Monday, November 8, 2021
Maria has a concern about parents involvement with school
Now that we are almost four months into school and parent/teacher conferences are being held this month, do you think you will have parents commenting on the
curriculum and/or what should be changed/updated especially when it comes to
what lessons you are teaching and the topics you are covering in your class? Do the parents of the students within your class make suggestions frequently? Does your cooperating teacher have some parents who are constantly questioning what is being taught? How does your cooperating teacher handle difficult parents?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I think this is a very interesting question and something I had not really thought about. I think with every group of students there is always going to be a few parents that are more concerned and interested in what their children are learning and some that do not show as much interest. The parents of the students from my class do not seem to have many suggestions, at least from what I have seen in my time in the classroom. I do know that there is one parent who had made some comments about what her child is learning at the beginning of the school year, however I have not heard anything since. When the comment was made, my cooperating teacher handled it very calmly. The parent wanted to know what her child is learning all day and in response my cooperating teacher had a conversation with her after school and explained what the children were working on during the day. She explained to the parent that all of her child's work is in her folder that gets sent home every night and that if she wanted a breakdown of the content for the week she could provide that as well. However, after their conversation, there seemed to be no more concerns.
ReplyDeleteFrom what my cooperating teacher has told me about the parents of the students at Brookdale Elementary they seem to be really involved in their children's education. I think that they definitely will be commenting on the curriculum and the lessons that my cooperating teacher covers. My cooperating teacher has expressed that she is always extra careful with the things that she sends home. Every Friday the students take home a blue folder with all of the work that they have completed in the week. She knows that some parents are difficult and will question everything so she makes sure to be cautious. If these parents see something that they don't like or that they question they will send a note to school with their child. I know that my cooperating teacher tries to always stay in communication with the parents. I think she does a good job at handling difficult parents by making sure that she's available and communicates with the parents effectively.
ReplyDeleteEleanor McAloon:
ReplyDeleteI have a feeling there will be some concerns from parents during parent-teacher conferences. My school implemented a new literacy program this year called MyView that is causing some trouble. My teachers do not like it because most of the learning is too advanced for kindergarten and some of the examples are incorrect altogether. They amend it, so it works more for the students. In this way, I am not sure the parents even realize how inappropriate this program is for their children, but they will have some things to say if they do. At the beginning of the year, we also had a student with Autism in the class who sometimes was physical with the teachers and was very disruptive. Of course this was not his fault in any way, the placement was just wrong for him and he is being moved to a setting that will be better. However, some parents have voiced their concerns for their children who are anxious and nervous around this child because they have not met a child like him before. I expect some follow-ups about this because it was affecting some students throughout the day. I have not had any direct experience with parents, but my teachers have not had complaints about how my teachers are running the classroom. If there is ever a complaint, my teachers make themselves available to virtually meet with them to talk about the issues.