Tejal Misra
“Be a room parent!” my son said. “I’ll get to see you, Mommy!”
With a nerf gun to my head, I took on the responsibility.
I figured this would help me keep an ear to the ground as they say. First of all, I could learn which of the teachers wanted to cut and run mid-year and I could support them every way I could. Second, I could spy on my son and see exactly how he was behaving at school!
But what did this job entail?
I had no idea.
As it turns out, it entailed countless meetings that could have been emails. And also having to send out countless emails that could have been skipped altogether.
Additionally, I had to attend all the grade level events.
And don’t get me wrong, seeing my son at his school interacting with his peers has been amazing.
But since August (when the school year started) I’ve had to chaperone several field trips. On one they gave me five kids to keep track of, and two of them had the same name. Why would they do that, you ask? Well why not? At least, I had one less name to memorize.
Afterwards, I took the extra step of texting all the parents pictures of their children on the field trip.
And throughout my time as room parent I’ve gotten to know the other students in my son’s class, met some parents, and regularly shown my support for the teachers. I’ve also volunteered at lunch a number of times.
Long before I became a parent I dreamed of participating in my future children’s school. And this fulfilled that dream. And, as a result of my involvement, my face has become more familiar around the school. The children and staff know me. An added bonus has been being able to infuse a little diversity into the mostly homogenous place we send our son to school.
Then, finally, the school year was three quarters over and the annual field day was upon us. Of course, room parents were required to be there. But I didn’t plan ahead and couldn’t make it. However, I was able to cajole my husband into going in my place.
For context, let me just say it was February and my son had been in this class since August and this would be the FIRST time my husband would be in our son’s classroom.
But back to field day – my husband went, he took on the role of getting the students from activity to activity, something he is far better at than I would have been. And in each of their events he encouraged the kids and assisted the teachers. When the two hour stint was over he and I met for a nice lunch.
That afternoon our son excitedly came home from school. His backpack was strangely full. And when I looked inside, what did I find? Not one but twenty-seven HANDWRITTEN NOTES, LETTERS AND PICTURES from his classmates. Each and every one thanking my husband for volunteering.
You would have thought he had given each child a pony.
I am willing to wager that despite my having been in that classroom or on those field trips or at lunch at least eight times this year, most of the students in the class don’t know my name.
But in each and every letter, my husband is addressed as “Dr. Misra”. He isn’t referred to as my son’s “dad” or as “Mr. Amit” – but “Doctor”. And the funny part is that my husband likes to tell people he’s a “water meter reader” instead of a physician…but we couldn’t expect our son to keep up the same pretenses.
And one of the handwritten notes included animation!!
All had ten dollar vocabulary words like “encouragement” and “persevere.”
Meanwhile, as of today?
I haven’t received so much as a thank you post-it.
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Tejal Misra resides in Arizona with her family. She has recently authored and published a children’s book that offers a unique perspective on the festival of Diwali through the eyes of Sita. If you’re interested in acquiring a copy of the book, see the link below:
“When elementary schools create a safe and healthy recess for students, there can be a major impact on individual kids and school climate overall. In schools with safe and healthy recess students are more active, more cooperative, and more likely to use strong conflict resolution tools. Schools also see more drops in bullying and disciplinary referrals, and reductions in the number of conflicts that start in recess, spill back into class, and take up valuable class time to resolve.”
Thoughtful Parenting 