Lost in Translation, or Not…

Tonight was the last night of parent-teacher conferences for the year. Fourth quarter conferences seem more like a time to catch up with colleagues instead of talking to parents. How many parents came to see me? A whopping six. Yep. Three hours, six people. You do the math.

The parents that I talked to were ones that I needed to talk to. Two of the six were kids that were ditching my class on a regular basis. Two were parents of kids that are very easily distracted and are the typical kid that is behind in homework with a bad attitude towards math. One was the parent of a kid that is doing just fine. The last one is a parent that I’ve talked to before.

Some of our parents don’t speak English. On conference nights they line up interpreters that speak Hmong and Spanish. This mother had a Hmong interpreter with her. Like many older Hmong women, she was fairly short and has black hair. She had a slightly scrunched right side of her face and needed some dental work. I spoke to her about a year ago when I had her son in Algebra 2. Now, he’s in my Pre Calculus class. He’s one of the nicest kids. He’s the one that got the cake last Friday for my class - the one that didn’t know he should round down since he couldn’t find an “8″. Anyway… I’m speaking to the mom through the interpreter. You kind of wonder what is being interpreted sometimes. Part of the conversation sort of went like this:

Me: Steve is missing a few assignments. He can still turn them in. He has missed a few days of school. I think it’s because he was dismissed for not serving a Saturday school or two.

Interpreter: I don’t think she knows that.

Me to the Interpreter: Are we going to burst her bubble or not?

Interpreter shrugs his shoulders and translates.

Mom: Adfad ioh oijwen aoij oiuon wroin. Weoril soij i nigbno ewrboikd anofi wereyrb dsfoinap weroia efoin. Wernodyn erwoim we amoigh weri foiewm wfeo zfomtyu aerogu weoimfg fwe wepg rapoi wroigyw efviyrlyd sdfoyfg foiuf yoigy eigoy diwdi weo. dioug goirn goiuc todkht oiugm blah blah blah…. And on and on for what seemed like two minutes.

Translator: She’s disappointed.

For some reason, I don’t think there was much lost in translation.