Constantly Learning

I am always learning new things in my profession. I haven't written about teaching in a while because there have been so many other things going on with my health and vacation and now Christmas fast approaching. But this week I made an improvement in an area of my job. Parent contact. Those of you who have ever had to do this especially for the not so good reasons or have been on the receiving end of a call know just how awkward it can be.

Parents can be stand-offish, they can yell at you, they get pissed off, they blame you and my favorite - the ones that just say ok, ok, thank you. And nothing. Sometimes the parents are more of a battle than the students which is why we teachers hate calling. we threaten a lot but we hate following through.

I made a list this week and just started dialing. I got a couple of disconnected numbers, a couple of not homes, one mom who was wonderful and talked for almost 40 minutes (I love her!) And I had to have two calls made for me in Spanish. One is coming in for a conference and the other came in and withdrew her child the next day because evidently taking her child to another school will fix the problem.

Yes to all parents reading this: The teachers are the problem. We spend all day picking on your children and thinking up things to call you about just to bother with at home on our breaks.

Regardless of all this I realized that I didn't learn how to do this in school, college can't teach you how to toughen up when calling parents or to be relentless when trying to find a phone number and not give up calling until you are satisfied. To not take it personally when that student withdraws because you picked on him.

I made those calls to benefit my kids and I it wasn't easy, I still get that weird feeling in my stomach and will for a while but I was proud of myself for sticking to my principles an following through this week.