If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
Teachers duties
As a prospective teacher (hopefully in division one {grade's k-3]), I
would like to ask parents if they would like to see teacher's doing a lot more in schools. Is frequent communication with the teacher something that is very important to you? Thanks, Tasha |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
Teachers duties
"Tasha" wrote in message ... As a prospective teacher (hopefully in division one {grade's k-3]), I would like to ask parents if they would like to see teacher's doing a lot more in schools. Is frequent communication with the teacher something that is very important to you? Tasha, you might be interested in this article: http://www.kingcountyjournal.com/sit...ry/html/159460. Warm Regards, Claire Petersky Please replace earthlink for mouse-potato and .net for .com Home of the meditative cyclist: http://home.earthlink.net/~cpetersky/Welcome.htm See the books I've set free at: http://bookcrossing.com/referral/Cpetersky |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
Teachers duties
|
#4
|
|||
|
|||
Teachers duties
In article , Tasha wrote:
As a prospective teacher (hopefully in division one {grade's k-3]), I would like to ask parents if they would like to see teacher's doing a lot more in schools. Is frequent communication with the teacher something that is very important to you? I like to get weekly newsletters (paper or e-mail) from the teacher about what the class is doing, what field trips are coming up, what the kids will be studying, ... . The newsletter can be combined with the weekly homework assignment. In addition, I like to get feedback from the teacher specifically about my child. This can be in the form of graded homework, daily behavior reports (red/yellow/green), or other forms as appropriate. I like to have an e-mail address for the teacher, for communication that takes longer than 10 seconds at the beginning or end of the day. For example, in my son's current school, I had volunteered to help out with cutting refrigerator boxes for the kids to make a model community, and the teacher needed to change the time (he'd forgotten about the kids' music performance that morning). Having an e-mail exchange confirming the new time was by far the easiest way to deal with it. I read the article at http://www.kingcountyjournal.com/sit...ry/html/159460 about the new book "Teaching on Poverty Rock" and I'm not sure I'd like to have that teacher as my son's teacher. While I can sympathize with a teacher's desire to be free of unreasonable demands, I'm a parent who likes to know what is going on in the kid's classroom---and I can't get any information from my son, so volunteering an hour a week to help out in the classroom is a valuable way for me to stay connected with my son's education. -- Kevin Karplus http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus life member (LAB, Adventure Cycling, American Youth Hostels) Effective Cycling Instructor #218-ck (lapsed) Professor of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics Affiliations for identification only. |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
Teachers duties
In article ,
Tasha wrote: As a prospective teacher (hopefully in division one {grade's k-3]), I would like to ask parents if they would like to see teacher's doing a lot more in schools. Is frequent communication with the teacher something that is very important to you? I'm a little confused by your question about parents wanting teachers to do "a lot more" in schools. Most of the teachers I've known over the years are constantly juggling way too much. Communication is definitely important in my book. There are three "levels" of this IMO: 1) overview of a teacher's style and expectations, generally provided early in the school year. This would include things like homework schedules/policies, disciplinary approach, etc. 2) regular notices about "current events" in the classroom, such as the weekly newsletter another poster mentioned. 3) individual communication about an individual child. The latter is of course the hardest to fit in on a regular basis. The other thing that is important for me in a teacher is the ability to deal effectively with the range of student abilities found in any given class. I expect a teacher to get to know each child's abilities, strengths and weaknesses, and to customize the presentation/expectations accordingly. I realize that this is a tall order, but to me this is the single most important quality for a teacher to possess, and I consider it the mark of an excellent teacher. Robyn (mommy to Ryan 9/93 and Matthew 6/96 and Evan 3/01) -- "Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing." -- Theodore Roosevelt |
#6
|
|||
|
|||
Teachers duties
|
#7
|
|||
|
|||
Teachers duties
Tasha wrote:
As a prospective teacher (hopefully in division one {grade's k-3]), I would like to ask parents if they would like to see teacher's doing a lot more in schools. Is frequent communication with the teacher something that is very important to you? Thanks, Tasha Yes. I always enjoy when a teacher can put together a brief weekly newsletter - here's what we're studying now, the student of the week is, here are some supplies we could use. Our teachers also all have e-mail, and I use that to check in on things that don't merit a phone call. If my kids had any problems, I'd want to know about it from the teacher's end before it got out of hand. Lesley |
#8
|
|||
|
|||
Teachers duties
