Teachers duties

On Mon, 10 May 2004 19:12:55 EDT, (Tasha) wrote:

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



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?

Before you do something like that, I have some advice:

Ask around among your new colleagues and principal about what they do
to keep in touch with parents and whether they think this is a good
idea. Unless they think it's a good idea and similar to what others
do, don't do it. (In some schools or boards, it's a tradition for
teachers to visit all the JK families in September before each JK
pupil starts school.)

Think about what kind of boundaries you need between your work life
and your personal life, and how you're going to maintain them. If you
initiate calling parents at home, some of them may feel free to call
*you* at home later in the year when they have something on their
minds. You probably don't want that.

Be conscious that in your first year of teaching, many of the parents
you encounter will be older than you, more educated than you, and more
experienced with the school system than you. Get advice and practice
developing an air of authority where appropriate, while still letting
parents know that you value input from them about their kids. It is
really tricky to be appropriately respectful to parents, to
acknowledge when they're right and when you're wrong, and at the same
time not to inadvertently encourage some of them to push you around.

I don't know if you're aware of it now, but your first posting to this
thread had several spelling mistakes in it. If you find spelling and
grammar difficult, then you should *always* get proofreading help
before you send newsletters and notes home.

Louise
parent and university teacher

"Kevin Karplus" wrote in message
...
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.)

I love using e-mail, when my parents have it. My problem with parent
contacts is that not only do most of my parents not have e-mail at home
(although many have a yahoo or hotmail account they can access from the
public library, it isn't terribly useful for regular messages), many don't
have telephones at home. Which means that most of my communications with
parents are via memo and note, sometimes with a return reciept requested,
and just seeing them in the neighborhood (One of the best things I ever
started doing was doing my grocery shopping at the store nearest my
school-even though it's not the closest to my home. I've gotten to know more
parents positively when their child introduces me as their music teacher in
the frozen food section than at any meet the teachers nights!). Similarly, I
do go to some of the local community events, like the monthly meetings at
the Community center, and occasional concerts and special events at churches
near my school, just so the parents see me and can put a face to the
newsletters, memos, and lesson line (voice mail system where I can leave
messages for each of my classes-things like "The choir rehearsal schedule
for next week is "X"-make sure you wear or bring your choir uniform to
school on Thursday. We will be performing for the honors program at 1:00.
All parents are invited!".


It's important to make contacts with the parents as a teacher, but you do
have to see what works for the population you have.



--
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.

Kevin Karplus wrote:

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.

Cool! Sounds like things are going well for you. Is your son settling in okay?

--Helen (who LOVES teachers who use email)

In article , Donna Metler wrote:

"Kevin Karplus" wrote in message
...

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).
...
I love using e-mail, when my parents have it. My problem with parent
contacts is that not only do most of my parents not have e-mail at home
(although many have a yahoo or hotmail account they can access from the
public library, it isn't terribly useful for regular messages), many don't
have telephones at home.

That's probably why the public-school teachers didn't use e-mail.
Only about half the class had e-mail at home---the other half could
not afford it (some may have even had trouble paying for food and rent).
The school may have deliberately discouraged e-mail communication, to
avoid creating greater social divides between the haves and the have-nots.

--
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.

In article ,
Tasha wrote:
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'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?

Hmm, I'm not sure how I'd react to that. I think I'd prefer a newsletter
with your phone number or email if you're willing to have parents contact
you that way. Another possibility for introducing yourself would be an
open house kind.

--Robyn (mommy to Ryan 9/93 and Matthew 6/96 and Evan 3/01)

In article ,
Louise wrote:

I don't know if you're aware of it now, but your first posting to this
thread had several spelling mistakes in it. If you find spelling and
grammar difficult, then you should *always* get proofreading help
before you send newsletters and notes home.


I wasn't sure whether or not to mention it, but I noticed this too.
Some of my children's best teachers have been poor spellers, but I have
to admit that I am always very put off when I receive correspondence
from my children's teachers with grammar or spelling errors in it.
Louise's advice to get proofreading help if possible is excellent, IMO.

--Robyn

Robyn Kozierok wrote:
In article ,
Tasha wrote:

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'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?


Hmm, I'm not sure how I'd react to that. I think I'd prefer a newsletter
with your phone number or email if you're willing to have parents contact
you that way. Another possibility for introducing yourself would be an
open house kind.

Receiving a 'phone call early in the School year
before I got to know the teacher would be a little
off-putting to me. A little too much familiarity.
I don't mind getting calls during the school year,
after I've met the teacher. I would stick to
newsletters initially.

