First Teacher/Parent Conference

I finally heard from my parent whose child I had to give a strike. My neighbor teachers told me that I probably would not hear from her, but Idid. I left a message on her phone and asked her to come in for a conference. She came. It was good visit. She wants her child to do well in school. I told her that I also want him to do well. We both agreed to work with him for improvement. I really felt good after the conference. She was not angry or defensive. I tried to be supportive and caring. My mom has been in the education business for a long time. She always says that kids don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. She also says that when you are good to their kids, parents respond in a positive way. I think that she has something there.

Something else that I have learned is that teachers must be flexible. I consider myself a very organized, ordered person. I like to plan and follow my plan; however, in the classroom things occur and you must "monitor and adjust." This week, I learned that my method of getting the attention of elementary students is not fool proof. I told my students that when I blow my whistle, they are to get quiet. Well, it works in varying degrees. They get quiet; then little pockets of conversation start up. I discovered that if they sit down order is more consistent.

Working with my mentor has created some problems because of my schedule. Because I am on all three campuses, my prep time, which is only 40 minutes, is used to get to one campus or the other. We were going to meet during lunch for reflection on my teach, but she got tied up. We are going to try and meet Monday. One of the problems that I have with my elementary classes is that I only meet them once a week. Basically, I have 330 elementary kids, and I am having a hard time learning their names. My mentor and I have knocked around some ideas--one being name tags. You know the kind with the plastic holder and elastic band to loop around their knecks. But, with only 40 minutes of class time that would really eat into their PE instruction.