So tonight we had a panel of parents from the Decorah public schools. We had three parents come and speak to us for an hour about their experiences with teachers during the years that their kids were in school. They first talked about what they thought made a good teacher. They said that good teachers have new ideas, and are active in the up and coming practices. One mother of a special needs student said that good teachers are one who have expectations for the special needs students, they have a plan. She said the most disappointing teachers were the ones who said " What do you want me to do with him?" As a prospective teacher, I understand that it is my job, as the professional, to know what adaptations to make for special needs children, and to know what should be expected. I think she is very right in her opinion. The other mother said that most teachers are not able to work with disabilities other than ADD, and they're not up on the current practices. I don't think I'll have a problem with that right away since the practices that I am learning are very current, but its one of the things that I'll have to keep in mind as I continue throughout my career. Continuing education will be something that will be very important in the future, not only for me, but for my students. We also talked for a while about NCLB, and their opinions regarding this legislation. For the most part, they talked about it in regards to conferences. They said that as of recently, their conferences have been mostly data-driven, which is disappointing to them. One said that the intentions of standardized testing is good, but its not working out as planned. Another parent even went as far as to call it a colossal failure. He said that conferences now are virtually a waste of time. I can understand their point of view, but I still believe that standardized tests are important. We want all children to be on a level playing field, because the real world won't make exceptions. Its one thing to say that the students from different areas and economical situations shouldn't be compared to one another, but I would think that if you were one of those students from a more rural, lower class area, or their parents, you would want to be educated the same as the students from the high class suburbs of the twin cities. But, there may be better ways to go about it, I agree. Another thing we talked about that was really interesting was the amount of busy work that parents think that their children have. In the parents' minds, the worksheets that the children were bringing home were simply busy work. I'm not sure how exactly I feel about that, I think that worksheets can be very useful and important practice tools for concepts that take work to grasp. I think if your child brings home a worksheet on multiplication, its not simply a thing that the teacher gave them to keep them busy, it has a purpose, and that purpose is most likely to help them learn. We also talked about college prep courses in high school. A couple of the parents thought that kids have too many college prep courses and they should be taking things like shop or home ec, instead of AP calculus. Now this is something that I can completely relate to since I took many courses in high school that counted for college credit. In fact, I came into luther with a sophomore standing. In my mind, it did nothing but benefit me. I was very prepared for college work and I think that coming in with extra credits was an extra bonus. I've never felt overwhelmed by the amount of work in college, and I often times feel like I was more overloaded in high school than I am now. Which I guess might be the parents' concern. But, I feel like if the child can handle it, and still come out with good grades, and a deep understanding of the material, why not do it? Its just an extra thing for those students who might need a little more of a challenge. This parent panel was very eye opening for me. It was interesting to see how I agreed and disagreed with the parents. It didn't do much to ease my fears of dealing with parents, but I'm sure thats only to be expected!
