Friday, I called home to two parents.
I set a goal early in the week (6:30 a.m. Saturday morning) to communicate positive feedback to parents of students who are doing particularly well. To be honest, my goal was set only to have a third goal for the week.
It turned out to be an awesome experience and one I plan to continue.
If you are a student teacher, you are probably scared or unsure of what to say to parents even if you are calling to tell them their child is succeeding.
Here are some tips from my experience:
1. Say hello and introduce yourself
For example, I said, "Hi. Is this the parent of _____? (They said yes.) I said, "My name is Miss Gibson and I have ____ in my Newspaper 1-2 class.
2. Tell them why you are calling
For example, I said, "I am just calling to let you know ___ has really improved this week as far as speaking during class discussions and I really appreciate her feedback. I just wanted to you to know she is doing well."
3. Realize they will probably be shocked that you are calling for a GOOD reason
Be prepared to restate what you just said in different terms. I think I had to repeat myself twice to both parents because they needed a second time to comprehend what I was saying.
Calling parents was a wonderful experience. It really showed me that there are parents who want to be involved in their child's education and want to hear how their child is doing.
What would it look like if more teachers were proactive about contacting parents instead of reactive to problems when they occur?
Nothing short of amazing, I'll say.
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Great work on this, Jincy. In fact, it's something us veteran teachers could do a better job of. You're setting a good example.
ReplyDeleteI wholeheartedly agree--keep up the awesome work!
ReplyDeleteWonderful Plan! Positive feedback promotes positive growth! Keep uo the good work!
ReplyDeleteI have to make a lot of negative calls home. One of my mentors suggested that I should try to make my positive and negatives calls one-to-one. I haven't quite succeeded, but it really does make a difference in my day and the student's and the parent's day to hear about the positive going on. I had one parent breathe a sigh of relief and tell me that I was the first teacher to compliment her son. He only continued to improve for the remainder of the time he was in my class. It was a remarkable feeling and got me through the rest of the negative calls!
ReplyDeleteJanet