I really like the idea of a back to school night (hats off to the person who came up with it). But to be honest, I don't think as many parents take advantage of it as they should. The back to school night is a good opportunity for parents to get to know their child's teachers better and to understand what they are going to be doing during the year. Then, ultimately the parents are more aware of what the child is working on and where she might need their help. --- Well, I won't linger on this subject for too long because I don't think I'm in any sort of position to say how involved or not parents should be in the academic lives of their children, so I'll move on...
Most of the parents that walked into our room were either parents of students new to the school or parents of freshmen. The meetings I sat in on were generally short and concise. Bill would introduce the subject of the course (either history or academic leadership) and give a brief overview of how the child has been going in class in the past week. The parents were mostly fine with that and they would then ask a question or two, but they were mostly satisfied with what was said.
The conference that I sat in (and acted mostly as a translator) was with a family that was new to the school. They were skeptical on the use of technology (specifically iPads) in class and were worried as to whether their child would adapt easily to the new workflow. I don't think there was anything wrong with that, in fact, I was impressed with how aware they were of their high school child's strengths and limitations with technology. I was pleased that they expressed their concern and allowed for us to explain that there are many levels of support (both for content and for technology) available during instruction time, through peer tutoring and with appointments with teachers.
However, that conference got me questioning how productive it is to have these sorts of meetings with the children involved. I feel it's important to include the child in the discussing because, ultimately, it is her current and future skills and knowledge that are being addressed. And she should have the right to be present at the meeting. But I was wondering, if parents express themselves in that manner: "so-and-so is not very tech savvy", in front of their children, won't they begin to believe that? What I mean is, if parents express a fixed mindset to the teacher in front of the student, isn't it possible that the student assimilates that point of view and begins to believe that they will "never be tech savvy"?
Again, I don't mean to criticize the parents or anything. I don't want to give advice on parenting or things of the sort. I just wonder how productive a meeting of this sort is (with the presence of the student) in comparison to - for example - a student-led conference.
