A. New teachers’ opinions of involving parents
B. An argument over an assignment
C. A conflict between assumption and reality
D. Difficulties in sharing goals
E. The best way to score high
F. Proper ways of parental involvement
_______ An Iowa high school counselor gets a call from a parent protesting the “C” her child received on an assignment. “The parent argued every point in the essay,” recalls the counselor, who soon realized why the mother was so disappointed about the grade. “It became apparent that she’d written it. ”
_______ In a survey, 90% of new teachers agreed that involving parents in their children’s education is a priority at their school, but only 25% described their experience working with parents as “very satisfying”. When asked to choose the biggest challenge they face, 31％ of them quoted involving parents and communicating with them as their top choice. 73％ of new teachers said too many parents treat schools and teachers as enemies.
_______ At a time when competition is rising and resources are limited, when battles over testing force schools to adjust their priorities, when cell phones and e-mail speed up the information flow and all kinds of private ghosts and public quarrels slip into the parent-teacher conference, it’s harder for both sides to step back and breathe deeply and look at the goals they share.
_______ Everyone says the parent-teacher conference should be pleasant, civilized, a kind of dialogue where parents and teachers build partnership. But what most teachers feel, and certainly what all parents feel, is anxiety and panic.
_______ When a teacher asks parents to be partners, he or she doesn’t necessarily mean Mom or Dad should be camping in the classroom. Research shows that though students benefit modestly from having parents involved at school, what happens at home matters much more. According to research based on the National Education Longitudinal Study, a sample of nearly 25,000 eighth graders, among four main areas of parental involvement (home discussion, home supervision, school communication, and school participation), home discussion was the most strongly related.