Before I even start, I want to say my job isn't thankless. That's the point of this post. I have one of the most rewarding professions in the world and I am very grateful for my job. I am a teacher.
Being a teacher is a very difficult profession. Choose wisely and carefully before choosing to be a teacher. It is a very rewarding profession but it requires a lot of sacrifice. I see those sacrifices by teachers around me every day. The biggest sacrifice I see by teachers around me is a sacrifice of time. Precious, precious time given to make sure student needs are met through carefully planned and prepared lessons; reviewing assessments and providing feedback; meeting with students and/or parents to help each student receive a quality education; and numerous other ways. This time is given early in the morning, in the evenings late into the night, and even on the weekends and over holiday breaks. This time is taken at school, at home, and even on the road. I see teachers sacrifice their pride, habits, things they like in order to change so that they can better meet student needs. They attend conferences to learn about their flaws and how to make changes. There are so many ways that teachers make sacrifices. And they make sacrifices because they care about students. (Here I would like to interject a thank you to all the wonderful teachers in my life past and present.)
- Having parent-teacher conferences or Welcome Calls just got easier! Set up your conferences and add a Google Meet link with one easy click.
- Come to Room 2101 after school and I will be happy to help. REQUIRED MATERIALS Students should have their chromebook laptop and charger EVERYDAY at school. It is where most of the assignments will be shared and turned in. Students also need to bring something to write with (PEN OR PENCIL). If you would like to send notebook paper I would be.
Because if you don't care about students, why would you choose to be a teacher? Sure you 'get summers off' (wink), but really teachers give long hours (much over 40 typically) for relatively little pay for the emotional, physical, and mental cost. You slave away doing your homework (studying ways to improve teaching, planning and preparing and repreparing and adjusting lessons as you strive for the best lesson, reviewing assessments to give feedback, calling parents of students you are concerned about, talking to team-teachers about students you are concerned about, etc.) and then you slave away in class (teaching, assessing, reteaching, answering questions, talking to students you are concerned about, solving problems, etc.) And then you slave away in your brain. You are thinking about your students, your lessons, things going on at school, etc. as you drive home from work (mine is a twenty minute drive), as you do your chores, as you struggle to fall asleep, in your dreams, etc.
Parent Teacher Conferencesteach To Be Happy Hour
Always begin with something positive about the child, then work your way into what needs to be improved upon. –Janice Allen, Vincennes, IN To prepare myself and the parents for conferences, I send home a form with the conference invitation that asks the parents to write down their concerns and questions about their child or school policies, and return it to me before conferences. Aug 4, 2017 - Do you have parents of students in your classroom asking, 'How can I help my child?' I will be sending these printables home at the begin. Jun 1, 2015 - what your teacher looked like in kindergarten. Going to do this this year but will do my 5th grade pic!!!
Occasionally you get a formal thank you. The parent group gives us a wonderful surprise (typically much appreciated food–we burn a lot of energy) a few times a year. But really students are the reward. Teaching is the reward. Here are some of the rewards I love:
Student enthusiasm. I love to see the light in a student's eye as they are so excited to talk to you. I love to see it as they tell me how amazing their weekend was because they lost a soccer game. But it wasn't amazing because they lost. It was amazing because they had a blast playing and they are so happy that you want to hear about it. I love to see it as I have to pause teaching to tell a couple students that they should be listening as I explain something only to have them explain their discussion about chemical and physical properties. Who knew that they weren't talking about their latest crush? I love to see it as they shout out answers or scribble on whiteboards or whatever else might help them learn. Sure this isn't every moment of every day but I love to see kids who want to learn.
Ah ha moments. I love to see when students finally get it. You can almost see the light bulb pop up over their heads as a difficult concept finally clicks. I love to hear the chorus of 'Oh!'s when they finally understand. I love to the glow in their eyes and the energy that spikes as they truly learn something. I love the resulting desire to learn.
Student thank yous. You have the students who bring all of their teachers little Christmas or end of the school year goody bags. You have the students who thank you every time you hand them a paper even if they did poorly on it or if you're handing them a test and you know they hate tests. You have students who say hello every time they see you. You have students who poke their head in your classroom years down the road and say, 'Hey, do you remember me? Thank you for making me [insert assignment or skill or something else they hated at the time but love you for now.]'
