My favourite day

March 27, 2007 · No Comments

Tomorrow is parent, student, teacher conference day. It is, bar none, one my most favourite days of the year. But more on that later. In my 16 years of teaching, I’ve seemed to have gone backwards in how these are done. When I first started, they were the typical parent and teacher talking about the student. Things were discussed and then the parent went home and who really knew what was said. Now, this was no different than when I was going to school. You just hoped that it was all good!!

In the second school I was in, we began to move away from this model. We started out with the whole idea of a conference with all the parties involved. We then moved this to an evening and morning session and finally to two evening sessions twice a year. We eventually began to introduce portfolios and moved to celebrations of learning, which just freaked out some parents. They wanted to have a “meeting” later to discuss any “situations” that might be occurring. They didn’t get that, if there were any problems, we were to have contacted them well before that date. They were there to see what their child was doing in school and how their child was progressing. While we were doing this, I thought the world of education was following suit. I was wrong.

In the last 5 schools that I have been a member of the staff, I have introduced the whole idea of “parent/student/teacher” conferences and moved from a full day of interviews to at least one evening and one morning. In one school I had to force the issue and needed to actually
discuss what was best for the students and their parents because the teachers didn’t want to give up an evening. It has been absolutely amazing at how hard it has been to convince people, school boards in particular, to
change this little thing. I’ve had to do a graphic analysis of the “improvement” in attendance to show that it was worth the change. At a close look, it is very scary how schools have had almost no change in this area since Moses. (Well, he interviewed with God but he was home schooled!) We “talk” about how we need to include students in so many things but when it comes to the real meaningful areas, talking about their schooling, what they are doing, what we/they might try to change, they stay home and sleep in, watch tv or message one another. Makes me want to scream!!!!

With that said, the whole idea of portfolios is still a foreign concept in many schools. Oh, they talk about a portfolio but these are not examples of all the student’s work. Instead, they are usually showcase portfolios that show the students best work. The school that I’m in had started on portfolios but we’re still all over the map and need to do some clarifying of what type of portfolio we want to create. Now, because we are a K - 12 school, we have the unique challenge of
having parents in the middle years and senior classes attend these conferences but usually by themselves. Our portfolio work is even weaker at this level. The teachers are
more comfortable with the classic interview style and really don’t want to venture from this path. This being said, with some discussion and the
retirement of a staff member or two, the chances of us moving to the portfolio style interview becomes much greater. The teachers remaining, I believe, can see the benefits of students accumulating a portfolio that they can use to demonstrate their proficiencies and the areas they need work. In the elementary end, we need to move away from the whole showcase thing. The Celebration of Learning is such a great way to have parents actually participate in what is going on at school. That is where I pin my vision.

So tomorrow, I go to school and spend the day visiting and talking to parents. This is one of my favourite days. I take teachers coffee, juice and snacks. Colour with the siblings in the hall. Read stories on one of our reading couches and then wander to the gym to see how the senior “conferences” are going. I spend time there talking with parents and trying to get a sense of how they see things going at the school. My goal this year is to try to get a positive point from each parent that I can put up in the staffroom as examples of the fine job the staff does. I enjoy the interaction and the time with the parents. I find it relaxing and hope that this comes across and helps the parents to relax about what we are doing. In a perfect world, the parents would see their child’s portfolio regularly, comment on the work and we’d have regular bi-monthly evenings where parents would stop by and go through what was happening in the classes and what was going to be coming up. I’d also like to see our older students creating eportfolios but we’ll have to wait until our IT department figures out if technology is going to be driven by education or if education will be driven by technology. Right now, we’re not sure. I have so many ideas for getting past all this “secrecy” of schooling and avoid the “tension” of what is happening in the rooms and halls. My problem is that I don’t have the time to get all these things going.

That reminds me, Dave Truss pointed out that

I noticed in an earlier post that exercise was something you wanted to prioritize… and I wonder if you are going to follow through on it? This is where I struggle most in my personal life as it relates to family, work and interests that take so much of my time. Why does personal fitness always get pushed to the side?

To answer the first part of this, yes I am going to follow through on this. I have picked up where I left off in my gym routine and I am now playing sports twice a week in the school gym. On Mondays we play adult badminton and Thursdays we are playing floorhockey. There are a group of us who are trying to get ready for the “summer” meaning we want to try to at least fit into our swimming suits from last year without embarassing ourselves. How do I fit this in? Well, as you may have noted earlier, I’m really trying to do early mornings. So far it has been, well, miserable. My snooze button is almost worn out. But, little victories, I am getting up earlier and earlier each day and going to bed earlier and earlier. I’m leaving work at work by trying to reschedule my time to be more productive. I’m doing my class related work in the morning. I do my calls and other such “connecting” at about 10:00. I paper shuffle right after lunch. Now, my class visits range all through the day as I’m really working on the 3 Minute Walk-Through. In reality, my walk throughs are about 5 - 7 minutes and my notes take about 10. I try to do at least 2 classes a day. Now, this gets messed up when I have to do administration things like catch the mystery pee-er in our elementary end or have those “parental” talks with one of my 18 year olds who has no adults in his life to help him.
So, my workouts are now right after school at about 4:30pm. I find that this is a really slow time of day and my own kids are usually out doing something at this time. It doesn’t always work but at leastI have a plan!!!