I am doing any meaningful teaching since we haven’t been following the TE like years past, but instead focused on essential standards and using mentor texts to teach from? Is the structure of Daily 3 making them feel like I am not teaching at all?
For awhile on Saturday, I am able to forget it and focus on my time with my son but once we get in the car to return home and past talking about the visit, the quiet in the car opens the door for my brain to jump back to the email. I had responded with a positive reassurance that I was always open to conversations and suggested a few times this upcoming week when we could make that happen. The more time that passes, however, the more I wish I had somehow been able to ask for more details.
From the moment my eyes open on Sunday, I am still mulling it over. I have begun to convince myself that I am not actually doing my best teaching; that I should have accomplished far more at this point in the year and that I should have been spending far more time on this or that. I am able to distract myself for awhile, but even while doing yard work and tasks done around the house, the fears keep coming and coming, louder and louder.
By Sunday dinner I am so worked up I want someone to help talk me down. I don’t bring any of this up with my husband, however, as an issue with our well has his stress level already high enough. I go to bed trying to calm myself but I am now reciting explanations and clarifications in my head in preparation for the meeting, even though I still don’t know the exact nature of the problem or concern.
Before calling it a night, I finish my crossword and check the news on my phone. Closing out apps, I see there’s another email from the parent. My heart sinks, I feel weighted down before even opening the email. She asks to meet on Tuesday after school. She asks if I prefer in person or on the phone. I respond with enthusiasm that is completely false, “Tuesday sounds great! I look forward to talking with you!” But before I hit send, I add (and erase and reword and add again) “Is there a particular concern you’d like to discuss?” I want to hedge my question by suggesting the answer will help me gather data or materials or something, which is all true, but I really find myself wanting to gather my wits and defenses, already having felt like I was headed for trial for the past three days.
It takes me a very long while to fall asleep. Our well isn’t functioning and yet the lack of water in my house feels like less of a weight than this meeting. How will I get through until Tuesday without sending my anxiety through the roof?
At midnight I wake up to use the bathroom and find myself in sheer torment. I can’t fall back asleep. Within the hour I have convinced myself that my choice of read aloud has caused concern. I think about other read aloud choices I might have made and while I should be comforting myself realizing there are parts to most books that someone somewhere could argue about, I am not comforted at all, but find myself second guessing why I chose this one. I remind myself of the positive feedback I’ve gotten before from reading this book previously, from parents, colleagues and, of course, the students, and yet, I still dwell on how wrong I was to read it and how will I defend the choice on Tuesday?
I have avoided picking up my phone, but it is now 2:3 and I have been awake for over two hours. My mind wants to know if she has responded from the much earlier email. I’m not sure if it will help me to know her answer or just make things horribly worse, but with no sleep on the horizon, I decide to pick up my phone to find out. At the sight of a long paragraph email response from the parent, my panic rises to new levels.
She is concerned about her child’s reading. She feels like it’s more and more of a struggle each year. The state test scores from last spring worry her and she is wondering if I have concerns as well and what suggestions I have for how she can help at home.
In short, she is a caring parent who appreciates my expertise in teaching literacy and is asking for help.
Why have I put myself through hell for three days? She did nothing to indicate she was upset with me. She didn’t request that my principal attend the meeting, she didn’t imply any wrongdoing. She didn’t say anything in any of her correspondence that ever suggested there was a problem with me. And yet, every single time, I take it personally and I stress out.
Perhaps it’s because of the times when I have been blindsided. Like last year, during group conferences with my entire team of teachers when a parent shared that her son didn’t particularly like my class. In fact, he disliked it so much that it caused him dread to come to school. This comment plagued me for the entire year. I thoroughly enjoyed her child and had what I thought was a great rapport with him. (He still writes me letters from his fifth grade class even now talking about the fun we had learning together last year.) Or the time when a parent requested (and was granted) to pull her child from my classroom because I wasn’t “fun enough.” The principal didn’t have my back and allowed the transfer of the student. Or the time when a parent called a meeting with the principal and myself to tell us she didn’t think I liked her child and wanted her removed. This time, the principal did support me and we all came to a better understanding of the cause, but the entire meeting and leading up to it had sent me into a spiral of worry and anxiety.
In every case, I know that those parents were wrong. I was the right, fun, engaged, respectful teacher that was right for their child. The issue always showed itself later to be something unrelated to me, or a child’s perception of what things should be like, etc. But resolving the issue far down the road or even during these meetings does nothing to alleviate my fears before hand.
I know this is a self-inflicted agony. I cannot put this on the parents who are there to advocate for their children. I respect that, and I have been that parent. I just have to find ways to work through my personal fears of criticism and to grow from these encounters. I need to find a positive way to approach each one instead of filling myself with anxiety and dread. And if I could do all that, I know it would go a long way to keeping me in this profession.
This morning, our HR director sent out her weekly “Mindful Monday” reminders. This was hers for today:
I hope to remember this the next time a parent’s email arrives in my inbox.
Teaching at 3am 