Hope. I love to see hope. True hope. Life is hard. Learning is hard. There's no point in sugar coating those facts. But life is full of hope. Learning is full of hope. I love to see students recognize that a task I have given them is going to challenge them and also recognize that, although it will be hard, they are very capable of succeeding. That although they may make some mistakes along the way, they will learn what they need to and be rewarded by it. I love to see students accept responsibility, choose to live up to it, and choose to be happy. Learning is a choice and I love when students choose to learn.
Student growth. I have a love-hate relationship with grading. Hate because it takes so long to carefully grade something. Love because I love to see student improvement and success. Fortunately, not all student growth is measured by grading. Whether informally or formally assessed, I love seeing student growth. I love looking at what they were capable of at the beginning of a week and seeing what they are capable of at the end of the week. I love looking at what they were capable at the beginning of a month and seeing what they are capable of at the end of a month. And a quarter, semester, and year. Learning is so cool.
With that, I'm going to quit for the night. Life as a teacher is hard. It's often painful and frustrating. This post was inspired by some frustrating situations surrounding the world of education that caused me to wonder why I am a teacher. Then I was reminded that the things that frustrate me don't have to do with actual 'teaching' and thus don't have to do with why I am a teacher. I am a teacher because I love to teach. I am a teacher because I love to the joy humans feel as they learn something new. So although teaching may have it's hard moments, I am choosing to focus on the positive. I am choosing to focus on students.
It's getting to be that time of year again. Parent-Teacher Conferences (PTCs). I have to say that I love PTCs. Working at the school that I did, it might be the only time I ever saw and actually communicated with the parents of certain students. Yes it meant long days at the school and trying to find a nice way to say 'YOU WANT TO SEE PROGRESS?!? TRY WORKING WITH YOUR CHILD AT HOME!!!', but it also meant that parents and I were coming together to try and help their child become better.
(Let's all admit that conference's are also a time for parents to give you lip service about how much they have/do/plan to/promise to work with their child. Okay, now I can move on.)
My first year teaching conferences scared me to death. Here I was a 22 year old having to face parents and talk about their babies struggles and strengths. There are a lot of Mama and Papa Bears out there who are fiercely protective of their children and I didn't want to say the wrong thing. I would always wonder:
-Have I prepared enough?
-Am I brave enough to tell 'Jason's' mom what needs to be said?
-Will it even matter?
-Am I wasting my time?
-Will parents even show up?
-How can I tell these parents, who work three jobs and speak little English, that their child is very far behind?
In an effort to help other teachers who have this struggle, I want to share some tips and tricks I learned along the way. Sas: zombie assault 2&& try the games unblocked. (There is also a great handout from the Harvard Family Research Project that says some similar things.)
1. Send out invitations, reminders, reminders, and more reminders
Parents are busy. My school was a school that had a lot of immigrant and refugee families. Many worked several minimum-wage jobs. Even just one job is hard when you have kids. The more reminders you can send out, the better. Do it at LEAST ONE WEEK before conferences so you can reschedule/rearrange parents who can't make their conference. As much of a pain as rescheduling is, it's better than having no-shows where you are just sitting there by yourself in a room for fifteen minutes wasting time.
2. Prepare, prepare, prepare
Make sure you have everything you need for each conference. You only have a short time to talk to these people. You want to come off looking prepared and professional with everything in order. You don't want to waste precious minutes looking for an example of a student's work while the parents stare blankly at you. I have a folder for each child in my filing cabinet. I would put examples of good (and not so good) examples in there so when conference time rolled around I had things ready to go. I also used math journals in my class and those were easy to grab from student's desks to show their work.
Make sure you also have all the papers for each child together: report cards, attendance sheets, any Special Education information, library book late notices, etc. Then, put them in the order you want to talk about them. I also had my students fill out a reflection sheet. We would end with that, talking about goals the child had made for the future so it ended on a positive note no matter how the conference went.
Finally, create an agenda or list of important issues you want to make sure you hit on. This will help you cover everything you need to.
Parent Teacher Conferencesteach To Be Happy Wishes
3. Send out reminders
Did this already? Do it again.
4. Set up a warm environment
Another teacher in my school was really good at this. I would just pull my guided reading table closer to the door with adult-sized chairs around it and all my papers neatly stacked. Then, I went into her room and felt stupid. She had covered her table with cute paper on the top, set out a small bowl of candy, moved the small plant from her window to the edge of the table and sprayed her room with something yummy smelling (the last couple years I plugged in a Scentsy warmer to make the room smell better. Don't tell the fire marshall!). This really warmed up the place and made parents feel comfortable talking about their child.
