This mid year, this story caught my attention.

You can search for this – S’porean Navy scholar twins who failed multiple subjects in secondary school return to thank teacher before she retires.

Especially this part:
“I thought it would be another complaint session to my parents but I was completely caught by surprise. Ms Tan was singing praises of both of us! She told my parents that we were good boys, with very good values. She said she saw potential in us and we would make it if we focus on some of our weak areas!

Indeed a good teacher will be able to turn the kids around, whether it’s a good school or “bad” school… Which reminds me of some pointers I wanted to share about Parent Teacher Meetings and hope it helps u in u and your child’s learning journey.

There are many types of teachers in every school. The productive PTMs are the ones where u collect positive feedback, and discuss with the educators on how to help your child at home. What happens if u encounter a very strict “old school” teacher who has many decades of experience and tells u that your child is too “non-compliant” in class, or like this article says – is at the bottom of the cohort?

A lot of times, a child’s perception of the teacher’s impression of him or her, will affect their performance and willingness to learn in that teacher’s class. As a parent, during the PTMs, we can also be the mediator between the teacher and your child, who obviously have different personalities and expectations of each other.

In front of the teacher, besides trying to help our child by communicating with the teacher to see how we can help them at home, we can also help the teacher to understand our child better. This is not trying to find excuses for our child’s behavior, but merely to provide a bridge for communication. If we are defensive, or worst – join the teacher and starts to complain about our child’s behavior at home, the teacher is going to confirm his/her perception of your child, and their relationship in the classroom will definitely worsen over time.

In front of our child, rather than lock, stock, and barrel give the child a piece of our mind about the teachers’ complaints, we can also “modify” the feedback that was given, and help the child see the good points of this teacher, how committed this teacher is, and help the child understand their teachers’ teaching styles. Remember – we cannot control the quality or types of teachers that our child will get every year (not saying any educators are bad but they just have their own teaching pedagogy when trying to do their jobs) but we can help improve our child’s learning journeys if they encounter any “challenges” and teaching them how to deal with different personalities along the way.

Every child loves to learn from someone who believes in them, and every teacher loves to teach someone who is willing to learn! Good luck and I hope this helps anyone who is reading this!