5 Ways to Discourage Parent Communication

We all know that parents, as our students’ first teachers, have a tremendous amount of influence over our students. However, some of us aren’t terrific about communicating with parents. Instead of reaching out, we draw back.

Dodge phone calls and e-mails.

The situation: Look, I have seven classes with 25 kids in each one. With over 170 students, I don’t have time to use the restroom, let alone return a call. I get to my e-mail when I get to it. I have papers to grade, lessons to plan, and another class in 15 minutes. Maybe I’ll get to that phone call or e-mail after school. Tomorrow. No, wait. Friday.

Five Reasons Students Don’t Report Cyberbullying

Chelsie, a vibrant freshman in third period, is no longer vibrant. Most days, she’s not even present. When she does show up to class, she often comes early and alone. Her grades have slipped. She makes up excuses in the computer lab about why she can’t go online or she pleads a stomach ache and heads for the nurse’s office. When she’s in class, Chelsie prefers to work alone and not in groups. If other students ask her to join a group, she snaps at them.

Chelsie’s change in behavior is consistent with that of a cyberbully victim, Hindjua and Patchin wrote in Bullying Beyond the Schoolyard: Preventing and Responding to Cyberbullying.

Don’t Let Insults Slide

Life in summer English 11 was pretty peaceful until I allowed the class to divide themselves into teams for a review game. My students were completely engaged in the game. They enjoyed any opportunity to compete and began to trash talk. You can imagine how the trash talk escalated from good-natured ribbing to real insults. The original lesson plan had called for a friendly game with vocabulary words and a go-to-the-bathroom-free pass at stake, but it escalated to an event that was about honor, justice, pride, and revenge. They began to shout, stand up, and scatter desks.

Students Online: Time Wasters or Innovators?

Your students are spending a lot of their free time online. Think of the number of hours you estimate they spend online. Double it. The doubled number is probably closer to the truth.

According to the Norton Online Living Report 2009, parents believe their children spend 21 hours online. The reality is that students in twelve countries reported spending 39 hours online. Don’t tell me these kids don’t have time to finish their assignments or clean their rooms.

Dos and Don’ts of Dealing with Difficult Parents

Mom walks into the teacher’s classroom. Somewhere, off camera, a violin begins to play the creepy music we all know so well from classic horror films like Hitchcock’s Psycho and Spielberg’s Jaws.

You want to tell the teacher hide under his desk before Mom claims her next unsuspecting victim—him.

Working with Parents of Special Education Students

Special Education law is increasingly layered with details, caveats and other complications that often result in schools and parents, neither being legal council, being caught in interpretation. Yet despite its cumbersome details, school districts and parents are after the same goal; to educate all children, regardless of disability.

And thus, the federal mandate (Public Law 102-119), known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act was born. This mandate states that all disabled children will receive a free appropriate public education by the school district and the district must provide all related services at no cost to the child or his/her parents.

Improving Parent-Teacher Communication and Relationships

In the 2005 MetLife Survey of the American Teacher, researchers found that 70 percent of secondary school teachers think that the relationship between parents and teachers is adversarial. Twenty percent of teachers found their relationships with parents to be somewhat or very unsatisfying.

“It seems obvious that parents and teachers should work together,” said Suzanne Tingley, author of Dealing with Difficult Parents. “After all, both parents and teachers have the child’s best interest at heart. Both want the child to be successful and both understand that the child has a greater chance of being successful when the home and the school work together. Unfortunately, despite their shared goals, parents and teachers sometimes run into conflict about how to reach those goals.”

Call Parents Sooner Rather Than Later

Brad was a pill in fourth period. You talked with him, you moved his seat, and you kept him after the bell rang. That was yesterday. And today. It was last week, too. Brad’s behavior is disrupting learning in your classroom and you need to call home. Now.

No one wants this phone call, not you and Brad’s mom. The longer you wait, the worse the situation becomes, though, so don’t postpone parent contact.

Five Documentation Strategies that Work Part One: the Good, the Bad, and the Phone Calls

I think I might have missed the day that my college professor talked about the importance of documentation in the classroom.

But, like all teachers who have survived at least one year as a teacher, I quickly learned the importance of documentation in the classroom. I’m going to pass on some of my favorite strategies for documentation; feel free to leave comments that include your favorites as well.