I noticed that Parent Teacher Conferences are coming up in early November. I noticed that the link was getting ready to send to parents about a week ago. I love meeting with the parents of my students. My schedule usually fills up in the first 2-3 days of parent sign-up and I end up with about 30 extra sessions of email, face to face, or phone calls to make after the actual conferences. This makes for about 70 sessions out of the 167 students that I teach.
I decided to get a jump on things last week and started sending out 5-positive emails home each day. I expressed something personal about my students with respect to their personality, work ethic, and academic progress.
So...I am about 35 emails in and almost all parents that have received emails from me have replied with very positive and thoughtful responses. The part of their emails that makes me the happiest is that they often say that their students talk about what we are learning in class. They also talk about their student noting my teaching style and feeling very connected to me, the class, and the learning.
Communication as a teacher is so important. It is so easy to get bogged down with regular school work and forget the importance of partnership with our students' parents.
I am hopeful to reach out to all of my parents by mid-November.
What I have noticed as a fun consequence of my emails...students are reporting their parents talking about school to them more. They are hearing how proud they are of their students and having conversations about how much work school truly is today for our kids.
I am busy. Very busy. But somethings need to become a priority, if only for a few weeks...to make a difference where I can.
Be Mindful.
Peace.
Mark Levine
#Mindfulliteracy
@LevineWrites
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