My First Parent/Teacher Conference Night

Yesterday at 4PM, conferences began. I was fairly petrified. As someone who has never been a participant in a parent/teacher conference, I had no idea how they would go.

My only experience with parent/teacher conferences is when my parents would go talk to my teachers in middle school and high school.

Oftentimes, I would spend the hour or two that they were gone cleaning various rooms in the house because I was so nervous about what would be said, even though I usually had no reason to be nervous.

I think it was those same fears coming back, despite the fact that this time, I’m the teacher, and not the student.

And by the time I got through the first three conferences, they were a walk in the park.

Okay, fine. They weren’t that easy.

"Education is not the filling of a pail,
but the lighting of a fire."
-William Butler Yeats

Some were definitely more challenging than others, but in all, they went well. The parents that I had the pleasure of meeting were so kind, and a few of them complimented me on my presentation, which made me feel good about how the whole night went.

While I’m certainly glad that parent/teacher conference night isn’t every night, I don’t think I’ll have the same fears when I have to do conferences again.

From the experience, I learned that the parents often drive the conversation, because they already come in with ideas and points that they want to talk about. And before I jumped in, I asked the parents if they had any points of concern that they wanted to address. I found this to be a good starting point since we had such a limited amount of time.

As the teacher, it was my job to answer their questions about what goes on in the classroom and how their child is progressing in my class. And since I conference with my students on a daily basis, I know exactly what they are all working on during any given class period, so I found this part to be exceptionally easy.

I think the best part about conferences, however, was having the opportunity to meet more of my student’s parents in person. I found that doing this gave me a better perspective on each of my students, which is invaluable.