How do you handle push back from parents? – Discussion

[Christopher Ernst]

The biggest take-away for myself was the communication of our methods and practices in our classrooms to the parents. If we can effectively communicate our intentions behind our actions and methods in the classroom to the parents, as backed by evidence rather than how it has “always been”, then they will hopefully buy into our methods and actions as well.

I plan to draft a parent letter for the beginning of the year next year and establish communication off on the right foot with the parents of my students. Hopefully, this first step on my end will be a positive first step towards building a relationship throughout the year.

I’m planning on trying to build a process into my classroom where I contact parents every day for both positive and negative reasons. I need to think through how this will affect my movement and engagement with students during class when they’re problem-solving/productively struggling.

[Kyle Pearce]

Love this. While you’d think that simply explaining from a purely rational standpoint would make sense, I find the best way to get parents on board is to constantly highlight all of the ways in which this new approach will benefit their own child. This is about being a team of student-teacher-parent/guardian. We are working together to ensure that the student reaches their highest levels of success!

[Diane Fortune]

Teachers need to be clear about what they are teaching and what they hope students to learn. They also need to be clear about the why learning they way or this topic is important.

[Kyle Pearce]

That home – school connection is so important to create an opportunity for communicating those “whys”.
Thanks for sharing!

[Anthony Waslaske]

I follow Alice Keeler on Twitter and I remember teachers posting condemnation about constructivist teaching, and she would say okay where is your research? The same with parents, not that teachers need to bandy research at them, but they just need to know after 50 years the classroom changed. We know more about how children learn and how the brain operates, it would be a shame to abandon it.

[Jamie BALLARD]

I liked the point about getting the students on board. Most parents do not give pushback if the students feel like they can find success. I predict my upper-level honors track students will not like the problem-based approach. They have figured out “school” and change means they need to re-learn new hoops – so to speak.

Therefore, I think I will try to be as organized and transparent as possible to lessen student anxiety. This should help parents feel more at ease. At the high school level, many parents are trying to give their students the responsibility of school and only step in as needed. I still think some positive communication with parents about their growth is appreciated and will help build the partnership between home and school.

[Kyle Pearce]

You’re definitely right about the challenge of switching things up for the group that managed to find success in the memorization or Minock approach. If you are able to follow steps and procedures, that is much easier than having to think. It’ll take time, but pay off in the end.

[Terry Hill]

I agree that as long as the students are enjoying the class there will not be much push-back from parents because there won’t be student complaints about the class.

[Kyle Pearce]

Also, if students begin to recognize that they are understanding / building confidence in math class, that will translate to a positive or productive disposition as well.