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Well, I have always held the position that parenting is not a competition. We as parents try and do the best we can. I will promise you, however, that by the time my kids are in high school, it won't be a "different story."
And I also know for sure that you are correct when saying that lots of stuff is a waste of time for parents of kids in school. Most of the time, however, you have no idea that it was a waste of time until after it's over. And what may have been a waste of time last year turns out to be invaluable the next year.
There's lots of stuff that I wish I wouldn't have wasted my time at...stupid movies, sitting for 15 minutes at the drive-thru because I am wearing pajama bottoms and don't want to go in (though everyone else who does is in and out in a matter of minutes), etc.
The parent/teacher conferences are usually 20 minutes and the high school "welcome nights" are about an hour (less if you don't stand around and socialize). In an ideal world, every minute of our day would be used to the maximum benefit and there would be no wasting of time. But we all know that a one-hour "waste of time" at a high school event once or twice a year for your kid is nothing compared to sitting in rush hour traffic every day or in a 2-hour line at Best Buy the day after Thanksgiving. Schools do the best they can and what may be a "waste of time" for you may be invaluable to someone else. You don't know until you get there.
High school is not the time to let your guard down and any great kid can end up on the wrong path before their parents even know what's going on.
I don't really know where to start. I NEVER said parenting was a competition. I am not sure how you could possibly get that from my post.
It will be a different story when she is in high school. It SHOULD be a different story when she is in high school. High school is different from elementary school. It's not a bad thing that it will be different. It is the natural progression of child development.
Parent/teacher conferences in elementary school are NOT the same as these mass conferences described by the others on this board. You can certainly learn a lot about your child when you go to a true conference that the teacher has had time to prepare especially for your child. You cannot learn all that much in 15 minutes when the teacher has not had the time to prepare especially for your child.
I am a teacher and a parent and I see little value in a conference that is not prepared especially for your child. I do regular conferences with parents and those are usually productive but I am very glad that neither the school I teach at, nor the school my son attends does this sort of thing. Parent night (or curriculum night) is more valuable because you get an idea of your child's schedule, the school, the environment at the school, etc..
It may only take an hour or so, but it can certainly throw a monkey wrench in your family's plans, especially when you have multiple children, who need to be driven to and picked up from different activites (some school related, others not). If it is not likely to be productive why bother even going?
Yes they are definitely not the same as elementary school. When my DD was in middle school I went to the first conference in 6th grade, after waiting around for over an hour I finally got to speak to one of her teachers and the only thing she did was whip out the grade book and recite to me what her grades were on various assignments and tests. I already had that information from online. This is a very nice feature that the schools started doing a couple years ago, you can see their grades on tests and asignments, as well as missing assignments and any tardies or absences. There was no personalization at all. So yes I see that as a waste of time.
I'm totally unfamiliar with the "mass conference" concept. What on earth would be the point for any parent? It's not as if you'll learn anything substantial.
And that's why it's pretty pointless to go. We already get a grade report every 3 weeks. If I don't know what is going on with my student 2 minutes with a teacher isn't going to help or solve anything. If I am keeping up the 2 minutes is pointless as well...either there is no need to meet with them or the need is such that we will need an individual conference to address serious issues.
I have 187 students!! I can't call or email every parent on a weekly basis like an elementary school teacher with a classroom of 30 students can. I do all I can to contact the parents of failing studetns. However, I think if the parents were truly interested in their child's education, they would make some sort of effort to contact me back, whether that be in person, via email, or over the phone.
As for not being aware of your son's conferences, were they also posted on the school's web site, the district web site, etc.? They are usually set way ahead of time. Our's have been scheduled since August.
I just wanted to say that you are aware that not everyone has Internet at home correct? My sister missed back to school night at my niece's school because they figured putting it on the website would be sufficient.
I go to my teenager's parent teacher conferences. Part of the reason for the low turnout might be that the parent's don't know when they are held. I can't think of too many teenagers who would ever pass on that information to their parents.
I go to my teenager's parent teacher conferences. Part of the reason for the low turnout might be that the parent's don't know when they are held. I can't think of too many teenagers who would ever pass on that information to their parents.
