Crazy Rabbit! Back To School Night Is For Kids?
Last night was my first, official back to school night. For the most part, back to school night is usually earlier in the year. There are both decided pros and cons to having a later date:
Pros-
-You have more time to prepare, especially if you are a newbie like me.
-You have more time to get to know your kids before meeting where they came from.
Cons-
-More time in school= more questions of the, "so, how is my child doing?" variety.
-back to school night is closer to progress reports, which is closer to report cards and thus everything seems to hit you all at once.
Also, I don't know about anybody else, but when I was in school, things like parent/teacher conferences and back to school night were just for parents AND teachers. So, when a lot of my kids asked me if they could come, I said that they are allowed to come, but if they can stay home, they really should.
I had 11 sets of parents or one parent/guardian come.
Out of the 11, only 2 of my "problem" children ended up coming so in essence, it was a talk for the kids and parents who already know the right thing to do ANYWAY.
I also got to see 10 of my students and a handful of assorted siblings.
So much for that lecture.
The class clown of my class actually put it perfectly by putting his special, "attention getting spin" on things. He made the analogy that back to school night is like children and R rated movies; they both are for adults only. He didn't put it quite that eloquently, but you get the gist.
Another added issue in my case is that a lot of the parents speak Spanish and little to no English. So I gave my speech, full well knowing at least half of what I said probably meant nothing to these people.
All in all, it went well.
Then again, having no clue what someone is saying is kinda like the old Elvis Presley tune: when there's a little less conversation, there's bound to be a little more action.
Pros-
-You have more time to prepare, especially if you are a newbie like me.
-You have more time to get to know your kids before meeting where they came from.
Cons-
-More time in school= more questions of the, "so, how is my child doing?" variety.
-back to school night is closer to progress reports, which is closer to report cards and thus everything seems to hit you all at once.
Also, I don't know about anybody else, but when I was in school, things like parent/teacher conferences and back to school night were just for parents AND teachers. So, when a lot of my kids asked me if they could come, I said that they are allowed to come, but if they can stay home, they really should.
I had 11 sets of parents or one parent/guardian come.
Out of the 11, only 2 of my "problem" children ended up coming so in essence, it was a talk for the kids and parents who already know the right thing to do ANYWAY.
I also got to see 10 of my students and a handful of assorted siblings.
So much for that lecture.
The class clown of my class actually put it perfectly by putting his special, "attention getting spin" on things. He made the analogy that back to school night is like children and R rated movies; they both are for adults only. He didn't put it quite that eloquently, but you get the gist.
Another added issue in my case is that a lot of the parents speak Spanish and little to no English. So I gave my speech, full well knowing at least half of what I said probably meant nothing to these people.
All in all, it went well.
Then again, having no clue what someone is saying is kinda like the old Elvis Presley tune: when there's a little less conversation, there's bound to be a little more action.
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