Lessons from Consulting
How Consultants Communicate:
“I learned a number of important lessons on this project. First, the insurance company hired us for our expertise. There were parts of this project where they didn’t have the internal knowledge or experience to analyze . . . . The client looked to us for advice because we were the experts.
Just as we, the consultants, were the experts for the company, teachers are the experts in school. Before your first full time teaching job, you were trained through a combination of classwork, practical student teaching experience, and mentoring. Even in your first few years of teaching, you will likely have worked with hundreds of students, discussed problems with colleagues and supervisors, attended education seminars, and engaged in different types of professional development. When you communicate with parents, they will often seek this expertise, so communicate with confidence. “
General Principles
Convincing Students and Parents that You Want the Student To Be Successful
“For most students to succeed they need to feel you have their best interests at heart. If students think that you don’t care — or worse, that you think they can’t succeed — they may become demotivated and discouraged. While there are certainly students who will strive for success no matter what they think about their teacher (or what their teacher thinks about them), we have found this to be the exception rather than the rule. Consequently, your goal is to convince the student and parent that you want the student to be successful in your class. When the student and parents believe you want the student to do well, you have the foundation for a collaborative, successful team.“
Principle: Whenever you have the chance, express to students and to parents your interest in seeing the student succeed.
Parent Emails
Student in Danger of Failing a Marking Period
“Case Study 1: Davon, a senior, earned a C first marking period, and has a C through the first half of the second marking period. However, he’s missed a few homework assignments recently, and then bombed the most recent test (46). His average is now a D, and the final test for this marking period will be given at the end of next week. If Davon does well on the test, he could bring his grade back up to a C for the marking period, but if he does poorly on next week’s test he could fail. You decide to contact Davon’s parents…
When crafting any email, think about what the goals are - what are you trying to accomplish?”
Principle: Always write out your goals before writing a parent email.
Sign up to see our goals and our email to Davon’s parents - it’s free!
Calling Parents
“Parent phone calls can be stressful for veteran and beginner teachers alike. In most calls, we don’t know the parent very well and are unsure how the parent will react to the information we want to provide. Prior to a call, you might consider doing one or all of the following to help reduce anxiety:
Take a few deep breaths to calm your emotions
Reflect on how the call might go and think through a few most-likely scenarios
Remember that you are the expert; believe in yourself
In the box below you’ll see models for two types of parent phone calls: responsive and proactive. Responsive phone calls are where the parent has brought up a concern that you and the parent will discuss together. Often this process will begin with an email from a parent expressing a concern that you feel would be better addressed verbally. In a proactive phone call, you have an issue that you want to bring to the parent’s attention. Note that the distinction here is about who is raising the issue, not who is dialing the phone. We’ll refer back to both of these models throughout the chapter.”
Communicating with Students
Acknowledge Students by Using Their Name
“As Dale Carnegie stated, “Remember that a person’s name is to that person, the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” Students find it affirming to hear their name mentioned by a teacher, the room’s authority figure (Carmody and Lewis, 2006). Using students’ names indicates you value who they are and provides a small, extra touch of care. When developing strong relationships with students, every small stepping stone is important! So, instead of just responding, “correct,” to a student answering a question, take the extra second or two to say, “Correct, Steve” or “Judy Belle, that’s correct.”
Show Interest in Your Students
“Take an interest in your students as people. Students are much more than children trying to learn math, science, or Spanish. They are adolescents navigating the complex social structures of home and school, striving to develop their identities, and struggling to feel accepted and valued. We like to think of ourselves as teachers who happen to teach math or English, rather than as math and English teachers. One principal we know would hammer home at every meeting, ‘the only way these kids will learn is if you build bonds with them. You have to build bonds.’ Note that for teachers who have particularly large numbers of students, some of the relationship building ideas below may be difficult to implement and likely not manageable.”
Principle: You are a teacher first, subject teacher second.
