Dear CU Readers,
Parent teacher conferences are something you have yet to experience as a student at CU. I just had my first official parent teacher conferences Monday evening. Our first quarter ended Friday, grades were due Monday morning and we had parent teacher conferences Monday afternoon. Monday was a teacher work day. We had from 9-12pm to work on grades or anything else in our classrooms and then from 1-7pm we had our conferences. I think the way our school set them up was a bit crazy, but that's just my opinion. We did not have scheduled meeting times--the parents could just come and go as they pleased during those 6 hours. It was INSANE. I literally did not have a free minute to myself. Parents came out of the woodwork! I was so exhausted when we were finally done.
I made notes on each student and had it all ready to go so that when the parents came in I would be ready to discuss their child's behavior in my class. This was really helpful, especially since I had no time in between each set of parents. I also had their grades printed and ready for the parents to look over as well. I began each conference in prayer and then started with the positive comments. I talked about the personalities of my students and how I enjoyed having them in my classes. I talked about their classroom behavior. I talked about their work ethic and their ability to turn things in complete and on time. I talked about their respectful attitudes toward their peers and their teacher. ...You get the idea. Any comments I had that were negative, I approached cautiously. I honestly was expecting some parents to be rude and nasty or to completely disregard my opinions and observations of their children, but I had absolutely no issues. Praise God! All of my parents were kind and complimentary of my teaching and what I have helped their children with so far this year. Anytime I mentioned something their child needs to work on they agreed with me and we discussed how we were going to help them improve in the future. All in all it was a great time for me to connect with the parents and team up with them to help their children improve. I loved meeting all the parents and hearing their opinions of how my classroom structure is helping or not helping their children.
One set of parents almost made me cry (in a good way). About a month ago I led their son to Christ. He had been asking questions in Bible class and demonstrating an interest in Christianity. I knew he was new to the faith because on the first day of school he did not have a Bible for class. I was so thrilled when he approached me after class one day and asked me to pray with him. After we prayed, he expressed concerns about his parents salvation. He wasn't sure if they were saved and he was really worried about them. I challenged him to go home and talk to them about it. He came to me the next day thrilled to report that his whole family was composed of born again Christians. During the conference with his parents, they explained to me that the lines of communication have been opened in their family and they are all pursuing Christ more and more every day. They told me that I have had a huge part in this and they are so blessed to have their son in my class. This is why I almost cried. It was such a special thing for me to hear and I praise God that he lets me be a vessel for His work.
You can now understand a bit about conferences. They can be a great time for you to connect with parents and team up with them to help the student. They can also be a time where you address any issues and hopefully take care of those issues completely. In my case, the conferences were also a time where I was encouraged and inspired to keep doing what I'm doing.
I am truly blessed that God provided this job for me and has equipped me do serve Him as a teacher. I pray that God leads all of you to the perfect job and that you can carry all your knowledge from CU to your area of work. Colossians 3:23 "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men."
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