Parent Teacher Conferences – a teacher’s day never ends.  I got to watch about 8 conferences in one night.  We had a whole day of school then conferences started at 4 pm until 8 pm.  It was so interesting to see and watch how my cooperating teacher goes about the conference.   For the most part I thought the conferences went very well and I learned a lot from them.  Before each parent came in my co-op would show me her notes on the student and what she was going to discuss with the parents.  I think the most important thing I learned from the experience is to stay positive.  There are always going to be difficult parents or difficult students that you are dealing with, however, it is both your job and in your best interest to keep positive and try to find the silver lining.  My co-op gave me the advice to always start and end with something positive about the child.  She likes to call it the “compliment sandwich,” where the point to discuss for improvement is “sandwiched” between two compliments.  This is a good way to address the problem but in a positive manner.

I was also lucky to see a mix of parents during conferences.  Both moms and dads came, sometimes alone, sometimes together, and there were a range of emotions.  I saw one “bad” conference where the parent just didn’t seem happy with any of the things we said about the student.  It was just so sad to see my co-op say such great things about this child and the parent didn’t seem to care at all.  Other than that, most of the parents went away from conferences happy.  I was surprised and happy to see some fathers at the conferences.  It is so rare to see this, but in all the cases where the father came they were interested and concerned in what we had to say about their child.  It was a long night but one that I learned so much from and will never forget.