Classroom Reflection on Conferences

This past week was spring parent teacher conferences at Ben Rush Elem. I do have to say that these conferences were the highlight of my week. Spring conferences are optional to the parents but parents of problem students are highly recommended to come in. My cooperating teacher saw 8 parents, out of the 18 students in the class. The parents all understood why their child had not done well, either academically or socially and realized that the students behavior at home was a reflection of how they also act at school. From there Deb (my cooperating teacher) went on to tell the parents how they should be disciplining their child at home and how to set goals for home and school. Over all the conferences were very interesting. Through the parents I was able to see why some of the students have a hard time in class. As an example on parent knows her children are all lazy yet she cannot seem to set boundaries at home. All of her kids have free reign of the house, no chores and as much tv or video games that they want. Deb told her that she needs to limit their game playing and give them chores in order to see them do better in school. All in all parents need to be parents, teachers can do the best they can in a classroom but if the home life is in any sort of disarray, such as the above mentioned family, improvement in the classroom will not be seen.
Doing these conferences were enlightening and fun. It almost made me want to become a family counselor.