dominican journal

teacher-parent-teacher meeting

November 25, 2006 at 11:47 am (School)

On Thursday I went to Christelle’s parent-teacher meeting to do the English/French translation for her parents. The meeting went very well and Christelle received nothing but praise, much to my surprise. All her teachers said she was working very well and that her English was coming on very well after only two years in the school. Having never been to one of these meetings, it was interesting to see how things worked and good practice for my own parent-teacher meeting which, funnily enough, was the following day.

Friday was a weird day. It all started with Jennifer being ill on Thursday and Friday and Philippe getting angry because she was seen at a baseball game on Wednesday night until 11.30 p.m. and then again the next day shopping in the supermarket. One of the parents phoned the school to ask why her child’s English teacher had the time to buy a new bikini but not to give English lessons.

So Friday morning Philippe phones Jennifer and pretty much forces her to come into school to have a word him and give an expanation for why she didn’t spend the day in bed. This soon turned into an irrational outburst on Jennifer’s part in which she declared that the school was rubbish, she wasn’t being treated well, and that she quit and Sarah did too. (All this information is second-hand as the girls still haven’t given me their version of events). The plan was to move out of the apartment and go and live with a Dominican bloke they met in a discotheque until they made their escape back to Canada at Christmas.

Now if you ask me, the whole thing sounds insane. The girls didn’t say a word of this to me and the whole thing was clearly planned if Jennifer knew that Sarah wanted to leave too. What’s more, the other day Jennifer was talking about giving all her stuff to the orphans before she left at Christmas and when I questioned her as to why she would do that at Christmas and not the end of the school year she gave me a puzzled – almost surprised – expression, hesitated momentarily, then quickly corrected herself by saying that that was what she meant all along. She then changed the subject.

Not sure what to make of all this but it turns out (after having a chat to Philippe about it) that they will in fact be staying in the apartment and therefore working at the school until Christmas but that Sarah probably won’t come back. As for Jennifer, I can’t say but it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if she left too as she’s given the impression since day one that she didn’t like the apartment, her shared room or her job. In fact, the only things that seems to interest her are getting a tan and going to discotheques.

To add to the weirdness, a student of mine got expelled on Friday for taking a photo up a girls skirt with his phone.

However, my day went on as per usual and at 3 o’clock parents started streaming in for the parent-teacher meeting. I had Christelle at my desk to translate for parents who didn’t understand a word of English. The majority of the meetings went well and it was interesting to finally meet and talk to the parents (some of whom looked exactly like their children) of the kids I’ve been teaching everyday for the past three months.

I left the school at 6 p.m. feeling drained and exhausted. We went to eat and then I spent the evening with Chistelle watching some very funny French comedy; a welcome end to a long and tiring day.