Teacher to Teacher

There are several benefits to parent-teacher conferences.  Parent-teacher conferences help build relationships, making it easier for parents and teachers to initiate contact.  Conferences provide parents with ideas to help their children.  Conferences help teachers to better understand their students.  All of these benefits are realized through effective communication.

Sean Covey, in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens (1999), reminds us that communication involves much more than what we say.  As the saying goes, “Actions speak louder than words.”  Only 7% of what is communicated is in words. 53% of the communication comes from body language and about 40% comes from the tone and feeling reflected in our voices.  These statistics remind us to be aware of the messages we may be communicating beyond our words.

These statistics also remind us of why email is not always the best choice for communicating.  Email messages are easily misconstrued because recipients are missing the supporting information that our facial expressions, body language, and voice inflections provide.  Email should only be used to communicate information with no emotion.  Whenever there is the potential for emotion to become a player in the communication, pick up the phone or schedule a face-to-face conference.

Stever Robbins, the Get-It-Done Guy, provides a sample list of messages best delivered face-to-face:

• Any judgment about a person or the quality of their work.
• Any topic where you think the other person might lie.
• Any message that manages the relationship itself.  In business, this would be layoffs, demotions, promotions, or hiring offers.  In school this would be student behavior issues.  In personal life, breakups, proposals, making up, etc.
• Positive evaluations and “Thank you”s.
• Politics, religion, or other issues where people have few facts but lots of opinions.

The flip side of talking during a face-to-face or phone conversation is listening.  Covey (1999) identifies five types of listening:

• Pretend listening—We aren’t really listening to what the person is saying, but we act like we are by making comments at critical junctures and by nodding as if we are listening.
• Spaced out listening—Someone is talking to us, but we don’t hear because we are caught up in our own thoughts.
• Selective listening—We only pay attention to the parts of the conversation that interest us.
• Word listening–We are actually hearing what the other person is saying, but ignore their body language and the tone of their voice.
• Self-centered listening—We listen to what the other person is saying, but from our point of view.  We wait for a break in the conversation to tell our story.

It is important that the listener hold up his part of the conversation by truly listening to the other person and trying to understand his point of view.  Covey (1999), suggests:

• Listen with your eyes and your ears. Listen to the person’s words, but also to what they are not saying.  Pay attention to the other person’s body language and tone of voice.
• Stand in their shoes.  Effective listening also includes trying to see the situation from the other person’s point of view.
• Practice mirroring.  A mirror reflects.  Repeat back in your own words what the other person is saying and feeling.  A few sentence stems to help you mirror are:

• As I get it, ….
• So, as I see it,….
• I can see that you are feeling….
• So, what you’re saying is….

When you understand where the other person in the conversation is coming from, then you can try to make yourself understood.

A key to successful home/school relations is regular, two-way communication.  As a teacher, what can you do to make sure this happens?

References

Covey, S. (1999). The seven habits of highly effective teens.  New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Robbins, S. (2009, December 1). Which form of communication should you use in the workplace?  Retrieved from http://getitdone.quickanddirtytips.com/communication-skills-in-the-workplace.aspx.

Although the school year is just getting underway, it’s not too early to think about parent and teacher communications as well as the upcoming parent-teacher conferences.  Here are a few tips and resources to help you communicate with parents and help them become your partner rather than remain a bystander or become a foe.

Debbie Fly, an experienced teacher, writes about a mnemonic she uses to help her with conferences in an ASCD Classroom Leadership article:  “The ABCs of Parent-Teacher Conferences.”

A—Always begin and end a conference on a positive note.

B—Be courteous; don’t talk negatively about other students or teachers.

C—Chairs should be arranged so that there are no barriers between you and the parents.

I think Debbie was wise to add a fourth letter to the list:  T for Treat parents the way you would like to be treated.  If we keep this idea in mind in our interactions with parents, as well as with students, co-workers, and anyone else we encounter, we’ll be well on our way to establishing great working relationships with one another.

Debbie also uses email as a way to communicate with parents.  Parents sometimes feel less intimidated through email and are more willing to express their thoughts.  It also might provide an alternative to face-to-face meetings.  However, I would add a caveat to this way of communicating.  Email messages lack the body language and voice inflections present in face-to-face communication.  Sometimes the sender and the recipient of an email might be in different emotional states of mind at the time they are interacting with the email.  Since the email lacks body language and voice inflection, it’s easy for a recipient to read more into the email than is actually there.  This can lead to confusion, anger or hurt feelings.  Therefore, read your email before you send it to look for possible words or phrases that could be misinterpreted.  Then read it again.  Then read it one more time.

When reading emails from parents, give parents the benefit of the doubt.  Try not to infer negative intentions from the emails.  However, if there is no doubt that the message is meant to be insulting or inflammatory, remember that your response needs to be professional.  Remember:  we need to treat parents the way we want to be treated.  In fact, it is probably best not to answer the email with another email, but instead arrange for a face-to-face conference with the parent.  Email is never the way to work through a disagreement.

Addie Gains has an informative powerpoint about parent-teacher conferences at EducationWorld.  Addie reminds us that the purposes of these conferences is to provide the opportunity for communication between parents and the teacher, to build cooperative relationships, to provide parents with ideas to help their children’s school performance, to allow the teacher to understand the child better, and to establish a relationship that makes it easier for parents and teachers to initiate contact with one another.

So, what do parents want to know about you?  Addie tries to remember three Cs:  Competence, Confidence, and Compassion.

Parents want to know that you’re competent.  If you show you are competent, parents will trust and respect you.  In order to show parents at a conference that you are competent, think through these questions:

• Are you organized and prepared?
• Do you have student work examples?
• Are you knowledgeable?
• Are you on time?
• Do you have helpful materials?

Parents want to that you’re confident.  If you exude confidence, parents and students will have more confidence in you.  Consider these questions when thinking about conveying confidence:

• Do you feel comfortable conducting the conferences?
• Are you relaxed, thereby putting parents at ease?
• Are you a willing, active listener?
• Are you in a problem-solving, “teamwork” frame of mind?
• Did you leave defensive words and responses at home?

Parents want to know that you are compassionate.  Here are some questions to think about when it comes to showing your compassion:

• Do you show that you genuinely care about the child?
• Are you warm and welcoming?
• Are you smiling?
• Are you friendly?
• Is your room arranged comfortably?

I’ll continue with this topic next week with information on effective communication.

Resources to help you prepare for conferences:

Preparing for a Parent-Teacher Conference:  A Teacher’s Checklist for a Successful Parent Meeting

http://www.suite101.com/content/preparing-for-a-parentteacher-conference-a71880

Parent-Teacher Conferences:  A Checklist for Success

http://www.d158.net/ParentsPage/Parent-TeacherConferences.pdf

Parent-Teacher Conference Outline/Checklist

http://www.homeofbob.com/cman/tchrTls/parntTchrConf.html

A Parent’s Checklist from Scholastic

http://www.scholastic.com/familymatters/parentguides/schoolinvolve/pdf/ParentTeacherConference.doc.pdf