When I decided on elementary education as a major, I thought of a lot of problems that I would constantly have to deal with. I went through the whole low salary, the constantly sick children, and of course the never ended standardized testing. One thing that didn’t come to mind until I was actually in a school was dealing with families. While this can be a good thing, it can also be bad, especially if you do not correctly know how to deal with the family. I know that a lot of times I will not be telling a parent what they want to hear, and depending on what type of parent that is it could turn south very quickly. It is important to know what I am getting into and how to correctly deal with it. This summer I got a job at a summer recreation
…show more content…
The first interview I conducted was from a kindergarten teacher, Barb Landell. She works in a smaller school in Hastings, Nebraska. A lot of her students do not speak English at home which makes a large barrier when talking to parents. The other professional I interviewed works here in Lincoln, Shannon Mitchell. She started as a teacher and worked her way up to vice principal. She was very interesting to interview because she deals with children when they are not at their very best and then has to deal with parents on tough situations. She had a very positive outlook on almost all of her interactions with families. She said that of course she has a lot of tough conversations but for the most part are usually very positive. She also included that it is completely up to the teacher how they want those conversations to go. If a teacher is only reaching out to a parent when something negative happens, then the conversations are also going to be negative. She brought up a lot how important communication and positive reinforcement is with both the child and the parent (Mitchell, …show more content…
Both of their answers were very similar, both saying how families are not just a mom, dad, and kids like how their own families were. They are working with foster parents, boyfriends, girlfriends, grandparents, etc.… Each family is very unique and a teacher must know how to deal with that, and be able to ask questions in an appropriate way if they don’t. In Understand Families (Christian, 2006) it talks a lot about how if the hierarchy of a family is adjusted that can affect the child negatively or positively. Families are constantly going through problems or are changing, and it is hard for the teacher to know about everything that goes on at home. It is important that a teacher can see if something is effecting the child and feel comfortable enough with the family to talk about it with them. Another question I asked Barb, was what she wished me to know about dealing with families. She replied with telling me how extremely important it is that not all or even majority of my interactions with the parents should be negative. If a parent knows that you just want the best for their child than it will be a lot easier to work with that parent, especially on alarming issues (Landell, 2016). Although I did not ask Shannon this question she brought up a lot of the same points during her interview. A memorable quote from Shannon’s interview
The first interview I conducted was from a kindergarten teacher, Barb Landell. She works in a smaller school in Hastings, Nebraska. A lot of her students do not speak English at home which makes a large barrier when talking to parents. The other professional I interviewed works here in Lincoln, Shannon Mitchell. She started as a teacher and worked her way up to vice principal. She was very interesting to interview because she deals with children when they are not at their very best and then has to deal with parents on tough situations. She had a very positive outlook on almost all of her interactions with families. She said that of course she has a lot of tough conversations but for the most part are usually very positive. She also included that it is completely up to the teacher how they want those conversations to go. If a teacher is only reaching out to a parent when something negative happens, then the conversations are also going to be negative. She brought up a lot how important communication and positive reinforcement is with both the child and the parent (Mitchell, …show more content…
Both of their answers were very similar, both saying how families are not just a mom, dad, and kids like how their own families were. They are working with foster parents, boyfriends, girlfriends, grandparents, etc.… Each family is very unique and a teacher must know how to deal with that, and be able to ask questions in an appropriate way if they don’t. In Understand Families (Christian, 2006) it talks a lot about how if the hierarchy of a family is adjusted that can affect the child negatively or positively. Families are constantly going through problems or are changing, and it is hard for the teacher to know about everything that goes on at home. It is important that a teacher can see if something is effecting the child and feel comfortable enough with the family to talk about it with them. Another question I asked Barb, was what she wished me to know about dealing with families. She replied with telling me how extremely important it is that not all or even majority of my interactions with the parents should be negative. If a parent knows that you just want the best for their child than it will be a lot easier to work with that parent, especially on alarming issues (Landell, 2016). Although I did not ask Shannon this question she brought up a lot of the same points during her interview. A memorable quote from Shannon’s interview