Well, if there is one thing I've learned from being a part of parent/teacher conferences is I MUST FIND MY CHI (sp?) BEFORE I DO THIS!
This was a great learning experience. For the longest times I always shrugged off parents as separate "things" that float in and out every once in a while. I was wrong.
Now, I met some very lovely parents who were supportive and fabulous. I had to tell one set of parents that their son was caught cheating on a quiz, and I was afraid they were going to blow up. Thankfully, they gave me all the more support and we worked out a plan to help their son improve in class. (I was afraid that if I said somethign too harsh they would go home and kick his ass...I do wonder about that sometimes with parents)
However there was this one mother.....
I have a senior in 5th period named Trevor. Now, Trevor hates reading...hates writing.... and hates, and I mean HATES to stay awake. He literally, will not stay awake 60% of my class. Trevor also has a 46% in the class and needs a 70% to pass English and graduate- let me reiterate that there are 27 days until they graduate.
Now, back to this kid's mother. His mother came in saying "well, Trevor really hates to read and he gets distracted. Maybe if he could be in a quiet place...blah blah blah."
I said "Look, we do all the work in class, and I read most of Animal Farm TO THEM. We also had review questions that we filled out after EVERY chapter."
After this, Trevor's mother replied "Well, he is just so tired. He stays up until 2 a.m. playing video games and justteh other night he was at a girl's house until 11:00" - Mind you, she was not complaining about Trevor, but using this as an excuse. I SSSOOO wanted to say, "staying up all night is a CHOICE. Why aren't you being a parent?"
Of course, that is what I thought. I would never say anything like that, (I hope)but it is seriously frustrating when students are given NO responsibility/accountability. Did anyone else have any issues/complaints with parents who honestly just don't "get it"??!!
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Krysten,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you about the accountability issue. I haven't had many issues with parents and generally (because none of them have my email) they communicate with us through my co-op and he lets me know. For the most part though our parents are okay. That being said, I don't think that people understand (or want to understand) that there is only so much a teacher can do. Short of going home with them and doing their work for them we can only control what goes on in class. If a student is doing poorly we can give them all the support they need in class but I don't view playing video games until 2:00 an excuse for falling asleep in class. Hopefully he improves his grade and gets some multivitamins. Good luck on your future encounters with parents. Good luck in the next few weeks.
I absolutely see no parent accountability in my school. If a student comes to class unprepared, or sleeps through it, or treats the teacher disrespectfully... I can 100% guarantee that he/she treats his/her parents the exact same way. If parents would raise their children with respect and dignity, it would make my job a billion times easier.
ReplyDeleteWow, what do you with a student like Trevor? Krysten I feel your pain and also understand why it is so frustrating. I think the most frustrating part is the (pardon me for saying this) irrational parent who attempts to justify their child's actions. I think the best thing you can do with a parent like that is be calm and relay the cold objective facts and remain logical even with a illogical situation. Good luck and remember it is almost over!
ReplyDeleteAh, parents. An unfortunate but necessary beast to tackle. I feel like parents are getting more hands-off in their children's education, and they are not holding their kids to a high enough standard. Then, when students do poorly, it is the teacher's fault. The responsibility NEVER lies with the parents. At my first placement, I had a meeting with a few other teachers on my team and the parents of one student. They wanted us, the teachers, to work with the student every day to make sure his homework was finished, and they wanted each teacher to send home an email outlining all the details of the night's homework assignment. When we told the parents the assignments were online and they just had to check each teacher's website, they asked, "How long will that take? We're really busy." So we as teachers of 120 students (and as humans with families and lives outside of school) are supposed to spend half an hour on just this kid (whose only problem is lazines), but his own parents can't spend 5 minutes to make sure he's doing his homework? Give me a break.
ReplyDeleteI get it... parents are busy... but when they start making excuses for their kids, it's bad. Plus, as a future parent, I can't imagine letting my kid stay up until 2 AM playing video games (if grades are slipping, the Wii gets locked up!), nor can I imagine sending my child off to a person of the opposite sex's house until 11 PM. No thank you, sir. It seems like this parent is easy-going and reluctant to hold her son to many standards. It's good you were calm and level-headed with them, but I know what you mean, it is so easy to want to blow up at them and be accusatory. I guess if the parents and students don't care that much, we can't either. (This is sad, and it makes me care more, but I'm not really in a position to say or do anything about it. GRRRRR!)
Also, it would also be a good idea to become zen during your conference so you can drown out the parents entirely. :) good lukc though
ReplyDeleteHahaha, you guys are great! Thank you for all of your feedback and support!
ReplyDelete