Parent teacher conferences are quite interesting. I learn why the children are the way they are, sometimes good, sometimes bad, occasionally ugly. For example, I was told the following comment by a parent at a conference.
"I don't understand this s--t you send home for homework."
Well then, where do you go from that??? Awkward laughter, definitely. Offering a 2nd grade refresher course, perhaps. Smile and nod, sometimes. Turn it around so that some good comes of it, of course.
I am learning that the challenges of parent teacher conferences are not so much telling parents what their children need to work on, or even that their child has a horrible behavior problem. It is more that I have to respond to comments like that in a positive, gracious and professional way. That's hard. I didn't really want to have to deal with that particular incident, especially since a comment like that tells me that school is probably not the top priority in this parent's mind. But somehow I manage to graciously turn around even the most crude of comments, so that the parents leave feeling encouraged, the student leaves feeling smart and I smile and walk them to the door hoping my message, or even a fraction of it, has been understood.
Time will only tell.
1 comment:
Although I loved teaching, my least favorite parts were dealing with parents and faculty meetings.
Just let me hang out with the kids, please.
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