The Parental Perspective

Monday night, our Educational Psychology sections had the opportunity to hear from three Decorah area parents about their stances on education issues and their experience with teachers. One of the parents had kids in a variety of grade levels, one a sophomore daughter and graduated son, and finally a mom with a graduated special education student. Not only was the session helpful, but it also offered life lessons about the profession of teaching and the importance of communicating with parents. As I listened intently to the parents' responses to questions about NCLB and effective teaching, I was impressed with the amount of information the parents knew about the teaching profession. Although two of them had teaching experience, the other seemed just as knowledgeable which offered an insight that I had never thought about.
Up until this point, the only interaction I had had with parents in a classroom setting was when my ED 185 class took a field trip and two parents joined us. They were interested in what I had learned and how the experience was going. I was surprised they even knew I had been there but they reminded me that my host teacher had sent home a letter telling them I would be there. The sense of support and desire to help that I felt from those moms on the field trip was reaffirmed by the parents in the discussion. Each one of them showed true desire to want to be an active member of their child's education and this makes me hopeful for my future classroom. If I have parents who are as supportive as those parents seemed to be, I will truly be a blessed teacher.