The other night was back to school night at our local high school. It is a twice a year ritual at our school because the school has a block schedule and each half-year term is like a full year of a particular course. The format is a series of 10 minute talks by the teachers organized by period. For example, the period 1 classes go first, etc.
I am amazed at the chaos this evening causes in most families in our area. First off, forget about being able to get both parents to attend. There are so many other activities – sports, jobs, etc. that one parent usually tries to go and the other is assigned taxi duty for the evening.
Second, the parking is crazy. We live in walking distance so my wife gets to go on over, but for about 1 mile away from the school building there are cars parked in dangerous positions along the road.
Third, there is nothing done by the school to make accommodations for multiple kids in the school so that a parent can meet their child’s teachers. The event is organized around periods with passing periods and a general time to see the library and other resources like the theater. However, if you have two kids in the high school, you can’t be in two places at once. Many parents try to be tactical with other parents who they know share a class with one of their kids. The old “can you go and take notes for me?” idea.
To me, the whole idea is kind of broken. One objective is to let the parents know what they can expect from the class. This is a good idea. A second objective is to let the parents see the teacher up close and personal and to let the teachers see the parents. This is also a good thing. A third objective is to let the parents know how they can help the teachers; help in this case could be monetary, time in the classroom, or just working with the students at home. Again, a really good thing.
But, the idea of giving each only 10 minutes to do all of this just does not work anymore in this day and age. Better in my mind to empower each teacher by giving them a blog site and software to do a video podcast. Parents without computer or Internet access can be given a DVD with all the podcasts on it to play in their DVD player. Then, the school can put together a reception where the teachers can hang out to meet the parents in a more informal setting. Perhaps there can be weekly town hall meetings with a few teachers rotating into the town hall to answer questions.
The blog sites and the podcasts can be a constant resource for the parents, who will probably forget most of what the teacher said anyway.
On the devil’s advocate side, I know there are many people who are bemoaning the lack of human contact engendered by digital media / tools. School seems to be a last bastion of the good old days and they don’t want to tinker with the format of things too much. But, there is no reason why things can’t be done to augment the current format to at least help parents who want the information, but can’t make it back to school.
For me, this is a better way…
#1 by Tom Dibble - May 19th, 2008 at 13:11
The same problem exists in the lower grades too. Our elementary school has all parents sit in their kid’s desk chair (highly uncomfortable for parents) to get an overhead projector-driven presentation on what will happen in the class and walk-through of paper handouts. Following that, you can get in line to talk with the teacher.
The only thing I learn from the current approach is that if our kids had to sit in chairs too small for their bodies and their teachers taught from powerpoints all day, I’d need to be pulling them out of that school fast!
They accommodate multiple kids in school by having two sessions, but for some of us that still isn’t enough and we still have to divide-and-conquer.
I’d much rather receive the documents in an email or on DVD, review them at home in a chair which fits my adult-sized body, and then have a meet/greet with the other parents and teacher scheduled on a “convenient” night o the week. Of course, at least 75% of the parents would never show up to the meet/greet, but that’s about the percentage who just leave after the presentation anyway.