Mr. G Phone Home

Kind of like ET, but I actually didn't phone my own home (although that does remind me that I need to call my parents this weekend!). Instead, my cooperating teacher and I made a large series of phone calls last week. I teach two grade 10 classes. There are about 55 or 60 students total. To pass the course you need a 60%. We decided to call the parents of all the students whose marks were under 65%. Guess how many? Yup, 26 sets of parents to call. Not at all encouraging. *sigh*

Anyhow, this was a very valuable experience for me. I got the "easy" calls, but how easy is it really to call up someone at work and tell them their daughter has a 46% in the course, is likely to have trouble passing the year, and it's mainly due to her never doing her homework and not paying attention in class. Amazingly, all the parents I spoke to were extremely supportive. They wanted to know what extra help options were available (which, of course, their kids knew about all year but hadn't taken advantage of) and what they could do to encourage their kids more. The next day at extra help? 16 students. Since then? One. Oh well, at least they responded for a day.

But this was a really good thing for me to learn. In talking to some other interns, they haven't had the chance to interact with parents at all. At parent-teacher interviews, I was allowed to interject whatever my own thoughts were. And calling all these parents, I was unsupervised and on my own. Teacher's college prepares you for how to teach content, but not for how to run a classroom or manage the relationships with other teachers, principals and parents. This internship is doing a great job of all three. I know I'm lucky to have landed such a helpful cooperating teacher, who lets me do all these things. I know when I get my own class, I will now not be afraid to make contact with parents.