Communication is important with any job, but especially teaching. Not only do educators have a need to communicate effectively with their students, but they need to communicate regularly with the parents of the children in their class as well! This is almost just as important because parental support can make or break a students progress. If they are getting extra help at school AND at home they are receiving the same help, they will progress at a faster rate than if they just got help at school.
Parents trust teachers with their more prized possessions, their kids. It is our job to share with parents grades, funny stories, concerns, and the curriculum we are learning at the time. Having open communication can seem like a daunting task, especially to a young teacher such as myself. It was one more thing I have piled high on my plate. I realized it is one of the most important pieces though, so I make sure I take time to talk to my parents. This makes when I need to share news that parents might not want to hear, they understand I truly have the child's best interest at hand.
How do I keep up with my communication you might ask? I have a classroom website that is on my school's webpage. I have sent home a letter to the parents explaining where it is and what they can expect to find on this site. Here I have homework posted, important dates that are coming up on the calendar, a short letter every week briefly talking about what we are learning that week, and twice a quarter I post my grades to an online gradebook. Not to worry, parents have to sign in and can only see their child's grades. I also have my email address posted and encourage any questions, comments, or concerns to be emailed to me.
I call home often! I call parents and leave messages if I need to asking them to call me back. If they don't call back in 24 hours, I call again to make sure they get in touch with me. I call when a struggling student shows great improvement, when a student isn't feeling well, when I think they had an off day- I like to keep parents up to speed on this so they can see if the child acts similar at home. This opens up more conversations- if they do act the same, what can we do to get them back to what we expect? If they don't act the same, what is it that is different and how can we be consistent?
Reading through your post reminded me of when I interned in a 2nd grade class room and student taught withing a 1st grade. I enjoyed the calls and letters home, or talking to the parents who I knew always brought their students to school or dropped them off. I loved seeing the interest in their child writen all over their faces.
ReplyDeleteI do have to ask though... how many students do you have? And do you have parents who are non-responsive to your attempts to contact them?
I ask this because after I graduated I began to teach 5th grade, and did so for 3yrs. The 5th grade was departmentalized, with the number of students ranging from 90-110 each year. I tried doing a newsletter home, actively maintaining my class website, post cards and phone calls home. Unfortunately more parents than not were not interested in the contact that I was trying to do. Calls where rarely answered and never returned. It grew frustrating each year to have so little response, and I grew tired of trying to contact ~100 families multiple times. I even developed a system where I divided the students up, so I didnt call everyone each time, I spaced them out and called in groups... unless it was something that I needed to call about.
I was curious it you had experienced anything similar and how you did, or how you may suggest handing that in the future.
I have 22 students. I do have parents that are not responsive no matter how many attempts I might make. All I can do is try though. If they want to respond to the communication that is great! However, I feel as a teacher, it is my job to keep the parents informed. Some parents like more information that others. There are some parents that I reach more than others because that is what they prefer.
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