More meetings

As previously stated, I really truly hate meetings. I need to qualify my statement, however. The kinds of meetings that I truly despise are: those in which there are large groups of people, such as a school-wide faculty meeting or a departmental meeting; and those in which I'm required to be there but I have nothing to contribute and no other reason to be there other than to fulfill some arbitrary CYA kind of requirement.

The large-format meeting, by necessity, is going to be very general information and it's dispersed in a very distracting environment. It also tends to be long, because the organizers don't like to try to coordinate such large-format meetings very often and attempt to pack in as much as possible. A room of a hundred people will also contain a certain percentage of said people who are convinced that this is the appropriate time to speak to their individual concerns, forcing the rest of us to remain in the meeting even though the issue does not pertain to us. Finally, I am thoroughly convinced that these sorts of meetings can have their topics just as suitably addressed via e-mail. I can read the e-mail, save it to re-read it, print it out, or delete it. I can never again get back those hours I wasted having to sit through an irrelevant meeting. Very, very inefficient.

I sat through a meeting today; however, it was NOT one of the kinds of meetings which I hate. This one was a staffing meeting pertaining to Alice receiving special education services through the district. I don't have a problem with those kinds of meetings because they are actually somewhat useful. They have a significant CYA element because of the governmental regulations, but it's also very informative and gives us the chance to meet face-to-face with people who are dealing with Alice's case in one way or another.

We concluded that Alice needs to be pulled from the regular classroom for most of her school day, and that she would rejoin her age-group peers for class projects, art, music and PE.

After the meeting, I had a couple of minutes left, so I peeked into Martha's and Isaac's classrooms. Isaac's teacher showed me a list of a hundred words that kids should know by the end of first grade, and about 75 of them were highlighted. Isaac can already read them. She's moving him up in his reading level again.

Tonight, we're finally having Awanas and house meetings again. The past two Wednesdays have both been marred with dire weather, but today the thaw has arrived for a while and it's sunny. The kids are super-anxious to get back going with Awanas because they've actually been away from it for FOUR weeks due to the Christmas holidays.

It will be fun to get back together with my adult group as well. Yes, it's another MEETING. This one is bearable because it's more informal, more participatory, and I like the others in the group. Nobody has distinguished themselves as a bloviating buffoon or a whiny weenie. Yet. I still have time; I could aspire to either pinnacle of group dynamics.