"Tasha" wrote in message ... (Robyn Kozierok) wrote in message ... In article , Tasha wrote: As a prospective teacher (hopefully in division one {grade's k-3]), I would like to ask parents if they would like to see teacher's doing a lot more in schools. Is frequent communication with the teacher something that is very important to you? I'm a little confused by your question about parents wanting teachers to do "a lot more" in schools. Most of the teachers I've known over the years are constantly juggling way too much. Communication is definitely important in my book. There are three "levels" of this IMO: 1) overview of a teacher's style and expectations, generally provided early in the school year. This would include things like homework schedules/policies, disciplinary approach, etc. 2) regular notices about "current events" in the classroom, such as the weekly newsletter another poster mentioned. 3) individual communication about an individual child. The latter is of course the hardest to fit in on a regular basis. The other thing that is important for me in a teacher is the ability to deal effectively with the range of student abilities found in any given class. I expect a teacher to get to know each child's abilities, strengths and weaknesses, and to customize the presentation/expectations accordingly. I realize that this is a tall order, but to me this is the single most important quality for a teacher to possess, and I consider it the mark of an excellent teacher. Robyn (mommy to Ryan 9/93 and Matthew 6/96 and Evan 3/01) Thanks for the reply! I agree with what you say about communication. The three points in your response are very important to me when communicating to parents and students. However, there are many teachers who fail to communicate in these specific ways, and this is possibly why I have heard many parents speak about teachers doing more in terms of communication. I also agree that teachers are constantly juggling too much, but sometimes I feel that parents expect teachers to do more than what they are already doing. I have spoken to a lot of parents who think that the summer break teachers receive is too long and during this time they should be participating in school related conferences, ect. Tasha In my experience, most do. This will be the first summer since I started teaching that I will not be spending at least 4 weeks of full-time days on graduate work at my own expense, and the only reason why I'm not this summer is that I am not allowed to travel due to pregnancy. Continuing education and certification requirements effectively require this, because it is next to impossible to meet them during the school year on your own time, and anything done during the school day does not count for continuing certification. I don't think most people are aware of what the requirements for teachers are, or what teachers actually DO with "all that time off". I average 40 hour weeks even during the summer session, when I am not paid, just on preparation for next year. During the school year, it's closer to 80 hour weeks. |
#9
|
|||
|
|||
Teachers duties
LFortier wrote in message ...
Tasha wrote: As a prospective teacher (hopefully in division one {grade's k-3]), I would like to ask parents if they would like to see teacher's doing a lot more in schools. Is frequent communication with the teacher something that is very important to you? Thanks, Tasha Yes. I always enjoy when a teacher can put together a brief weekly newsletter - here's what we're studying now, the student of the week is, here are some supplies we could use. Our teachers also all have e-mail, and I use that to check in on things that don't merit a phone call. If my kids had any problems, I'd want to know about it from the teacher's end before it got out of hand. Lesley I've thought about giving parents a call at home (sometime in the evening)at the beginning of the year to introduce myself. As parents, would you like it if a teacher did this, or would you prefer it if the teacher just stuck to a newsletter? Tasha |
#10
|
|||
|
|||
Teachers duties
In article , Tasha wrote:
I've thought about giving parents a call at home (sometime in the evening)at the beginning of the year to introduce myself. As parents, would you like it if a teacher did this, or would you prefer it if the teacher just stuck to a newsletter? The few times a teacher has called us at home, we've had a moment of panic (what's he done now?), even if the call is about something innocuous. Also, the phone calls always come when we are eating or trying to get our son to bed. I can't speak for other parents (and indeed, the sample of mkm parents may be highly non-representative on this issue), but I greatly prefer getting e-mail to phone calls, unless immediate action or discussion is needed. My son's public-school teachers never used e-mail (though I think some of them had e-mail, they did not have particularly easy access). His teacher at the private school (Meridian School in Seattle) has sent me 10 messages in 3 weeks, and I'm not even on the all-parent e-mail list. The messages were informative: a list of supplies to buy before the first day, rescheduling an event, request for parent volunteers, passing my e-mail address on to some other parents who were coordinating one of the projects, scheduling some volunteer activity for me, and telling me about an unscheduled performance by my son (he read his poem to the whole school and was videotaped reading the poem by a professional film crew who are doing a short documentary about one of the school's activities). Personally, I greatly prefer the approach of the private-school teacher. The e-mail doesn't seem to interfere with his other teaching duties either---he's much more diligent about returning graded homework than the public-school teachers were. (OK, he has only 16 students instead of 20, but that doesn't explain all the difference.) -- Kevin Karplus http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus life member (LAB, Adventure Cycling, American Youth Hostels) Effective Cycling Instructor #218-ck (lapsed) Professor of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics Affiliations for identification only. |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Review: Disney's Teacher's Pet (**) | Steve Rhodes | General | 0 | January 17th 04 11:46 PM |
Spanking Course For Teachers | Chris | General | 1 | November 24th 03 02:23 PM |
idea for teachers | Vicki S | General | 12 | November 13th 03 09:33 PM |
Get to Know YOUR Children's Teachers! | Mother Henrietta Hickey | General | 16 | September 30th 03 03:53 PM |
Requesting teachers, was Starting Kindergarten | Ericka Kammerer | General | 7 | August 11th 03 02:16 AM |