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Tonight was Open House at Child of the Corn II’s school. H and I always attend. Its always the same damn thing. We meet the teachers (again). Again because before school even starts, we go to her classroom to bring the school supplies and meet with the teacher/s, find out which class she will be in, etc, etc. This year is no different. Except this year, I went to the shops and H went to the school.

I went to the school alone tonight because H is working late today. No big deal – the school is less than 2 miles away.

We arrived at her classroom and found out that they were meeting at another classroom.

When I entered the classroom across the hallway, a number of parents were standing around, a teacher was seated at one of the kids’ desk, two other teachers were standing by the wall, smiling, greeting parents.

I stood at the back of the classroom – because really, I am NOT coming in contact with the children’s germs. Okay?

I later learned that the teacher seated at the desk is teaching Child of the Corn II. She was fiddling with a laptop. On the desk in front of the one she was seated in was the projector for the PowerPoint. Impressive.

Five minutes passed. One of the teachers asked, “Are we ready?”

“This is just booting,” came the reply.

I raised my eyebrows. Silence except for the kids talking to each other in hushed tones. I checked my watch. Yes, I had been standing there for 5 minutes, politely fighting off the urge to SMS/plurk/twitter anything. I looked around the classroom. Everyone was either white or blonde or white or very blonde. There were some brunettes but they were all white. They all talk fuuuny. They tried not to stare at me. I tried not to stare at them.

Another five minutes passed. A teacher at the podium said, “Why don’t you just give me the laptop? I can do it from here.”

The teacher who was fiddling with the PowerPoint said, “Everytime I do this, it comes right up!”

I raised my eyebrows again.

The PowerPoint was on the laptop screen. It did not connect with the projector. That was the problem. There was no connection between laptop and projector.

She brought the laptop over to the other teacher and the presentation began. It started off with, “Miss C had done this on the computer and it is really cute. But it is not working so we cannot show it to you.”

I fought the urge to raise my eyebrows yet again. I failed.

She began to explain how everything works – zero hour, recess, Accelerated Reading, etc, etc… topics covered in the manual that Child of the Corn II brought home on the first day of school. I did not read the manual. H diligently reads them because when his work took him away from us for months at a time, I used to read them. I got tired of the same thing. H is the responsible parent now. He is on top of things – homework, various forms to fill out, sign, seal, delivered. I just take them to school if they miss the bus or if the bus is late. Or if they need to be picked up from school due to illness or whatever.

Anyway….

My point in all of this…?

I know this is not a multi-million dollar contract that will definitely go down in flames should the PowerPoint presentation fail. This is just a presentation to parents of your students. We are nobodys. We just pay taxes every year to pay for our children’s sub par education. We cannot afford private school education for our children. We believe in the system. Some of us made or are making money off tax payers also. We are all in it together.

My point is this – for the love of god, can you just show a smidgen of dedication? Show me that you take your job very seriously? Do you not understand that these children learn from example? They are third graders. They might take the wrong message – oh, I screwed up. I can just give an excuse, “It always worked before!” Shrugs.

It also does not bode well with me that you are teaching my child. Your attitude. It is too… cavalier.

Perhaps I am just too demanding. It is after all just a night to meet your child’s teachers more intimately…