Today, I’m going to talk about something I’ve been dreading pretty much since the beginning of school. And that is the student-teacher-parent conference. I’m not the smartest guy in the world, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why I was scared. I mean, who actually enjoys sitting in a room with their teachers and parents while everyone talks about how well or badly they’ve been doing in school? Definitely not me.
I don’t know why, but conferences always make me uncomfortable. I’m not saying I’m a bad student or that I’ve done something terribly wrong. It’s just that whenever a conference is coming up, I start imagining all the things that could possibly go wrong. What if a teacher says I haven’t been behaving? What if I made some huge mistake without realizing it? What if everyone suddenly decides I’m not a good student? I’ve tried telling myself to relax and be open-minded, but honestly, it doesn’t really work. I still get scared.
The worst part is that I don’t even have a choice. It’s not like someone comes up to me and says, “Hey, Oscar, would you like to attend your student-teacher-parent conference?” Nope. I have to go. And I’m sorry to tell you, but personally, I think I have better things to do. I mean, I could be reading, playing, relaxing, or literally doing anything else instead of sitting there waiting for someone to tell me what I did wrong.
The thing is, I actually think I’ve done a pretty decent job at school. At least, I’ve tried. But whenever someone asks me, “Do you think you’ve done a really good job?” I never know what to say. Am I supposed to say yes and sound like I think I’m perfect? Or am I supposed to say no and make myself sound terrible? The truth is somewhere in between. Sometimes I behave really well, sometimes I get distracted, and sometimes I just don’t feel like doing my work. I’m not perfect, and I don’t think anyone is.
But somehow, when a conference is coming up, everything suddenly feels extremely high-stakes. It’s almost like my entire future depends on whether I behaved perfectly in class. My mom has told me that if I don’t behave, I could get kicked out of school. And honestly, that makes everything even scarier. I don’t want to get kicked out of Beaver. I like my school. I want to stay there. So whenever I think about making mistakes, I start wondering whether one of those mistakes could somehow become a huge problem.
I know that probably sounds dramatic, but that’s genuinely how I feel. It’s like something is hanging over my head, and I never know when it might fall. Sometimes I even worry about how angry my mom might get if the teachers say something bad about me. I know I’m supposed to try my best, but when everything feels so serious, trying your best doesn’t always make you feel better. Sometimes it just makes you more nervous because you’re afraid your best might not be good enough.
And I do try. I try to pay attention, participate in class, finish my work, and behave properly. I’ve seen students who don’t seem to be trying nearly as hard, and I think effort should count for something. But I also have to admit that sometimes I’m lazy. There, I said it. Sometimes I don’t want to do my work. Sometimes I get distracted. Sometimes I just want to sit back and relax. I mean, who wants to wake up at four in the morning to do math? Definitely not me. Nobody wants to spend every second of their life working.
The problem is that when you’re not motivated, you don’t always do your best work. And when you don’t do your best work, you start feeling guilty. You think, “Oh, I could have done better than that.” Then you start worrying about whether the teacher noticed. And when the conference gets closer, all those little worries suddenly become one gigantic worry. It’s honestly pretty annoying.
Sometimes I do something that I call scrambling. Basically, when a conference is getting close, I suddenly try to become the best-behaved student in the entire universe. I try to focus more, behave better, and avoid making mistakes, especially during the last few days. It’s almost like I think being perfect for ten minutes could somehow erase every mistake I’ve made since the beginning of school. I’m not exactly sure that’s how it works, but when you’re desperate, you do desperate things.
But here’s the surprising part. When I actually went to the conference today, it wasn’t the end of the world. Not even close. In fact, most of it went pretty well. I was expecting something much worse, but some of the teachers actually had pretty good things to say about me. I was genuinely surprised, and in certain classes, I was even happy with how I was doing. Apparently, I wasn’t doing nearly as terribly as I had imagined.
Of course, there were still things I needed to improve. I need to check my work more carefully, stay focused, and sometimes stop making things more complicated than they need to be. And yeah, I know I could probably behave better sometimes. But that doesn’t mean I’m a terrible student. It just means there are things I need to work on. I guess that’s pretty normal, even though it doesn’t always feel normal when you’re the person sitting in the conference.
I still don’t like conferences. I’m not suddenly going to wake up tomorrow and say, “Wow! I can’t wait for my next student-teacher-parent conference!” Absolutely not. I still think they’re stressful, and I still think I could find about a million other things I would rather be doing. But at least this time, things turned out much better than I expected.
I guess what bothers me the most is the feeling that I always have to be perfect. I know I’m supposed to work hard, and I know my parents and teachers want me to do well. But sometimes I wish people would understand that I’m trying, even when I make mistakes. Sometimes I work really hard and still mess something up. Sometimes I get distracted even when I don’t mean to. And sometimes I just want to relax without feeling guilty about it.
I don’t really know what the perfect balance is. You don’t want to be lazy, but you also don’t want to be the person who works so hard that even the teachers tell you to slow down. I guess I’m still trying to figure that out. All I know is that I’m not perfect, I’ve never been perfect, and I probably never will be.
And honestly, after everything I worried about, I’m just glad today’s conference is finally over.
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