I don’t know if they do it on purpose, but just as the Halloween candy high begins its rapid descent to pre-Thanksgiving sloth, parent-teacher conferences start popping up.
I went to Joseph’s yesterday. It wasn’t much of a surprise. I was told he was happy, friendly, polite, and very serious. I shared a few of his observations about school and his teacher expressed surprise at how funny and witty he is.
Which was a surprise.
Joseph has a very keen sense of humor, even going to far as to make up his own Halloween knock knock joke. Dressed as a Lego Monster Fighter Ghost—or, at least, my version of it—he cracked us up with:
“Knock. Knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Boo.”
“Boo who?”
“Aw. Don’t cry. I’m just a little ghost.”
Comic. Gold.
So I was a little surprised when Mrs. G said she hadn’t seen evidence of his sense of humor. Until I remembered Joseph sees school as Very Serious Business Indeed.
After the conference, I took the kids out to dinner where we could discuss what his teacher and I had talked about. I went over a few things from his report card and then asked him why his teacher wouldn’t know he had a great sense of humor.
He shrugged his shoulders and said, “Maybe she doesn’t think it’s funny.”
And then I had a thought—a horrible thought. Maybe I have the sense of humor of a first grader!
Did you have parent-teacher conferences this week? How did they go?