Class Participation

Monday night was the first of our Parent Teacher Conferences for Kaitlyn. She's in the third grade now and brings home all kinds of homework assignments. Her teacher wanted to meet with all the parents as a group and explain the "how's and why's" of 3rd Grade homework. Of course, upon entering the classroom, I was immediately transported back to when I was in school and almost just as quick, the urge to start cracking jokes fell upon me.

Ahh yes...I remember wearing the crown of "Class Clown" and regardless of my being 37 instead of 12, it wasn't hard to put it back on. Yep...it still fit like a glove.

The teacher began by welcoming us to the meeting and started going over her goals for our kids this year. I was right there with her until she decided she wanted to break down the new way she teaches math. Now, math and I are two elements who never got along. In fact, once I realized I no longer needed math for any of my degrees or continued schooling, I had a restraining order taken out against math.

She did the same for me.

So, to be re-introduced to each other was...shall we say...awkward?

This new way of teaching math is called "trade ---" something or other. Here's how it's supposed to work:

385
-57
-----
????

Well, I would think you'd start on the right and work your way over to the left.

No. You start from the left and go right and add all kinds of confusion to the mix. Just enough to cause parents worldwide to doubt they even attended elementary school.

I decided this was too confusing for me and I did the problem the way I knew how and got the right answer.

228.

Jennifer, however, tried to follow the teacher's method and got it wrong. She wrote down:

227.

Well, me being the loving, encouraging husband I am, began to laugh at her and I took her paper and not only circled the problem with a giant checkmark next to it, I engraved a large, red frowny face at the top of the page. By this time, I was not only laughing at her error, I was stifling my laughter at being such a "funny guy."

Until...

I caught the teacher's eyes...who were focused narrowly on me. And that's when I got that exact feeling I used to get back in the day when, even amid my attempts to bring some levity to the situation, I got busted.

Apparently, parents of students can also get "busted" but with a glaring scowl.

I did what any rational mature adult would do.

I buried my head under my arms and slung down in my chair.

As I peered over the top of my hands, I noticed my wife...my friend, lover and encourager...pointing and laughing at me. I believe her exact words were "da-ha!!"

But the night wasn't over.

The teacher continued on and mentioned that there is a website the kids can go to for additonal help with math problems. On this site are not only extra word and numerical problems for the kids to work through, but there are also games they can play, reinforcing what they've just learned. The teacher asked us if we'd played any of those games yet, referencing the site and a note she'd sent home recommending the same thing.

Stifled laughter started up again from my wife and I thought "oh no...I'm not getting caught again, sister!!" I shot her a "what are you doing" glance and she quickly waved it off with a "I'll tell you later" whisper.

As the meeting let out, I said "what was the deal back there? Why were you laughing? Were you trying to get us tossed out?"

She began chuckling again and said "remember how the teacher asked if we'd played any games yet with our kids? Well, we did play some games with Kaitlyn but I think they were the wrong kind."

"What do you mean" I asked.

"I didn't read the note properly so when it said 'play games with your child', I did just that. That was the night we all played together as a family...

Duck, Duck, Goose."

As we laughed together down the hallway toward our car, I began to feel sorry for my wife. Pity even. To think that the woman who carried my spawn inside her for 9 months would be so swayed by misleading directions to suggest an evening of "Duck, Duck, Goose" instead of math games on the computer kind of caused me to just want to bring her to my shoulder, hug her gently and ask her if she also believed in the Tooth Fairy.

Considering the way she so easily came to a "Duck, Duck, Goose" conclusion, I was more than afraid of what she might say.

Poor lass. She's resting much more comfortably now.