week 8 post

Top 3 things you need to know when working with parents:
When working with parents, a teacher needs to understand the background of the student and their family in order to relate to where they are coming from. The parent is going to want to understand how their child is specifically doing, something that most likely they have no clue about, grades, etc. How the parent views their child is also going to want to be known by the teacher.

3 things now after the video that didn't occur to me:
The teacher's parent teacher conference with the parent was a little different than I had assumed. The teacher showed all the work that the student had done to the parent which I did not know that the teacher did. The teacher also questioned the parent as to what the parent hears about school and specifically that class. The parent describes what they have heard. That seemed different and I did not know that teachers and parents talked about that. I also did not know that the teacher would, even if the child was struggling, would make it seem as though they weren't. By using terms like improving and stuff like that, the teacher is describing the student as having trouble but still improving at their own pace and making it seem as though they are struggling but still not far behind the other students.


According to our text it says, "the family needs to be placed at the center of any early intervention system." (p.102) It is this way that parents pay attention to their students and make sure that they are informed with how their child/ren are doing in school. As a teacher i will have to talk with the teacher and show how i teach and how they are doing in school. I would try and find out whether the student complained about schoolwork or what i could do to help them on problems that they are having with math. Maybe show what we have done and what they are going to learn as a heads-up for the parent.


Kirk, S., Gallagher, J., Coleman, M., Anastaslow, N. (2009). Educating Exceptional Children (12th ed.). Kentucky: Cengage Learning. Retrieved October 22, 2009, from http://college.cengage.com/education/kirk/educating/12e/resources/video_cases.html