Parents

I DO NOT want to meet the parents of my students. During Back To School Night last year, I just was introduced but Charles pretty much took over and I was able to sit back and just listen. I am so afraid of the parents judging me because I'm a young teacher, because I may seem inexperiences, for hundreds of other reasons. I'm afraid that they won't agree with my way of doing things and get angry or blame me for their child not doing their work. I feel like I only have so much control over situations in my classroom and I can only do so much but will get blamed for what mistakes the students make. I can't force them to do their homework and if they get a U on their progress report or low grades because they haven't been studying, I have no control over that. I'm really glad that I only have ten minutes per period- I can introduce myself, let the parents see their kids' work on the walls, go through the standards and what we'll be covering the year/semester and hopefully the ten minutes will fly by. I know it cetainly doe when I'm teaching their kids.

On the upside, the nice thing about having parents that dont' speak English means that I am off the hook when calling home (which, by the way, I also absolutely despise). There is a community liason that speaks Spanish or Vietnamese and she will call home for you, talk to the parent in their native language, and then return a note to you with what was discussed. GENIUS! Now can I have someone do that for me with my English speaking parents???