One things that DS's K teacher did that I really
liked was to organize a pot-luck dinner early in
the year for all the families in the class. They
were held in the classroom, at the school. I
enjoyed meeting the other parents, and it was
eye-opening as well to see the different parenting
styles and school expectations. This was also
a great time to get to know the teacher. DS
also had a parent-teacher journal that went back
and forth. If there was something we thought the
teacher should know about, we would write it in
the journal and send it along to school. Similarly,
his teacher wrote a little about DS's day in
school and sent it home. Almost every day, as I
recall. This was a class of 13 or 15, something
like that. I'm not sure how easy that would be
if a teacher had 20 students in a class.

Scott DD 10.8 and DS 8.2

In article ,
Scott wrote:

Receiving a 'phone call early in the School year
before I got to know the teacher would be a little
off-putting to me. A little too much familiarity.
I don't mind getting calls during the school year,
after I've met the teacher. I would stick to
newsletters initially.

I think it might depend whether or not the phone
call was expected. In my youngest's preschool,
it is standard procedure for the 2yos and 3yos
to have their teachers come for a home visit
before the children go to school for a "cubby
visit". This hime visit is arranged by phone,
but parents know to expect the teacher to call
and introduce herself, and set up the visit.
In that case it didn't seem weird. But a call
just out-of-the-blue from a teacher I hadn't
yet met might seem uncomfortable to me. Then
again, I'm not a big phone person.


Robyn (mommy to Ryan 9/93 and Matthew 6/96 and Evan 3/01)
--
Support a family business and learn about the technologies underlying
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"Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to
work hard at work worth doing." -- Theodore Roosevelt

"Scott" wrote in message
...
Robyn Kozierok wrote:
In article ,
Tasha wrote:

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'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?


Hmm, I'm not sure how I'd react to that. I think I'd prefer a
newsletter
with your phone number or email if you're willing to have parents
contact
you that way. Another possibility for introducing yourself would be an
open house kind.

Receiving a 'phone call early in the School year
before I got to know the teacher would be a little
off-putting to me. A little too much familiarity.
I don't mind getting calls during the school year,
after I've met the teacher. I would stick to
newsletters initially.

This just goes to show that a teacher -- even one trying really hard -- will
never please all the parents all the time. I would LOVE the chance to speak
one-on-one to a teacher at the start of the school year. Our district offers
no such opportunity; it's only group occasions (back to school night is
really it, actually). I LOVE phone calls from teachers. I wish it would be
standard operating procedure for teachers to call parents at least once
between conferences just to report how things seem to be going in general. I
hate bugging them unless I know there's a problem; that is, I would probably
not call just to say, "how's it going?" and when I'm in the clasroom
volunteering, I don't want to ask because it's private info, and the teacher
and I are both busy trying to get stuff done.



One things that DS's K teacher did that I really
liked was to organize a pot-luck dinner early in
the year for all the families in the class. They
were held in the classroom, at the school. I
enjoyed meeting the other parents, and it was
eye-opening as well to see the different parenting
styles and school expectations. This was also
a great time to get to know the teacher.

How so? I find these big events to be fairly useless except for some sort of
"community building," which is a fine goal but no substitute for meaningful
communication between teacher and parent about one's child. I find that the
stuff the teachers tell you at these events they could just as easily type
up and send home. I personally am not prepared to take up a teacher's time
at such an event with asking about her teaching approach and telling her the
details of my kid's educational needs/abilities/etc. It is nice to meet with
the teachers in a friendly, no-pressure environment, but must I cook for it?
; )


DS
also had a parent-teacher journal that went back
and forth. If there was something we thought the
teacher should know about, we would write it in
the journal and send it along to school. Similarly,
his teacher wrote a little about DS's day in
school and sent it home. Almost every day, as I
recall.

Sounds great!!

This was a class of 13 or 15, something
like that. I'm not sure how easy that would be
if a teacher had 20 students in a class.

Scott DD 10.8 and DS 8.2

Beth Gallagher wrote in :

Receiving a 'phone call early in the School year
before I got to know the teacher would be a little
off-putting to me.**A*little*too*much*familiarity.
I don't mind getting calls during the school year,
after I've met the teacher.**I*would*stick*to
newsletters initially.

This just goes to show that a teacher -- even one trying really hard --
will never please all the parents all the time. I would LOVE the chance to
speak one-on-one to a teacher at the start of the school year. Our
district offers no such opportunity; it's only group occasions (back to
school night is really it, actually). I LOVE phone calls from teachers. I
wish it would be standard operating procedure for teachers to call parents
at least once between conferences just to report how things seem to be
going in general.
[snip]

The idea of being rung up by a teacher seems really odd to me,
but would it work if the teacher sent home a letter with a specified
time for parents to ring up, such as between 5pm and 7pm on Wed 5th
September? I don't know how that would fit into your scheme of things.

--
Penny Gaines
UK mum to three