Why I Am Excited To Go To Parent-Teacher Conferences?

Tommy Bobo
Development Associate, FCNL
Guest Blogger

First things first I am not a parent nor do I have any immediate aspirations to have a child. Though some time from now, I will be sitting in a much too small chair and talking to teacher about my child. This room will probably look similar to my third grade classroom. There will be drawings and poems on the walls; multiplication tables and a list of prepositions to each side of the chalkboard; and the flag of the United States of America on the wall. These things do not concern me today. What concerns me is the row of pictures above the board.

For the vast majority of my grammar school education 41 to 42 white faces stared down at me from above the chalk board. They watched me learn how to add, subtract, and multiply. Today there are 43 faces staring down at school children across the United States of America. Soon there will be one more face added, Barack Obama. His portrait will be a line of demarcation separating what was the highest glass ceiling in our society. His portrait will soon be joined by women and people of all colors and creeds.

Today all of the pundits are talking about how our first African-American President will change the here and now, and a few of them have touched on the how President Obama will change the office. I am most excited about how his image and all of those to follow will change the perception of what our children believe about their world and possibilities for their own lives.