Mamma Bear...Hug

On Monday I participated, for the first time, in the annual Parent Night we have for sixth graders and their parents.  Basically the parents come with their kids, pick up schedules, listen to The Principal welcome them and their darlings, then go to either the gym, the theater, or the cafeteria to see a presentation by their team of teachers.  After that, they're turned loose to follow the schedule and try to locate their classrooms and meet their teachers.  This evening started a few years ago as a way to avoid having the parents follow their children around on the first day of school which apparently was an issue.  (I had no idea.  By the time a kid gets to the seventh grade, it's hard to even find a parent.)

Considering that I'm an "overflow" teacher, I'm not exactly tied to a team.  So I really felt like the fifth wheel. The Principal wanted those of us who were overflow teachers to sort of pop in and out of the team presentations.  She did inform the parents that due to the numbers, that there were going to be teachers that were not on teams teaching their children.  Hopefully the parents figured out that's who we were when we dropped in since only one of the teams was nice enough to introduce us.

Back in my room it was kind of amusing.  I only have two classes of sixth grade, so that's only 48 kids (as of today), so I wasn't swamped with parents and kids.  I spent a lot of time giving directions to classrooms because guidance had the wrong room numbers on most of the schedules.  Basically, anyone who changed classrooms last year (which was over half of us) had a wrong room number.  Big screw up.  However, it eventually worked its way out and everyone, hopefully, found their way around.

I did have a rather bizarre, but funny experience with a parent which I completely didn't expect.  She showed up in my room with a teenager with dark, dark hair and her little one.  She went on and on about how I was her favorite teacher - which would have been impossible, considering her age.  Her older daughter stepped in and mentioned that she had been my student, not her mom.  I did not recognize her at all and asked her name.  When she told me, I was surprised to say the least.  What I had in seventh grade was a quiet little blond with big round glasses.  What was in front of me was tall, skinny, with no glasses and dark hair!  Amazing how they change!  Mom, meanwhile, gushed some more, picked me up in a big bear hug and then they went on their way.

That, my friends, is a fairly positive way to start the year, don't ya think?