Jaya Waris

We have this at least once a year; sometimes twice where parents have to come to school to collect their children's report cards. Jaya Waris is basically Report Card Day, given a glossy overhyped name.

For most part, I dread these meetings. Cos, parents whose kids are already on track are more likely to show up. And I usually don't have much to tell them except that their kids are progressing. No point crapping when the parents already know quite a bit about their own kids. Moreover, I see my students 5 periods a week which is a total of 200 minutes. How well can I know them, really?

The parents who come. There is this set of parents who seem to be making excuses on behalf of their kids. I've come across such kids, who don't show up at school on their whims and fancy. Common excuses are usually they don't feel well. And the thing is some parents actually make the same excuses for their kids... and the kid would have been absent something like 60 days out of 200 schooling days. I find this most difficult as both parents as well as their kids seem to need an earful of talking to. I've had students who claim they have asthma and are always missing but when we have special days like Co-Curricular Day, Sports Day or even camps, they are miraculously healed and can attend without any problems. And when we point this out to their parents, we get sheepish looks before the same excuses are given again... that their kids are not well. When that happens, I will tell them, it's up to them whether they want to make sure their children come to school.

Then there are these parents who don't show up. To be frank, I am thankful for this group cos I don't have to force myself to talk about their children....

I get many a lot of responses where parents seem clueless about their children too. I don't really know what to make of this... I've been teaching too many years to also accept that this is also very biasa. But one thing though, I miss those old days when parents would give their children's teachers authority to discipline their children. These days, if we touch the kids, we'd had it. But guess what, all those psycho talk or getting the kids to try to understand why they need to be compliant at school? It doesn't work all the time. Some schools need punitive measures while some schools might work fine with just a word of warning. Easy comparison, if one yardstick works, we'd not be having prisons or detention centres. Everyone would be toeing the line just by being told.....

So this Jaya Waris event... I am just glad that it's over for this year!