Parent - Teacher Conferences; Time to go away.

. It is time for parent-teacher conferences to go the way of caning students and writing on slates.

In 1880, when you wanted to speak with your neighbor on the next farm about the implications of the Sino-French War on US agriculture, you got on your horse or you hoofed it on down the road and paid them a call.

In 1920, when you wanted to meet a friend at the local speakeasy for a very quiet glass of basement-made wine, you rang them on the phone and said, “Hey, let’s meet at that place for that thing?” No horses involved.

In 1990, when your doctor referred you to a specialist, you didn’t drive to the doctor’s office, wait around for your file, and drive all the way across town with your records for the specialist. Your GP faxed the records on over.

And in 2020, when you need to know what is up with your kids at school, you don’t need a once a semester meet-and-greet with your kid’s teacher in a gym full of people who don’t want to be there. What do you need? You need to check regularly the online gradebook where teachers:

·         update grades on a near-daily basis

·         record moments of good and not-so-good behaviors

·         upload lesson plans

·         have posted their classroom procedures and protocols

If a classroom project has you in a dither, shoot ‘em an email. Most likely, you’ll get an answer by the end of the school day.

If you need more info, wait a few days for the teacher’s weekly email.
Or check their YouTube channel.

Or check their classroom Twitter and Instagram accounts.

You don’t traipse to school for every issue, do you? Your kid is getting bullied? Yeah, you need to get in there. Your kid got a “D” on an assignment because they did it on the bus the morning it was due? Even among the 6% of the US without internet access, a once-a-semester 5 minute glad-hand is not the answer to that problem.

In twenty years of teaching high school, in buildings large and small, with parents wealthy and poverty-stricken, I can count on one hand the number of significant, substantive conferences I’ve had with parents on the much-hallowed “Parent-Teacher Conference Night.”

Conferences are relics of a bygone time, a dinosaur that has been struck by a meteor but hasn’t yet realized it is dead. Most parents don’t like them, as seen by the nosedive in conference attendance. Most teachers don’t like them; they would rather be home with their families.

Doctors don’t do bloodletting anymore. We’ve moved on to more effective treatments.

Time for schools to do the same.