(Justin) This past weekend I had a working Saturday; I had to be at school by 11am. I wish I had a picture of the freshly planted flowers in the front flowerbed, given that it gets below freezing every night now and these plants will be dead in less than a week. Why the urgency for a Saturday? It was Parent-Teacher Conference Day!
I survived my first veli toplantası, or parent-teacher meeting. For 90 minutes, parents queued up to talk to me about their kids. Most of them wanted to know if their 2-4th grader was speaking and pronouncing English properly. I wanted them to know more about their kids behavior, so that's what I focused on. Some parents were surprised that their child was naughty in my class, but most are used to hearing such things. This was the single best test I've had of my rapid-fire-mode Turkish, and it went well. Probably averaged something like 30 seconds per parent.
Much less fun have been the teacher meetings of recent weeks, including something called Şube Öğretmenler Kurulu (abbreviated ŞÖK, which sounds kind of like "SHOCK!" This is a teachers' meeting where every student in every grade is discussed individually by the homeroom teacher and all of the branch teachers, like myself. These averaged 2.5 hours for each grade, and are held three times a year(!). What's frustrating about meetings is that there is a lot of talk about problems without much hope of solutions.
Suppose there is a child who is violent, curses his teachers and classmates, gets his friends to behave naughtily, and destroys school property. Suppose also his parents think it's the teachers' job to teach the kids proper behavior and respect-- not the parents' job. In America, such a kid would be held outside of class in detention, sent home, or suspended in order to preserve the classroom environment for the rest of the students. In Turkey, that's illegal until at least 5th grade. Some schools do it if their administration is brave enough. Not ours. So, the solution to really problematic kids is often... to do nothing. "Sabırlı olmamız lazım," or "We need to be patient." I mentioned previously that there is no special education in the schools; for kids that are physically or mentally disabled, there is little to do other than love the kid and hope for the best. The school psychologists can help kids deal with anger and emotional issues, but can do little to help a kid with a disability. This can make for a very difficult classroom environment.
So, ŞÖK serves more as a way for teachers to share information about the child's background. In many cases, I felt greater sympathy for the child. She cries because her dad is in jail, he is violent because his parents are divorcing, etc. But then you think, "We're going to meet three times a year to hear these stories again for as long as this kid is at the school. I've seen plenty of 10th graders who behave very badly and have been the subject of these meetings for 10 years without any change. This is depressing."
In the end, it's mostly the good kids' parents who come speak to you. The really difficult children have neglectful parents or their parents just don't want to hear about their kid's behavior. I think every teacher reading this can nod their head and say, "Exactly."
I won't write about the "teacher's council" meetings we have with all teachers and the principal, but these are also interesting depending on the principal's way of running things. The "normal" way in Turkey is for it to be strictly controlled top-down with no speaking by subordinates. My principal, however, opens the floor to new ideas and thoughts, which sometimes create controversy leading to longer meetings...
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