Interview With Parents

The next theme that came up in the interview was dealing with parents. Research is beginning to show that there are many benefits when parents connect with teachers and establish a productive relationship (Weinstein & Novodvorsky, 2015). Mrs. Brighton makes sure that she post grades regularly as well as always accepts their calls and emails promptly. She believes that it is best to be kind and respectful to all parents (M. Brighton, personal communication, October 10, 2017). In this way, she has aligned herself with Fritz Redl and William Wattenberg in forming a connective structure between teachers and parents (Brown, 2017). She also mentioned that many of her parents are absent, so she knows that she is their main source of support. She tries to make it clear to her students that she is there to help them succeed, but they have to help themselves get there too (M. Brighton, personal communication, October 10, 2017). …show more content…
Mrs. Appling also is constantly in contact with her student’s parents. She says that the best way to handle any situation that comes up with parents is to “state fact, not opinions” (L. Appling, personal communication, October 10, 2017). Mrs. Manna deals with a very different situation most frequently. She works in a school where most of her parents only speak Spanish (T. Manna, personal communication, October 10, 2017). Research has shown that parents who do not speak the same language as the teacher or share the culture can be scared to approach the teacher or come to the school (Weinstein & Novodvorsky, 2015). She says that when parents are absent from the classroom to be there for your students over everything else (T. Manna, personal communication, October 10,