"How are they doing?" Famous words said by every parent, ever thought why?

Famous words of every parent during meet the teacher night and words that many of us teachers cringe at.  For me I always felt that the students should be able to articulate this point of view to the parents, and to some degree I still do; however, I was picking up my daughter for the first time from school the other day and had to use every muscle in my body to stop myself from saying, "How is Izzy doing?"

This got me thinking: Even though, I knew my philosophy on this and yet I still wanted to ask those dreaded words. Why? Because I truly wanted to know how she was doing?  

Its been an interesting phenomenon having my daughter enter the world of school. I mean I know how she reacts at home, I know how she learns and yet when she is off in a different time and space then I wonder how she truly is doing? 

Million questions run through my mind: How is she behaving? What is she learning? How can I help at home to make it smoother? etc. Its a lot of stress and anxiety to have. As a parent all you want is the best for your child and I know that teachers will always give their best for my daughter but I also know its a very difficult job. I also know my daughter and I really just want to help. 

And lately this has gotten me thinking about my own students and their parents. What do they feel like when they drop their children off at school? Are they wondering about the same types of things (most likely yes). 

Now I know that we as teachers will often have interviews for students of concern or with parents we need to talk to, or we often see parents outside on the playground and say hey they had a great day but I know from experience that this doesn't really alleviate the stress of wondering what your child is actually going through every day.

With this in mind it has gotten me thinking about how can I alleviate this anxiety? So here is my plan:

1) continue using twitter and storify in the classroom.  In know that in previous post I have talked about this but these are amazing tools to have the parents see into the classroom. However, they don't necessarily give a picture of a particular child's strengths and next steps; just what they did and lately questions that can help with home.

2) So here is my insane idea, monthly summaries for each student.  Now I know many of you are thinking that this means more work for you as a teacher but I don't want to write them just give time for them to be completed. 

My biggest concern as a parent is what is she working on, and how can I help at school. Having these monthly reports would be, at least in my opinion, a great way of communicating this. This also will coincide with our schools philosophy of goal setting and making those goals public.  Now I am also about not making more work then what is needed. I have a new born and my own daughter that I want to spend time with. I mean as we speak I am writing this blog as my daughter is having a bath. So how can we make this work?

Conferencing has been always been an important part of my teaching but even more so now.  My goal is always to meet with the students four times a month.  During these meetings we discuss: reading goals, reading levels, math strategies, next steps, and classroom questions.  My thinking is that we turn these conferences back on the students and once a month we write down what we worked on this month, what our reading level is, where we would like to be and what our next steps are.  I was also thinking of adding in a parent connection where I can or students write what they would like to see at home.

3) I want to send home weekly good news. I hear this all the time in other amazing classes and I keep saying that I am going to do this but I really will now. Every week I want to send home five good news tickets, telling parents what amazing things that their child has done. Doesn't have to be academic just something that they can be proud of.  Now this may be a little more work but I think it would be worth it to build that community and trust.

4) Quarterly classroom visits: Now this is something that we already do.  Twice a term I want to invite the parents into the classroom during the day so their child can talk to them about what they are learning. This will primarily be on #geniushour but it can also be on any other topic.

I have learned more and more how important this connection is between the teacher and parent.  As my daughter starts her career in school, I and my wife just want to be a part of it.  She is our child and all we want is success.  Creating this team dynamic will only help her's and our student's success. 

Now this is a work in progress I am not too sure if it is logistically sound but I think it will work.  What do you think? Have you experienced this personally? What do you do in the classroom to communicate with all of the parents not just the ones that struggle? 

Parent divide: My fears of my daughter going to school and how they have made me a better teacher

My daughter starts Kindergarten for the first time this year and for the first time I understand what parents truly feel like as they drop their kids off to my classroom. Before I often wondered at the looks of anticipation and worry over who will teach their child, especially starting a new school but I too have that same apprehension. Don't get me wrong I have total faith in my whoever my daughters teacher will be but I still have fears about her starting school.

Here they are:

1) Will I know what they will be learning so I can help at home?

2) I still want to be a part of her life, even though she is now spending six hours of her day away from home? (Though I am at work, my wife still sent me regular updates)

3) How will she behave and will she continue the values that we have tried to teach her at school?

4) what will her teacher be like and will they have the same values, principals and believes about learning as I will?

5) Will that teaching style be what my daughter needs?

All of these fears I now realize my own students parents are probably feeling too and it really has made me think more about creating more of that positive connection with my parents.

Here is how I have been trying to address these issues:

1) For the last couple of years I have started to use twitter more in the classroom, not as a PD opportunities (though that is an excellent reason) but as a window into my classroom. I don't want my parents to ever feel like they don't know what is happening in my classroom. At the end of the day I collect my tweets using storify so that my parents who are not on twitter can read my recount of the day. Thanks to a great friend Aviva (@avivaloca) I have started to add guiding questions and further problems to work with at home.

2) Class communication: I have always felt that communication is the best defence.  I have multiple ways of communication and probably too much. At the present time, I have twitter, we use edmodo, our google accounts and the class site (though edmodo is slowly replacing this). On these platforms, students and parents can see videos, homework, daily posts and general comments.

3) now with edmodo and google, I can give instant feedback to students writing assignments, class assignments and homework. This feedback is sent directly to the students and parents (since they have their child's passwords)

What these ideas hopefully allow my parents is a window into their child's life at school. They can see what is happening and not feel left in the dark.

The last of my fears will be hard to solve as they are a personal feeling but I hope that because of this openness my parents feel that they can come to me whenever they want. If they don't agree with me I want them to let me know. Conversation is the key and when it's open the child is always succeeding.

I know this blog post is more of a ramble of ideas but before this moment I truly never really thought about the other point of view. I knew about it, I did my best but had nothing to relate the experience too. Our parents are giving us all they have, how are we treating that? How are we bring them into our world and making them feel apart of the learning? Or are we leaving a big partnership in the dark?

Love to here what others do to help bridge the parent divide.