It is important to remember that as teachers we usually want the same things as parents do for their child. I have since been reflecting on parent-teacher conferences and why they can seem so scary. Interviews went well and none of the ridiculous scenarios from my head played out.

In my PSII I was able to take part in them, but in PSIII I got to engage a lot more since I have been in the school since the first day and my students know me as their teacher. I end with another animated cartoon that lasts nearly five minutes and, for me, was painful to watch.I would be lying if I said I didn’t get nervous about parent-teacher conferences. (Previous monthly cartoons have been: “ Digital Kids in School,” “ Testing,” “ Blaming Is So American,” “ Accountability in Action,” “ charter schoo ls,” and “ Age-graded schools,” and Students and Teachers).Ī New Yorker animated cartoon captures in 22 seconds what some teachers would like to say (but seldom do) about a certain kind of student. For this month, I have selected some cartoons and YouTube videos to illustrate the range of parent-teacher conferences and how they reflect the similarities and differences between the parent-child and teacher-student relationship. Scholars have their views of the centrality of parents and teachers in the lives of children and students. “For the first time in the child’s life, power that has personal consequences for the child … is wielded by a relative stranger.” A classroom is the place where students learn to take orders from non-family adults. Moreover, the extent to which in the family children and parents have been exposed to one another and know one another physically and psychologically–the depth and texture of personal history–seldom occurs in classrooms.ģ. The intensity of feelings and intimacy that characterize child-family relationships almost never happen in classrooms. Overall, however, the dominant teacher-student relationship is impersonal in classroom compared to family.Ģ. Of course, this is not to say that in many instances teacher-student relationship can be strong and lasting. Emotional ties are stronger between parent and child and last much longer than teacher-student relationships. When Philip Jackson looked at parents and teachers he saw three major differences between the parent-child and teacher-student relationship (p. In fact they feel they know their child better than anyone else and that the teacher doesn’t possess any special field of authority or expertise.” But mostly mothers feel that their areas of competence are very much similar to those of the teacher. There is always an underlying fear that teachers will do a better job than they have done with their child….

“Mothers seem to be in subtle competition with teachers. Parents are focused on their individual son or daughter while the teacher focuses on the class of 25 sons and daughters. Sara Lightfoot Lawrence, for example, has written of the inherent differences between goals of parents and teachers. In Canada and Australia, they are called “parent-teach interviews” in UK, they are “parents’ evening.” Afterwards, both teachers and parents can regale their friends with stories of what went right and what went wrong in those conferences.Ī few researchers have examined these annual rites. remembers those formal occasions when the school invites parents to confer with their children’s teachers during an evening or afternoon. Anyone who has taught for more than a year in the U.S.

Parent teacher conference cartoon