Man was endowed with two ears and one tongue, that he may listen more than speak. – Hasdai, Ben HaMelekh veHaNazir, ca. 1230, chapter 26
Although I did not purposely get behind in my “7 Habits” blog posts, it does work out nicely to land with this habit during the week of Parent-Teacher Conferences.
A lot of attention was spent before the last round of conferences on the new format for report cards and middle school conferences. We received a lot of positive feedback on those changes, but as we continue to try to be responsive to parent needs, we are going to try to take it up another level this round. Here is how we described it to our teachers:
As you finalize parent-teacher conference preparations, we remind you that successful conferences include artifacts, next steps and solutions. We encourage you to think through the lens of bringing solutions, not just problems, to the table. For any issue you need to raise with parents about academic progress or behavior, don’t just come with the issue, but with a practical solution to propose. Parents cannot be partners without clear expectations. We believe this mindset will go a long way towards having productive conferences and, more importantly, towards greater success in school.
We look forward to facilitating solutions-driven conversations and we will look for feedback to see how well we did. But all of this is focused on what we are going to bring to the table. That’s only one part of the conference. We also have to be ready to listen – to really hear – what you are coming to tell us. And that’s why this month’s habit is so perfectly timed.
We have been thinking about this at OJCS for quite some time now. Last year, we spent a faculty meeting exploring examples of ineffective and effective communication from a related field to help us prepare:
Which doctor would you prefer? Which hospital would you entrust your family to? This led, at the time, to a very productive and ongoing conversation about listening that we hope continues to lead to better and better ways of interacting with parents in our school.
Between our best preparations and our parents’ best intentions, we are looking forward to healthy and productive parent-teacher conferences this week. We are coming to the table with artifacts, next steps and solutions. But we are also coming with listening ears and open hearts; we hope that both parent and teacher will use this time to “seek first to understand and then to be understood”. If we can, (we can!) we ensure that the holy work we do together to educate children will be advanced.
