Parentless Children
Parent-teacher conference night might have proven successful if I had some parents to conference with. Out of five classes I have over a hundred students, yet only five parents come on a good night. Sometimes only two or three grace me with their presence. The parents that do attend are not the ones I really need to speak with. The ones I do meet are parents of good students. Students who received an A or B in the class that marking period. They are doing the right thing. Most of the time I spent the three hours in the hallway directing parents to other classrooms or watching the hands on the clock fall slowly signaling my time to go home.
I made the mistake of complaining to the administrator saying it was a waste of time for me to be there if parents did not attend. I wasn’t surprised when she told me that I had a bad attitude about the situation. “You’re being awfully presumptuous”, she said. “Just because parents don’t attend doesn’t mean that they don’t care”. My administrator, Sandra always had a way of making me feel worse with every interaction. Maybe they were busy she said with work or other obligations. Understandable once, but every marking period we host the same parent-teacher conference night and I stand in my classroom waiting to talk to someone, but no one comes. Ultimately the conversation ended with it being my fault. the parents that didn’t speak English were intimidated to come meet me because of the language barrier. The parents that weren’t educated didn’t feel comfortable talking to me because of my education. So, if I spoke Spanish and was less educated then maybe I would have some parents to talk with. Maybe then they would meet me to talk about their child’s education.
It’s not your “fault’ that you are more educated , but looking back, do you see any validity in what Sandra said? Even though she may not have delivered the message in the best possible way, there may have been a lot of reasons why the parents didn’t come, other than that they all just didn’t care. Sometime it could have been as simple as their parents never did so it wasn’t something they thought was necessary. Or maybe it would be a bad reflection on them like they were putting on airs as if they thought they were better than the other parents for showing up or that they thought their child was better. Sometimes when you don’t have much in the way of material things, all you have is the ability to save face in front of your peers. As Atticus Finch said in the book To KIll A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, ““You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
I agree. I’m sure there were a number of reasons that the parents didn’t come. I don’t blame them entirely. I was just trying to express the frustrations of a teacher who wanted to reach out to them. It wasn’t only the parent-teacher conference nights either. Numerous phone calls unreturned, wrong numbers, letters home with no response made it virtually impossible to get any parental support. Ultimately, I think if it was a priority they would have been there. Everything else sounds like an excuse to me.
Joyce experienced the same thing when she used to teach in NYC many years ago.
Really? What did she do about it?
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Thank you.
Not sure. I will have to ask Joyce when I see her next. I’m sure she could share some interesting stories with you!
You should have Joyce check out my blog. I’d like to hear what she has to say.
I’ll send the link to Nancy and ask her to forward it to her mom.
I would not blame yourself for this one! I think the administrators need to look into why certain parents do not attend the parent conferences and perhaps, they need to make accomendations for these parents (example, if they only speak one lanuage get an intruprter)
You are right. The big question is “why”.
I always was concerned in this subject and still am, thanks for putting up.
Yes, it’s definitely a problem in our schools. In order to have an effective educational program there must be a partnership between educators and parents.
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Thank you for reading.
It takes a village: parents, teachers, and community, to raise a child.
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