How PTCs Shape History

Parent Teacher Conferences (PTCs) are priceless opportunities for parents of mediocre students to realize that their child did not, in fact, ace that chemistry test on Tuesday. They provide a conducive environment for kids to seriously think about running away from home and living in the woods (for real this time).

Throughout time, students have employed countless methods to keep their parents from attending PTCs for as long as possible. This led to the development of what is now known as the “Art of Finesse,” a collection of advanced techniques focused on tricking, deceiving, and misleading parents about the true nature of a grade from the very beginning of PTCs all the way to the unhappy affairs we know and hate.

100,000,000 BCE - The first known PTC took place during the Jurassic Period, when dinosaurs ruled the earth. Reliable reconstructions of how it played out have been assembled by recovering and analyzing the bones of the predominant species at the time: Teachersaurus rex. PTCs in this time were brutal affairs: they took place on the slopes of active volcanoes, which spewed fire and lava throughout the night. At the end of the conference, the dinosaurs with the lowest grades would be thrown into the fiery core of the volcano; this was part of what historians call the “Good Grade Encouragement” program that inspired modern-day tiger parenting styles.

2500 BCE - The first known pyramids in Ancient Egypt were erected to protect the kingdom’s pharaohs from the wrath of their parents after PTCs. Advanced technology revealed that after each conference, if the results were not up to par with the standards of the reigning parents at the time, the pharaoh would be killed and entombed in a pyramid, which was then sealed shut and defended by an army of elite warriors to ward off any attempts by angry parents to enter the tomb. The Book of the Dead, one of the most important artifacts from the pyramids, tells us that the sun god Ra likewise retreated into his fortress on the surface of the sun to avoid mobs of furious guardians (pharaohs were unfortunately required to have 50 parents to boost their accountability). However, even this was not enough to save him, as the ending to the Book retold. Modern legends and conspiracy theories say that the corpses of angry parents, kept alive through sheer will and righteous fury, wander the endless passages of the pyramids to this day, searching for the one student who could actually get a good grade.

427 BCE - A young Alexander the Great, fearful about what his father Philip would discover when meeting with Aristotle during PTCs, embarked on a great adventure of conquest across Eurasia, accidentally taking over the Persian Empire and taking the Achaemenid Throne. After preparing to set sail to India, Alexander found out that his father had actually suffered a heart attack right before meeting with Aristotle and never found out that he had been cut from Speech and Debate. The shock of the discovery made Alexander also suffer a heart attack and die. Tragic—and all because of one PTC.

15 AD - Jesus Christ failed his first Biology test after writing “I am the answer” for every single question (including multiple choice). To avoid the unbearable weight of telling his father about the result, Christ ran away into the desert, where he stressed for 40 days about whether or not he would make it into Harvard. Finally, he decided to spread the gospel of avoiding PTC, and his sermons on the Art of Finesse spread throughout the land. Today, these sermons form the basis of how to manage the stress of these conferences and provide an invaluable guide to students everywhere.

1426 AD - A time of Black Plague, medieval knights, etc. Though people were dying left and right during the Middle Ages that didn't stop students from going to school. During this period they didn't really have to worry about PTC. How can you compare a student to other people when everyone else is dead?

1941 - After implementing PTCs during the Meiji Restoration, Japan’s leadership felt that the country had grown complacent in its pursuit of the highest grades in the world. This led to tensions with America, whose embargo on oil cut off the fuel supply of robotic Japanese students and hindered their abilities, restricting their abilities to those of a mere human. As a form of retaliation, the military regime chose the lowest-performing students across the country to take part in a top-secret mission against the United States. They were to fly to Hawaii, visit the naval forces at Pearl Harbor, and take notes on how the ships were built and engineered to revitalize their STEM interests and skills. To reduce the costs of the mission, the Japanese government generously provided each student with their own plane. For a reason mysterious to modern scholars, the Japanese government did not equip any of the planes with landing gears and apparently forgot to mention the mission’s existence to the American forces in Hawaii. No student in Japan has gotten a test grade below 100 since the program’s inception, rendering PTCs in the country obsolete and making the mission a success.

2003 - Bush invaded Iraq to keep Laura Bush from learning that he hadn’t been doing any homework for Basic Politics and Presidential Knowledge, as well as the fact that he had failed out of How To Run A Country 101. PTCs were defunded nationwide and would have been shut down indefinitely if not for the incredibly brave and heroic filmmaking of Al Gore, who described the conferences as “essential to fight the growing threat of climate change, which will definitely, absolutely, for sure wipe out the human race within the next two years.”

2016 - Hillary Clinton destroyed a hard drive containing all her grade reports with a hammer and wiped all her e-mails with messages from teachers. This somehow led to Russian hackers leaking her grades to the public, causing her to lose the election and thus her presidential dreams. When contacted for further information, Clinton said: “See, the main reasons I lost the election were Russia, PTCs, e-mails, James Comey, Russia, institutionalized and popularized misogynist-capitalist sexism, Russia, and also PTCs. If only I had learned the Art of Finesse sooner.” Requests for President Trump to release his report cards continue to be denied.