Well we finally had those parent/teacher conferences that
were postponed because of the snow. I
have to admit that I was looking forward to seeing what the experience would be
like but I was not exactly thrilled with the idea of being at school from 7 am
to 7 pm two days in a row. I was
intrigued enough to have a good attitude about it and to gleam all the
additional knowledge from it that I could.
I also looked at it as an additional opportunity to spend quality time
with me CT and gain as much knowledge from her as I possibly could. My CT has been absolutely fantastic about
sharing everything with me that she can think of that will help me to succeed
my first year and the years following. The
parent/teacher conferences were just another opportunity for us to discuss the
integral part of getting parents involved.
We also discussed helicopter parents and parents who come in angry with
their children or other teachers.
My teacher is an organization freak like me (said in the
most complimentary way) and so we spent the week prior to conferences getting
ready. My CT has a form that she has the
students fill out as a self-evaluation on their grades and behavior in the
classroom. We updated their grades and
had them update their evaluation sheets prior to conferences. We had a discussion with the students on
honesty and how it important it is because we will call them out if they are
not honest about grades or classroom behavior.
We divided sheets into hours and arranged them alphabetically to
maximize accessibility. Prior to the
conferences beginning I asked my CT exactly what role she wanted me to take at
the conferences so that I knew what was expected of me. By the time the conferences rolled around, we
were both ready to go.
One of the first parents we had threw me for a loop, as a
parent and as a teacher. I watched her
yell at and humiliate her daughter in front of both the CT and myself. I just kept thinking to myself that I need to
apologize to my own son when I get home just in case I ever made him feel like
that. I understand the disappoint that
comes when you do not feel your child is doing the best they can, but I try not
to ever humiliate them in public. As
soon as the parent and child left the room, I looked at my CT and said “Wow!” She told me that was pretty standard for that
family and we discussed how she reacted and the things that she said. She told me in situations like that she
really just tries to act as the mediator and tries to allow both the parents
and the child respond to what is going on and she tries the reflective listening
on them. Basically, she says “I hear
your mom saying __________ and you are saying ___________. Now how can we come
together and come up with a plan that will provide a solution?”
I looked up on the NEA website, parent/teacher conferences
and looked at their advice on preparing for parent/teacher conferences and this
was one of the methods they recommended.
Does anyone else have any ideas they could share?
Thank you for sharing this strategy! The most interesting conference that we had was with a concerned grandfather who was standing in for a student's parents. The grandfather spent an extensive amount of time in the military and took a very disciplinarian approach with his children and grandchildren. He was concerned about his grandson's attitude more than his grades, but the student was doing fairly well in class. My CT offered a tiny bit of constructive advice and spent the rest of the time dwelling on the student's positive qualities. They exchanged information so that the grandfather would feel welcome to be involved in his grandson's education.
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