Parent Teacher Conferencesteach To Be Happy Birthday Wishes
5. Start and end with the positive
This is their baby. As hard as this child may be, as low as this child may be, this is their baby. Start with something positive to say about this student. Sometimes it might be 'Hey your kid didn't throw a desk today! Score!'. Then, end with something positive like 'Those are great goals you made for yourself! I know you will work hard to reach them!'. This also makes the student feel loved and appreciated.
6. Use concrete examples
Parent Teacher Conferencesteach To Be Happy Birthday
Examples, good or bad, really add to the conversation and show parents what you are seeing in the classroom. I had one mother who was in total denial that her 8 year old could read or write more than a few short words at a time. She said that he did it all the time at home. Well, I whipped out his guided reading notebook and showed her his handwriting, sentence structure and spelling )which was basically something like: TBWEXTIOSS. That not only gently made her face reality, but also gave us a starting point to start making goals for the future. Good examples help a child and parent feel empowered.
7. Listen attentively to concerns, take notes, and ask questions
This is an opportunity for parents to tell you about their child and ask for help. I have found that doing the above three things really starts a conversation about a child. If a parent sees that I am taking note on what we are talking about, it helps to reassure them that I will follow through with what we have discussed. Parents are more likely to put in effort if they feel you are.
8. Seek collaborative solutions and make an action plan
Once the lines of communication are open, come up with solutions that the parents can get behind. For example, I had nine different languages in my last class. Not all of the parents could read or speak English. When their child was trying to work on reading, we decided that the child would read out loud to their parents. Bowmaster bow press. This helped the parents with their English as they looked at easy children's books, and helped their child with reading. Did they mess up some of the words? Probably. But as long as the book was on the child's level, I found that it worked pretty well.
Wow I'm long winded. I promise I'm almost done!
9. Establish lines of communication
Before I even start, I want to say my job isn't thankless. That's the point of this post. I have one of the most rewarding professions in the world and I am very grateful for my job. I am a teacher.
Being a teacher is a very difficult profession. Choose wisely and carefully before choosing to be a teacher. It is a very rewarding profession but it requires a lot of sacrifice. I see those sacrifices by teachers around me every day. The biggest sacrifice I see by teachers around me is a sacrifice of time. Precious, precious time given to make sure student needs are met through carefully planned and prepared lessons; reviewing assessments and providing feedback; meeting with students and/or parents to help each student receive a quality education; and numerous other ways. This time is given early in the morning, in the evenings late into the night, and even on the weekends and over holiday breaks. This time is taken at school, at home, and even on the road. I see teachers sacrifice their pride, habits, things they like in order to change so that they can better meet student needs. They attend conferences to learn about their flaws and how to make changes. There are so many ways that teachers make sacrifices. And they make sacrifices because they care about students. (Here I would like to interject a thank you to all the wonderful teachers in my life past and present.)
- Having parent-teacher conferences or Welcome Calls just got easier! Set up your conferences and add a Google Meet link with one easy click.
- Come to Room 2101 after school and I will be happy to help. REQUIRED MATERIALS Students should have their chromebook laptop and charger EVERYDAY at school. It is where most of the assignments will be shared and turned in. Students also need to bring something to write with (PEN OR PENCIL). If you would like to send notebook paper I would be.
Because if you don't care about students, why would you choose to be a teacher? Sure you 'get summers off' (wink), but really teachers give long hours (much over 40 typically) for relatively little pay for the emotional, physical, and mental cost. You slave away doing your homework (studying ways to improve teaching, planning and preparing and repreparing and adjusting lessons as you strive for the best lesson, reviewing assessments to give feedback, calling parents of students you are concerned about, talking to team-teachers about students you are concerned about, etc.) and then you slave away in class (teaching, assessing, reteaching, answering questions, talking to students you are concerned about, solving problems, etc.) And then you slave away in your brain. You are thinking about your students, your lessons, things going on at school, etc. as you drive home from work (mine is a twenty minute drive), as you do your chores, as you struggle to fall asleep, in your dreams, etc.
Parent Teacher Conferencesteach To Be Happy Hour
Always begin with something positive about the child, then work your way into what needs to be improved upon. –Janice Allen, Vincennes, IN To prepare myself and the parents for conferences, I send home a form with the conference invitation that asks the parents to write down their concerns and questions about their child or school policies, and return it to me before conferences. Aug 4, 2017 - Do you have parents of students in your classroom asking, 'How can I help my child?' I will be sending these printables home at the begin. Jun 1, 2015 - what your teacher looked like in kindergarten. Going to do this this year but will do my 5th grade pic!!!
