Twice a year, parents put themselves where their children spend most weekdays—in front of classroom teachers. Aside from the tiny chair and ill-fitting desk, Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot noted, several factors can add to the discomfort of the typical parent-teacher conference. “Participating in this ritual, parents and teachers are often wracked with anxiety, exhibit wariness, and assume defensive postures,” said Lawrence-Lightfoot, a sociologist and professor of education at Harvard University. Even though the conversation appears to be focused on the student, adults may find themselves “playing out their own childhood histories, insecurities, and fears,” she added.
Figure
Parent-teacher and family-school alliances seem like logical and mutually beneficial partnerships, Lawrence-Lightfoot noted, because both spheres are “engaged in the important and precious work of raising, guiding, and teaching children.” If parents and teachers share close observations of children at home and school, these conversations have the potential to create holistic views of individual students and better address their learning needs. As she traveled the country observing parent-teacher conferences as research for her new book, The Essential Conversation: What Parents and Teachers Can Learn from Each Other, she became aware of factors that tend to shape the tone, texture, and substance of parent-teacher encounters.
Ghosts in the Classroom
Through her observations, Lawrence-Lightfoot noted echoes of parent and teacher experiences that sometimes struggle to be heard above the necessary noise of the conference at hand. Parents may feel small and powerless seated in their child's chair, stirring memories of their own childhood conference traumas. Adding to the déjÀ vu, teachers often do not receive enough training on parent conferences, so they resort to models used in their own childhood.
According to Lawrence-Lightfoot, teachers and parents need to be aware of this critical and legitimate subtext, but “recognizing the ghosts and hearing the haunts does not mean that this ancient psychological material should be the foreground of parent-teacher conversations. It must be a dialogue about the child, in the service of their learning and development,” Lawrence-Lightfoot advised.
A teacher she observed used the metaphor that parents work on a double channel. On channel one, adults speak rationally and clearly about the child for whom they are responsible. And on channel two, they see the scenes from their own childhood. This teacher reminds her peers to be aware of the noise on channel two, but never let it drown out channel one.
Routine vs. Revelatory
Parent relations are a vulnerable area for teachers. Teachers don't receive much training or guidance for this interaction, and have to make up the rules as they go along. They often rely on perceptions and practices from their own childhood. Lawrence-Lightfoot warned that this can lead to form over substance—avoiding the potential for discomfort by relying on pleasantries and hiding behind the ritualized event. She insisted that no conference should be generic. It should be shaped by the individual child, using specific examples taken from keen observations and fastidious record keeping. Teachers need more training in these areas and in listening and hearing parent perspectives, Lawrence-Lightfoot said. Depending on the approach, parentteacher conferences can be routine or revelatory, symbolic or substantive. Rituals can either offer a routine to mask feelings, or a framework and safe place for dialogue.
Different Approaches
Race, class, immigrant status, and educational backgrounds create great contrasts in the relationships between parents and teachers. Lawrence-Lightfoot described one teacher's polar experiences conducting open house nights at an affluent suburban school, and later at a poor, urban charter school. At the school in the suburbs, the parents brought the power of their money and a sense of entitlement. Open house was more like opening night, with each teacher performing a soliloquy to establish their legitimacy in the eyes of their critics—the parents. What the open houses at the urban charter school lacked in perfunctory performances, they made up for in chaos. As a result, families did not have enough institutional information about the school to navigate the experience. They were uncomfortable approaching teachers and appeared withdrawn and passive.
Schools need to seize every opportunity to collaborate with families in the interest of learning, Lawrence-Lightfoot said. Rich or poor, “all parents have big dreams for their own children,” she noted. Parents expect the best for their children and see their achievement in school as directly linked to their achievement in life.