Monday, November 2, 2009

Vicious Cycle

The schools up north I taught at would have parent teacher conferences where us teacher people would meet with parents for 10-15 minutes each to give them a glimpse as to what we see from their student. We would do this for several hours into the night. Most of the time we saw parents who needed that extra pat on the back for good parenting and rarely saw the parents whom we needed/wanted to see to resolve issues. Those were truly exhausting nights. Down here the schools do not do marathon conference nights but have parents schedule a conference for just after the school day finishes at their convenience. I think I am stuck in a conference rut as all my after school days have a conference booked by parents unless there is a meeting of some sort (faculty, department, committee, etc.). So here is that ugly cycle: student feels they are doing poorly for (insert whatever reason here), they complain to Mom/Dad. Mom/Dad schedules a conference - my after school time gets booked. During said conference it is usually mentioned about teachers having office hours or when they are available to help struggling students. My reply is that I am available in the mornings since my after noons are booked with conferences or meetings. Student never comes in during the wee morning hours and nothing changes. :(

1 comment:

Margie M. said...

I spent about 10 years being a classroom volunteer at my kid's elementary school. Then I became a paid Instructional Aide for 5 years at the same school. I know exactly what you are talking about. You sort of want to just bang your head against the wall sometimes. It seems the feeling out there is to let the teacher do it all. Oh...and don't bother me (the parent) I'm a working mother/father. Like the teacher isn't???? Remember your title...Do your best and leave the rest.