Occasionally you get a formal thank you. The parent group gives us a wonderful surprise (typically much appreciated food–we burn a lot of energy) a few times a year. But really students are the reward. Teaching is the reward. Here are some of the rewards I love:
Student enthusiasm. I love to see the light in a student's eye as they are so excited to talk to you. I love to see it as they tell me how amazing their weekend was because they lost a soccer game. But it wasn't amazing because they lost. It was amazing because they had a blast playing and they are so happy that you want to hear about it. I love to see it as I have to pause teaching to tell a couple students that they should be listening as I explain something only to have them explain their discussion about chemical and physical properties. Who knew that they weren't talking about their latest crush? I love to see it as they shout out answers or scribble on whiteboards or whatever else might help them learn. Sure this isn't every moment of every day but I love to see kids who want to learn.
Ah ha moments. I love to see when students finally get it. You can almost see the light bulb pop up over their heads as a difficult concept finally clicks. I love to hear the chorus of 'Oh!'s when they finally understand. I love to the glow in their eyes and the energy that spikes as they truly learn something. I love the resulting desire to learn.
Student thank yous. You have the students who bring all of their teachers little Christmas or end of the school year goody bags. You have the students who thank you every time you hand them a paper even if they did poorly on it or if you're handing them a test and you know they hate tests. You have students who say hello every time they see you. You have students who poke their head in your classroom years down the road and say, 'Hey, do you remember me? Thank you for making me [insert assignment or skill or something else they hated at the time but love you for now.]'
Hope. I love to see hope. True hope. Life is hard. Learning is hard. There's no point in sugar coating those facts. But life is full of hope. Learning is full of hope. I love to see students recognize that a task I have given them is going to challenge them and also recognize that, although it will be hard, they are very capable of succeeding. That although they may make some mistakes along the way, they will learn what they need to and be rewarded by it. I love to see students accept responsibility, choose to live up to it, and choose to be happy. Learning is a choice and I love when students choose to learn.
Student growth. I have a love-hate relationship with grading. Hate because it takes so long to carefully grade something. Love because I love to see student improvement and success. Fortunately, not all student growth is measured by grading. Whether informally or formally assessed, I love seeing student growth. I love looking at what they were capable of at the beginning of a week and seeing what they are capable of at the end of the week. I love looking at what they were capable at the beginning of a month and seeing what they are capable of at the end of a month. And a quarter, semester, and year. Learning is so cool.
With that, I'm going to quit for the night. Life as a teacher is hard. It's often painful and frustrating. This post was inspired by some frustrating situations surrounding the world of education that caused me to wonder why I am a teacher. Then I was reminded that the things that frustrate me don't have to do with actual 'teaching' and thus don't have to do with why I am a teacher. I am a teacher because I love to teach. I am a teacher because I love to the joy humans feel as they learn something new. So although teaching may have it's hard moments, I am choosing to focus on the positive. I am choosing to focus on students.
It's getting to be that time of year again. Parent-Teacher Conferences (PTCs). I have to say that I love PTCs. Working at the school that I did, it might be the only time I ever saw and actually communicated with the parents of certain students. Yes it meant long days at the school and trying to find a nice way to say 'YOU WANT TO SEE PROGRESS?!? TRY WORKING WITH YOUR CHILD AT HOME!!!', but it also meant that parents and I were coming together to try and help their child become better.
(Let's all admit that conference's are also a time for parents to give you lip service about how much they have/do/plan to/promise to work with their child. Okay, now I can move on.)
My first year teaching conferences scared me to death. Here I was a 22 year old having to face parents and talk about their babies struggles and strengths. There are a lot of Mama and Papa Bears out there who are fiercely protective of their children and I didn't want to say the wrong thing. I would always wonder:
-Have I prepared enough?
-Am I brave enough to tell 'Jason's' mom what needs to be said?
-Will it even matter?
-Am I wasting my time?
-Will parents even show up?
-How can I tell these parents, who work three jobs and speak little English, that their child is very far behind?
In an effort to help other teachers who have this struggle, I want to share some tips and tricks I learned along the way. Sas: zombie assault 2&& try the games unblocked. (There is also a great handout from the Harvard Family Research Project that says some similar things.)
