076: How to rock your parent-teacher conference

Parent-Teacher conferences are about to be underway in many places, so I thought it might be helpful to give you some resources to make these as productive for you and your child as possible. In this episode we talk with Dr. Margaret Caspe and Dr. Elena Lopez of the Global Family Research Project, which develops authentic partnerships to support children’s learning in the home, school, and community.  I actually used Dr. Lopez’ textbook for my Master’s in Education, so I’ve been familiar with her work for a while and knew she and her colleagues at GFRP were just the right people to help us learn more about Parent-Teacher conferences (for example, did you know that teachers find them just as scary as parents?!) and understand how to advocate for our child – and for all of the children in our community. The resource guide on Parent-Teacher Conferences that we reference throughout this episode can be found here.     References Civil, M., & Quintos, B. (2009). Latina mothers' perceptions about the teaching and learning of mathematics. In B. Greer, S. Mukhopadhyay, A. B. Powell, & S. Nelson-Barber (Eds.), Culturally responsive mathematics education (pp. 321-343). New York: Routledge. Charney, R. (2002). Teaching children to care. Greenfield, MA: Northeast Foundation for Children. [note: Dr. Caspe misremembered the title as “The Responsive Classroom.”] Dweck, C. (2007). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Ballantine. [Note: check out my episode on this topic before buying this book…] George Lucas Educational Foundation (2015, August 24). Having students lead parent conferences. Author. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/practice/student-led-conferences-empowerment-and-ownership Loewus, L. (2017, August 15). The nation’s teaching force is still mostly White and female. Edweek. Retrieved from https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2017/08/15/the-nations-teaching-force-is-still-mostly.html McWayne, C. M., Melzi, G., Limlingan, M. C., & Schick, A. (2016). Ecocultural patterns of family engagement among low-income Latino families of preschool children. Developmental psychology 52(7), 1088. Small, M.L. (2009). Unanticipated gains: Origins of network inequality in everyday life. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press Strauss, V. (2014, August 21). For first time, minority students expected to be majority in U.S. public schools this fall. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/08/21/for-first-time-minority-students-expected-to-be-majority-in-u-s-public-schools-this-fall/?utm_term=.3752d0eeddd7 TeacherVision (n.d.). Parent-teacher conferences: Before, during, and after. Author. Retrieved from https://www.teachervision.com/parent-teacher-conferences-during-after U.S. Department of Education (July 2016). The state of racial diversity in the educator workforce. Author. Retrived from https://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/highered/racial-diversity/state-racial-diversity-workforce.pdf   Read Full Transcript   Transcript Jen: [00:21] Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. Today we’re going to take another look at a topic related to school and it’s one that you’re going to be able to use very soon. We’re looking at parent teacher conferences. Your conferences in your new school or preschool or maybe classroom within the same school are likely coming up within the next couple of weeks. And these things can be stressful!” We get 10 minutes with a teacher whom we may or may not have had any interaction with beyond, hi, how are you?” And we really have no idea what to expect, so ideally parent teacher conferences shouldn’t just be a one shot opportunity to discuss your child’s progress in school. They should be part of an ongoing conversation about progress in school, but maybe also things happening outside school that are affecting that progress. But how can we know what to expect from these conferences and how can we prepare for them, how can we think about them in the context of all the other interactions that we are or could be having with our child’s school? Jen:  [01:54] So we have not one but two guests here today to help us figure this out. We have Dr Maggie Caspe. She’s the director of research and professional learning and the global family research project. She had her masters in education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a Ph.D In applied developmental psychology from New York University and Dr Elena Lopez, co-director at the Global Family Research Project. She received her doctorate in social anthropology from Harvard University. Both Dr Caspe and Dr Lopez conduct research on how families, early childhood programs, schools and communities and the relationships between these support children’s learning. The Global Family Research Project prides itself on doing work that is scientifically based, cutting edge, accessible, and practical. It sounds a lot like the goals of this podcast, so I’m so excited to have them here with us. Welcome Dr. Caspe and Dr Lopez. Dr. Caspe: [02:45] Thanks for having us. New Speaker: [02:46] So let’s start with a little empathy here. It would be a good place to start. When I was researching this episode, I did a general search for parent teacher conferences just to see what would pop up and several resources for teachers were first on the list. One of the top hits contained this quote. “If there is one part of the school year that strikes fear into the heart of any teacher, it’s parent teacher conference time.” Why are teachers afraid of parent teacher conferences? Dr. Lopez:  [03:13] We’re so glad you started with this question because it lies at the heart of a lot of what we do in our work, which is in part to help prepare school and community educators for family engagement and maybe I can take a quick step back and define what we mean by family engagement. Research shows that family engagement is composed of three main pillars. The first is that it’s a shared responsibility among families, schools, and community to support children’s learning for success in school and in life. In other words, it’s all about relationships and trust and ongoing communication and conversation. Not just families blindly supporting school goals and mandates; it’s more than raising money and joining PGA. It’s the way that families promote and advocate for dirty and it’s the way that schools and other organizations open up their doors to support families in getting the information and support they need and also listening and understanding what parents and families desire. Dr. Lopez:  [04:34] And we also know that family engagement takes place everywhere all the time. Not just in school. There is a statistic we like to quote, which is that of the 6,000 hours of awake time children have available to them and really only 1,000 of those hours are spent in school, so children are learning in a lot of spaces outside school: parks, libraries and the home, so it’s not fruitful or productive to think of family engagement as just taking place in school, but we broaden our notion of family engagement to all these settings as well. And the third pillar is that family engagement, bath waste begin early in birth really and continue all the way through high school. Although the ways in which families are engaged in their children’s learning and social and emotional development will change as children mature. So family engagement is really complex. It is nuanced. It exists across time and space and...