In Japanese schools, parents may be asked to come to school for a meeting with their child’s homeroom teacher. This does not necessarily mean that the child has done something wrong. Even when there are no particular problems, these meetings may be held simply to talk about how the child is doing at school.
The teacher usually talks about more than test scores and grades. The conversation may include how the child behaves in class, whether homework and other assignments are being turned in, how they get along with classmates, and how they generally spend their time at school. A child who talks constantly at home may be very quiet at school, or the opposite may be true. For parents, the meeting can reveal a side of their child that they do not normally see.
Parents can also tell the teacher what they have noticed at home. They might mention something that has been worrying them recently or ask, “How are they doing at school?” The meeting is not simply a time for the teacher to give an evaluation of the child.
These meetings are often fairly short. A teacher may meet with many parents one after another on the same day, so the conversation tends to focus on the most important points. If there are no major concerns, it may simply be a calm exchange along the lines of, “This is how things have been at school lately,” and, “This is how things have been at home.”
As students get older, the subjects discussed begin to change. In junior high and high school, meetings are more likely to include future plans, entrance examinations, grades, and the student’s own preferences. At this stage, some schools also hold three-way conferences involving the student, the parent, and the teacher.
A Japanese parent-teacher conference is therefore not necessarily a meeting where parents are called in to be told that something is wrong. It is often a short opportunity for parents to learn how their child behaves at school and for teachers to hear what the child is like at home. These meetings may take place even when everything is going well, because one purpose of the meeting is simply to help home and school understand how the child is doing in everyday life.