1. Send out invitations, reminders, reminders, and more reminders
Parents are busy. My school was a school that had a lot of immigrant and refugee families. Many worked several minimum-wage jobs. Even just one job is hard when you have kids. The more reminders you can send out, the better. Do it at LEAST ONE WEEK before conferences so you can reschedule/rearrange parents who can't make their conference. As much of a pain as rescheduling is, it's better than having no-shows where you are just sitting there by yourself in a room for fifteen minutes wasting time.
2. Prepare, prepare, prepare
Make sure you have everything you need for each conference. You only have a short time to talk to these people. You want to come off looking prepared and professional with everything in order. You don't want to waste precious minutes looking for an example of a student's work while the parents stare blankly at you. I have a folder for each child in my filing cabinet. I would put examples of good (and not so good) examples in there so when conference time rolled around I had things ready to go. I also used math journals in my class and those were easy to grab from student's desks to show their work.
Make sure you also have all the papers for each child together: report cards, attendance sheets, any Special Education information, library book late notices, etc. Then, put them in the order you want to talk about them. I also had my students fill out a reflection sheet. We would end with that, talking about goals the child had made for the future so it ended on a positive note no matter how the conference went.
Finally, create an agenda or list of important issues you want to make sure you hit on. This will help you cover everything you need to.
Parent Teacher Conferencesteach To Be Happy Wishes
3. Send out reminders
Did this already? Do it again.
4. Set up a warm environment
Another teacher in my school was really good at this. I would just pull my guided reading table closer to the door with adult-sized chairs around it and all my papers neatly stacked. Then, I went into her room and felt stupid. She had covered her table with cute paper on the top, set out a small bowl of candy, moved the small plant from her window to the edge of the table and sprayed her room with something yummy smelling (the last couple years I plugged in a Scentsy warmer to make the room smell better. Don't tell the fire marshall!). This really warmed up the place and made parents feel comfortable talking about their child.
Parent Teacher Conferencesteach To Be Happy Birthday Wishes
5. Start and end with the positive
This is their baby. As hard as this child may be, as low as this child may be, this is their baby. Start with something positive to say about this student. Sometimes it might be 'Hey your kid didn't throw a desk today! Score!'. Then, end with something positive like 'Those are great goals you made for yourself! I know you will work hard to reach them!'. This also makes the student feel loved and appreciated.
6. Use concrete examples
Parent Teacher Conferencesteach To Be Happy Birthday
Examples, good or bad, really add to the conversation and show parents what you are seeing in the classroom. I had one mother who was in total denial that her 8 year old could read or write more than a few short words at a time. She said that he did it all the time at home. Well, I whipped out his guided reading notebook and showed her his handwriting, sentence structure and spelling )which was basically something like: TBWEXTIOSS. That not only gently made her face reality, but also gave us a starting point to start making goals for the future. Good examples help a child and parent feel empowered.
7. Listen attentively to concerns, take notes, and ask questions
This is an opportunity for parents to tell you about their child and ask for help. I have found that doing the above three things really starts a conversation about a child. If a parent sees that I am taking note on what we are talking about, it helps to reassure them that I will follow through with what we have discussed. Parents are more likely to put in effort if they feel you are.
8. Seek collaborative solutions and make an action plan
Once the lines of communication are open, come up with solutions that the parents can get behind. For example, I had nine different languages in my last class. Not all of the parents could read or speak English. When their child was trying to work on reading, we decided that the child would read out loud to their parents. Bowmaster bow press. This helped the parents with their English as they looked at easy children's books, and helped their child with reading. Did they mess up some of the words? Probably. But as long as the book was on the child's level, I found that it worked pretty well.
Wow I'm long winded. I promise I'm almost done!
9. Establish lines of communication
Set up a plan for how you can communicate with parents. Some of my parents changed cell phones every three months when they couldn't pay their phone bill. With these people, I knew to send notes home stapled in their child's planner. Some prefer email. Some text (be careful about that one. I never felt comfortable doing that.) Whatever the best way is for you and for them try it. Don't be afraid to change it up if it isn't working for you. Make sure to communicate positive behaviors as much as possible. I set up a time once a week where I would call 3-5 student families with something positive that their child did that week. It was one of the best parts of my week because phone calls from school usually mean something bad. Getting a positive call made the parents so happy!
10. Did you send out a reminder? Do it now!
If you liked the forms and letters I used, you can find them by clicking on the link. There is also an editable version included where you can type directly into the forms.
What are some tips and tricks you have found useful?
PEACE, LOVE, AND STICKY NOTES
