Teaching Requires Diplomacy

This past week our school conducted mid-year student-led conferences and I learned that teachers must be skilled at diplomacy.  I already knew that our class was filled with a very diverse set of students, but what I learned this past week is that their parents are a magnification of that diversity.  Some are supportive, others critical; some want to know what they can do to help their child at home, others believe that it is a teacher's job alone to help their child (academically and socially); some are open to seeing issues that need to be addressed; others deny problems even when presented with clear evidence.

My cooperating teacher is usually a "tell it like it is" type of person, but I saw her become a skilled diplomat during these conferences.  I paid close attention and wondered why she chose to emphasize certain strengths and weaknesses ("areas for growth") while ignoring others, watching as she pushed some and pulled back with others.  It wasn't because she was intimidated by them, she clearly had an agenda in mind.  At the end of each day of conferences, we would debrief and she would explain.  Her reasons were often rooted in prior knowledge of dealing with this particular family, but she also told me that she had learned the hard way during her first year as a teacher to "kill them [parents] with kindness" and to pick battles carefully.  She reminded me that it was not our goal to prove ourselves right and the parents wrong (which ends up alienating them in most cases), but instead to do the best we can to get each child what they need, which often requires a working relationship with the parents.  She reminded me that we may not be able to get everything a child needs, but if we can get and keep parents on our team, we are likely to do more for the child with them than without them.

My CT also did a great job modeling how to sandwich bad news with good news -- another important diplomatic skill.  Every conference began with the student sharing his or her "top 3" best pieces of work from the first term that they had self-selected to include in their learning portfolio.  She prompted them to explain not only what it was but why it was important and why they had picked it as an example of their best work.  Students then presented their "goals," "glows," and "grows," for each subject area, including life skills.  "Grows" are areas where they are still working toward their goals and it was during this part of the discussion that my CT would skillfully insert her views of which areas needed improvement.  She used very positive language however such as "my goal for you in this areas would be . . . " or "my hope for you to grow as a learner would be . . .," always asking if the student and parents agreed before pressing forward with a proposed plan of action and often enlisting their suggestions.

Because she ended each conference with an "I am proud of you because . . ." statement, each child left with a smile on their face despite some hard conversations that had been skillfully sandwiched in the middle.

The bottom line . . . always keep it positive and always put the child's needs first.