I agree with the first part. A lot of parents just aren't in the habit yet of checking the school's website for upcoming calendar events, or they assume that the school will call them if there's something coming up that parents need to know about. And a surprising number of parents are still not online. Our schools recently started sending out emails and this is a very useful reminder/tool for parents. If their kids are bringing home good grades and seem happy and content and aren't having any problems - from the home perspective on things - most parents figure everything is fine.
As for the last part, though, I think a lot of kids do pass on information to their parents but in my experiences with my kids and also talking with their friends parents and friends who have teenage kids... a lot of time the information isn't passed on in a timely manner. It comes up to like the last minute and the student goes, "Oh, mom, I forgot to tell you... here's a form you need to sign..." and it's information that you should have known about two weeks ago. That sort of thing is really common at the middle school age anyway, I don't know about the high school level. Once those puberty hormones kick-in it's like the kid's brains go off into la-la land and any sense of urgency for what are supposed to be high-priority items is lost. They start having other concerns like dating and appearance and their place in the crowd and friends and so on...
I think I did once, when my eldest was a freshman. I don't recall our high school actually holding this type of parent-teacher conference meetings, just more of an open-house-back-to-school thing where parents could see the campus and peek in at the classrooms. There wasn't time allowed for actually discussing a particular student or anything, they wanted you to make an appointment for that sort of thing. Once I saw the school I didn't feel the need to ever do it again. I had a kids in the school for 8 years and never needed a conference with anyone but there were a couple of emails back and forth.
I have a senior is hs this year and a sophmore in college. I usually attend the parent teacher conferences at the beginning of the year. The second semester is sometimes more difficult in the core subjects so I usually meet with the teacher if my child is struggling in a particular class. If she's getting getting an 'A' I don't see the point of meeting with the teacher unless I have questions about a project she's working on or future (college) plans,etc. (I have met a couple times in the past and the whole time I get to hear how wonderful she is...but I know that already.) It's not that I don't care, I think the teacher would rather use that time to meet with parents of students who are having a hard time. I don't want to waste their time.
We attend them for one of three reasons. 1. The particular child is having issues in a class or in school as a whole and we want to know what is going on or what we can do. 2. The teacher is teaching something or using techniques that we do not understand or think are improper or inapproriate and we want to have a discussion with the teacher before going to friends on the school board about the issue (we no longer go to the principal, in our experience, the principal will take the teacher's side every time and in every situation, however the principals tend to respond differently to an inquiry from the schoool board). 3. A child is really proud ot their work begin displayed at the conference or proud of they performance in class and wants us to see what they have acocmplished.
For most of our kids, most of the time, the conferences are a complete waste of time. I do not need to hear how great my kids are. I already think that they are great. Sometimes, it is clear that the teacher barely knows who your child is. Thus it is only for a problem as set out above that we would take the time away from family, work, chores, charity, etc to go sit around for hours in order to talk to a tacher for five minutes. Once in a while we will go to tell a teacher that we or our child thinks that they are a particularly wonderful teacher. I am not sure that teachers get a lot of feedback, so it seems worth the effort if a teacher is making a major effort.
The schools need to communicate better, both with each other and with parents if they want better attendance.
OUr schools tend to all schedule conferences at the same time. I cannot possibly be at 2 high school conferences, 2 middle school conferences and 1 elementary school conference all at the same time. One of us is usually ties up with something else so we have one person to try to attend five conferences at the same time.
All too often I hear people complaint about lack of participation in various events. Then when they are told that they need to communicate better and more often to get better attendence, they get mad and say things like "I put it on the web page and in the bulliten (or newsletter) I cannot reaosnably be expected to do more than that." While it is probably true that it is unreasonable to expect more effort at communication, it is simply a fact. If you want greater participation, you need to make hucrclean efforts at communication. It does nto matter whether you "should" have to make such efforts, whether it is "fair" or reaosnable, nor whether the potentail participants should be more observant or proactive in finding out about the meeting or event. Regardless of whether it is conferences, a meeting for a charity, a church function, whatever, if you want good participation, you must undertake a massive communication and reminder effort. In my experience the most effective way is to sue the normal means of announcing something and then follow up with telephone calls the night before the event. That is a pain and a hassle and unreasonable to expect, but it is also the wya that you get participate if you want participation. They make message services that you can program in all of your students phone numbers, and with the touch of a button you can have the machine call everyone with a reminder message. Not persoanl, but still effective reminder.
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