Parent-Teacher Interviews...if you can call them that.

The only thing that resembles an interview on Parent-Teacher Interview nights is the seating arrangement. Eg: 1 person on one side of the desk and the other people on the other side. Who, I ask, is being interviewed? Is it the teacher? Are they being questioned about their teaching methods and how they get the best out of students? Is it the parents? Why are your children like this and why are you sending them to me? Is it the student? How are you going to improve and what can you do to make my classroom run smoothly? Perhaps they should be renamed, as many educationalists have proposed. Student interviews? Student/Teacher/Parent consultations? Parents being told what they want to hear sessions? Or what about Teachers too scared to say anything too honest and candid in case the parent erupts and they then have to spend 10 minutes consoling them while other parents and teachers look on? I would rather have a structure where I talk with the parent about the child (pretending the student is not there) and then open the discussion up to include the child, allowing them to offer some insight and understanding into how they feel they are going and why. Perhaps a proforma could be filled in that allows the students to suggest three changes/improvements that they could make. The teacher and parents could do the same thing. It would be like an informal contract, I suppose.

I also find it really disconcerting during Parent-Teacher interviews to talk to the parent as if the student isn't there, and then direct comments to the student as if they are there and then swap between these two throughout the discussion. I suspect that all teachers do this. I feel rude if I don't acknowledge the student, however, the parent has come down to listen to me talk to only the student and not them as well. So I will work on this...

I'm listening now to another English teaching talking about how well the student paragraphs etc. and I'm thinking "I never talk about the technical parts of their English skills". Should I be? I usually comment on their behaviour in class, attitude to the work and how creative and complex their work is. I never really give specific reference to their skills. Maybe I need to work on this.

A funny story I heard yesterday from one of the Year 8 students was at last year's parent teacher interviews, a mother came out on an interview with our "Dapper Dan" PE teacher and said "That man thinks he is God's gift to women!". Apparently he had been flirting with her the whole time!! Classic!

Parent-Teacher interviews schminterviews!

Bye for now...
M x