Not quite as much fun as the first day of school or anything, but overall my first conference experience on the other side of the table went well. I actually thought it would be more difficult than it was, but my CT does a wonderful job with parents and the fact that she offered bonuse points for attending helped get many of the best students out. Her philosophy is that the student should accompany the parent. Who better to answer the questions like, “Why is his/her homework grade so low?”, than the student themselves. As a teacher, you are not sure why and the student is the only one who can answer the question, so why not have them sitting right there. Many parents seem to like this philosophy. Why talk about the student, just talk to them.
I found this method of conferences to be very effective. As I previously stated, my CT offered 20 bonus points to anyone who attended with a parent/guardian. I wasn’t suprised to see the top students in the class jump at this opportunity. I did think we would see more of the students who actually needed the easy points, but it was opposite. We generally send a progress report home every week, so the parents should not be blindsided when they come in. This progress report is supposed to be signed and returned as a homework grade. If the parents are not signing them for whatever reason, the parents recieve a phone call after two weeks of not having them returned. The parents who did know the students were doing well, I am sure it was easy for them to return. I ones who are not so sure did not show us.
I was suprised at some of the responses of the parents. In one class the best grade is a 95. There was a student with a 93.9% in the class. The parent of this student came in and was not happy. She turned to the student and asked if this was acceptable to her. The student didn’t know what to say. The mother then asked, “Well, what can she do to improve this, extra credit or something?” We had to tell her this was a great grade and we do not offer extra credit regularly. This confrence would help her. The mom just turned to the student and told her it was fine if she wanted to settle for this grade.
This was a great experience and I learned a ton about how to talk and communicate with parents. I wouldn’t call it “telling them what they want to hear” but sometimes as I viewed these conferences I felt that was what was going on. It was done to appease parents. I am not questioning the validity of what my CT was saying. I think she does great job, I just mean that underneath these students do not care about the grade on the paper and part of their problems are based on this. This is the real struggle with many students and the parents do not always want to equate it to this. It has to be someone else’s fault.
I have not had the pleasure of being in conferences yet. At Crestwood they are not for another couple of weeks. Your CT’s plan sounds good, the students should come along to explain why they have the grade they do. It does not surprise me that the students who need the points do not come, that is just the way it is. In addition,it is the students who are not doing well where the parent does not come to conferences. I do care for my students, it is hard not to, but I am definitly ready for high school.
I also like the idea of having the students come to the conferences. Your CT seemed to run these well, and that was a good idea to have extra points for attending the conferences. I agree that a bad grade has to be someone’s fault and the student, parent, and teacher should work together to fix this. I also went to conferences and it was pretty easy. We did not get a ton of people showing up, but it was still beneficial. My CT had a progress report of every student and immediately went to the progress report so the conversation focused on what the student was doing and not the teacher.