One of the joys of teaching...

Lists Joined and Date Joined or for Blogs and Discussion Board. Name and brief dec-ription of the list(s), blogs, and discussion boards.

TeacherLingo.com.

Topics Discussed with dates spanning discussions: This will be the bulk of your Blog. Summarize discussion without using quotes of what you read.

It's Not All Flowers and Sausages

• These include descriptions of classroom activities, resources (books, Web sites, books, magazines, etc), and issues that were discussed.
  

In this blog that I have read, it wasn’t so much a resource that a teacher uses to help a student read, or a brand new method that show a third grader how to multiply two whole numbers. It was about the one thing we as teachers have trouble with the most. Parents. Basically the author was “venting” stress about all the excuses and stories that parents will give when their child is put into a rather bad light. “Oh, well he never does this at home,” is a classic line that most parents give just to prove the educator wrong. And sometimes, even if there is evidence that the child is incorrect in the situation, the parents will still defend up to the very end.

It has always been an issue dealing with parents, and I know as a teacher myself that we try to accommodate the parents as much as we can within the barriers of our classroom. But where is the line? True that a parent knows their child best, but as teacher we are trained for at least four years to better the education of every child that walks within our doors. So where do we tell parents enough, and yet still keep a working/functional relationship?

• Explain areas of agreement, disagreement, concerns, advise, etc. Go beyond just summarizing what was posted. Remember the reader was not part of the discussions so provide necessary information.
  

There wasn’t much disagreement within the comments that I read. After all we all have been a part of what the author was saying. We all have stories, and if we don’t they are sure to come soon.

However, the advice that was given was truly amazing. One author wrote:

When parents say "he doesn't do that at home" I always say, "Great! Tell me some of the strategies that work for you so we can apply them here at school!" I also tell parents that the demands at school are far different than the demands at school, so we would likely see different behaviors in both. Then we get off the "no he doesn't" "yes he does" debate.

This was a good piece of advice because it doesn’t put the child in a bad light and it doesn’t give the parents a chance to argue. Most of commentary that was given agreed that most parents are going to defend their children no matter how wrong they might be. This could simply be because they don’t want to see their children fail, or that they do not want to be looked at as “bad parents” because their child is having difficulty. Advice and strategies such as the one listed above gives an added chance for teacher and parent to work together.

Another author wrote:

One thing I like to do to alleviate this problem is have student-led conferences, in which the CHILD explains what's going on. (Here's a link that explains what to do: http://www.TheCornerstoneForTeachers.com/documents/parent conf questions.doc). That prevents the teacher from having to be the bad guy and defend herself. Also, parents are less likely to lie when the kid is sitting right there ("I don't read Harry Potter, mom! You never took me to the library!"). Asking a series of questions (instead of listing a series of problems) will usually cause parents to come to the correct conclusion themselves. Usually. Some parents just aren't going to get it, even if you bang them over the head with their child's twenty-three inch thick cumulative records.

I plan on trying this within my own teaching career. Nothing tells the truth like the student him/herself.

• Include any follow-up of activities that you tried with your students that you had learned about from the list, shared with other teachers, or used for another graduate course.

I’m still early within my teaching life, but I really would like to share this blog with fellow teachers so they have strategies to help them deal with parents and also get them ready for the road to come. The next time that I have a parent conference, I know to have my ducks in a row.