As a teacher mentor, I have the benefit of witnessing lots of different interactions between educators and students, educators and families, and educators and other educators; these interactions also provide lots of examples of communication that works and communication that doesn’t. Before I had the benefit of this role, however, I assumed that most family-teacher conferences—even the ones where the child in question was struggling—went essentially the same way. I attended a conference many years ago that altered my perception and led me to a few conclusions about how to rethink the goals of a family-teacher conference.
A third-grade teacher asked me to sit in at this conference because I had worked extensively with an African-American student in her class and had a good relationship with him. The student’s mother was coming in to meet with this teacher, who had several concerns she wanted to discuss.
When the mother sat down at the table, the teacher launched into a 20-minute tirade. She recounted all of the things the student was doing wrong: missing assignments, paying little attention in class, disrupting other students’ learning and receiving piles of discipline referral slips. My colleague had an agenda: to press upon this mother the extent of her son’s troublesome behavior. She never noticed the parent growing more and more visibly defensive. At the end of the conference, the teacher told the student’s mother what she needed to do to turn her son around. The mother thanked the teacher and left.
After the mother had gone, the teacher said disgustedly, “I knew it! She’s not going to do anything about this.” Sadly, she was right, but not for the reasons this teacher thought.
I left the conference having realized some critical aspects of planning conferences designed to meet the goal of supporting the students—rather than impressing upon family members that their child is a problem. Here are three:
1) Listen first to build bridges.
Conferences provide an essential opportunity to establish a partnership with family members in the child’s education. We know that two or three adults can have enormous influence over the life of the child; by working together this influence can be positive.
After witnessing this conference, I came to the conclusion that these conversations are ideal opportunities to learn more about families and their situations; these conversations require active listening skills. Just allowing a few minutes at the start of the conference for family members to talk and respond to questions communicates volumes about how much the teacher values their input.
2) Use the “sandwich” approach.
Not one minute of the twenty-minute conference I observed was spent sharing anything positive about the student. The teacher wanted an opportunity to vent about this challenging student; she used the conference as her forum and the parent as an audience, not a partner.
A different approach would have been to use the “sandwich” metaphor for delivering difficult information. In the “sandwich,” the two pieces of bread represent genuinely positive things to share, and the stuff in the middle is an area (or areas) to focus on. Word to the wise: Your students' families are extremely busy people. Limit the number of areas to focus on as much as possible. At this conference, after the teacher launched into a fourth complaint, even I stopped listening. Pick a couple of key areas that will make the most impact.
3) Conferences are about the future, not the past.
The colleague I observed spent no time setting up the student for success in the future. She basically laid blame with judgmental language and words, and then just depended on the parent to change the student’s behavior herself.
Conferences are all about setting a course for the next few months, not merely a reflection of yesterday. Prior to conferences, teachers need to reflect on areas they want students to grow in and how the family can help them get there. Even more critical is allowing family members to express their visions for their child. By hearing their hopes for the upcoming months, a more productive plan can be made to realize both visions. This might include regular phone check-ins, homework sign-offs and using consistent language and incentives between home and school.
The mother and her son—in whom I had seen several positive qualities during our work together—deserved much more out of that family-teacher conference. They deserved a bridge reaching out to them, and not a roadblock creating barriers between the family and the school. My hope is that by sharing this observation I can help more families experience bridges and more students experience success.
Hiller is a mentor to first- and second-year teachers in Oregon and a member of the Teaching Tolerance Advisory Board.