TL; DR
As teachers, you get the best version of the students. The way you interact with parents, greatly affects their home life.
While the parent teacher relationship can be complicated remember that both parties are acting in the best interest of the student.
Communication and compromise are key in order to mutually help the student.
Building a strong parent teacher relationship raises a student's academic achievement, allows teachers to focus more on teaching and helps parents more deeply appreciate the impact they have on their child’s success in school.
“Education...is painful, continual and difficult work to be done in kindness, by watching, by warning, by praise, but above all, by example.” — John Ruskin
This quote encompasses the struggle, goal and vision for both parents and teachers. I am not a teacher, yet I find myself writing a blog for teachers. My background is in nonprofit management with a passion for education. This passion was developed in me over many years by dedicated teachers and a family that understood the value of education. Education is the one thing that no one can take away from you. It is the only thing in life that simultaneously gets you ahead and defines who you are as a person- which ultimately helps you become the best version of yourself.
While the struggles and success stories of being the teacher was not something I had experience in the past, I am a parent trying to establish and hone this love of lifelong learning in my children while trying to navigate the dichotomy of school and home in post COVID-19 education. So, I find myself wearing both hats most days, at least for this year. While I know that the best place for my children is at school, with their teachers and peers developing their own sense of self. I cannot help stepping backand appreciating this time to wear the teacher hat, even for a brief moment in time. It has given me a whole new perspective on the relationship between student and teacher and teacher and parents. I’ve always known the value of education. However, never before I have I been able to view my child through the lens of the teacher until now. Let me tell you, it’s been an eye opener. I’ve learned a few things myself.
It is blazingly apparent to me now, that as teachers, you get the best version of our kids. You get the version that tries their best. Your opinion and guidance carries great weight in the eyes of students. Your power lies in your ability to influence, encourage, strengthen and empower students to grow into the best version of themselves.
Your power as a teacher goes beyond the student as well. The way teachers interact with parents greatly affects student’s home life as well. By actively engaging parents in a child’s education and communicating a students strengths and areas for improvement allows parents to set the tone at home. Parents can supplement areas of strengths and help improve upon areas in need of growth. A positive parent teacher relationship can empower a parent to realize the deep impact that they can have on their child’s academic success which will in turn help free up the teachers time to concentrate on actually teaching.
This symbiotic relationship, based on open communication and compromise, is what together drives academic achievement in students. While the parent and teacher relationship can be complicated, it helps to remember that both parties are acting in the best interest of the student, with the same ultimate goal in mind. In my mind, both the teacher and the parent are educators in the eyes of the child. When you share your talents as a teacher, you influence a world that extends far beyond your classroom walls. By sharing your gifts of teaching and by developing strong relationships with parents, it has a ripple-like effect on that child that starts small and gets infinitesimally larger affecting the rest of their lives and influencing the world around them.
“The job of an educator is to teach students to see the vitality in themselves.” — Joseph Campbell
Laura Lisien, Education Blueprint