Do you remember the days as a new teacher, worried about family phone calls? Emily, an Extraordinary Educator and current fourth grade teacher, certainly does. In this episode, she walks us through her fascinating journey, from being a 22-year-old new educator who was worried while making phone calls, to a seasoned professional adept at creating and maintaining strong bonds with students' families. She shares her experiences, offering us a peek into her innovative approach to logging positive interactions with families, which helps in setting the right tone for future conversations.
Imagine maintaining your communication momentum even during holidays! Emily not only does this effectively but also provides insightful examples of the profound impact it has on her students. She reveals how her unique communication strategies have motivated her pupils, especially those struggling with a particular subject. And the best part? Emily's practical and actionable advice will resonate with teachers grappling with similar challenges. Be prepared to revamp your approach to parent-teacher communication after listening to this episode!
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Sari Laberis:
Curriculum Associates presents the Extraordinary Educators Podcast with hosts Danielle Sullivan and Sari Laberis. Hear tips, best practices, and successes to improve your teaching and leadership and drive student growth and learning. We're here for you.
Danielle Sullivan:
Hello everyone, welcome to the Extraordinary Educator Podcast. I'm Danielle.
Sari Laberis:
And I'm Sari. This week we are joined by Emily, an Extraordinary Educator, 4th-grade teacher in Delaware.
Danielle Sullivan:
And Emily is talking about something that I know I really struggled with when I was a teacher: family communication. Did you struggle with that?
Sari Laberis:
Absolutely. I don't know many teachers who don't. When they're starting off, there are so many things to juggle: your time, what you're doing in the classroom. It seems like at the beginning another thing added to the list. Emily really does a great job of explaining the importance of family communication and how it impacts her relationship with her students and also classroom culture, and she gives really great strategies and also kind of goals that you can hit on a weekly or monthly basis, ways that she tracks all of this that hopefully you will find really helpful as you think about the remainder of the school year.
Danielle Sullivan:
All right, so let's listen to our podcast with Emily.
Sari Laberis:
Hey, Emily, great to see you. Thank you so much for being here.
Emily Kahler:
Thank you so much for having me.
Danielle Sullivan:
So, Emily, can you tell us a little bit about family engagement? I know that is a hot topic for many educators and sometimes something that we often struggle with. I know I did as an educator, so what are some things that you think about when it comes to engaging families?
Emily Kahler:
When I think over my entire career, I think about how I was at the beginning of my career and how I engaged families then and how I engage families now. And if you look back, it's very different from what I did in the past. When I started teaching, I hated parent phone calls. I hated having to call and talk to parents. I was 22 years old and sometimes I felt like they probably thought they knew better than me and they probably did for some of the things because I was brand new. As I teach now it's very different because there's so many different ways to communicate with families. Since going through a pandemic, Zoom is a great way to engage parents that are not able to come into the classroom to meet with you. We use many, many different systems. I'll sometimes text with parents to get ahold of them, emails. There's so many more different ways than just the plain email and phone call. I was forcing myself to make after multiple hours of rehearsing what I was going to say when I previously started teaching.
Sari Laberis:
Thank you so much for sharing that and being so vulnerable. I know for our listeners you are definitely not the only one, and I felt the exact same way as I started, or when I started teaching, and Danielle did also, it seems. So what are some of the strategies you use when you do have to have a conversation that you're not exactly looking forward to?
Emily Kahler:
So first at the beginning of the year and throughout the year I always try to make sure I have positive interactions with parents before I have to make those negative interactions. The first thing to do at the beginning of the year is make a log of all of my students' names and I put down a date at the top, just a blank column after their name, and then I put in a date every single time I contact the parent for a positive phone call. I try and get every single parent either a phone call, text, something from me within the first month of school and then I continue that for the rest of the year. That makes those hard conversations a little bit less difficult because we already have a communication going. They're comfortable with me. We've talked before, we've talked about positive things so that when we have to have that conversation that's not positive, it doesn't feel so bad for both and we actually feel like we have a partnership already.
Danielle Sullivan:
That is so important and I'm glad you said that, because the first contact home should never be a problem. I agree with both of you. My first year teaching I was so stressed out to talk to families, but as you become a seasoned teacher it becomes much easier and I love that you're tracking data. I love that you have your students' names and you're making sure that you have the right contacts. Are there times where you would ever send anything home in the mail, or do you keep your family communications to phone calls, texts, emails?
Emily Kahler:
That's actually a really good question. When I actually had my first teaching job, I sent home a letter to the parents. I got my list three days before school started and I sent my letter home. I haven't recently, though, because my students that I teach now, their parent addresses often change, so mail is not always the best way to get something home to my students now, but at my conference that I went to this summer, we talked about postcards, and I'm kind of wanting to do that this year because I know I liked receiving my when I was a kid.
Sari Laberis:
Well, you'll have to let us know how that goes and keep us posted so we can share for our audience here. Is there anything else that you were thinking about, kind of as you head into like the real thick of it this school year, especially going into the winter, that you want other teachers to know about communicating with families?
Emily Kahler:
So I actually started in the middle of last school year in the winter with my students and I noticed that even though the students that I got knew that I was a brand new teacher in the classroom, they really appreciated those positive phone calls right up into the holidays, because I got them on December 12th and then we were off for a bit, but they appreciated hearing from me even at that time of the year. So I find that that's very important, that you don't just drop off because it's the holidays and you're tired and you don't feel like talking anymore. That that's a really good time to reach out and have those positive conversations, because typically especially the students that I teach sometimes they're not looking forward to having a week off from school and so the behaviors start to ramp up and if I get those positive communications going before we hit that last week, it's often a lot more smooth going into the holiday season.
Danielle Sullivan:
Oh, absolutely. And in thinking about that, what do you see the effect on your students knowing that you're prioritizing building relationships with their families? Like, do you notice that it helps your relationships with your students?
Emily Kahler:
Oh, absolutely yes. One of the schools I worked at required us to send home seven positive communications a week, and that's something that I brought with me to my new school, because it's so important to have those positive conversations. My students will come up and talk to me. They're like hey, you called my mom, or hey, you said her a text that I had a great day yesterday or that I mastered this concept in math, and that really motivates them, especially students who struggle with the subject that I'm teaching right now. I'm switching from math to ELA, so it will look a little bit different, but that has been such a positive thing and it motivates them in the classroom too for their classwork.
Sari Laberis:
Thank you so much for sharing that, emily, and for sharing all of your insights and strategies, and Emily also recently wrote a blog about this which we will link in the show notes if you are interested. So that is all the time we have for today, Emily. Thank you so much for being here. Get inspired by following us on social media and please tag us in your posts. On Twitter, @curriculumassoc, and on Instagram, @my iReady. If you have feedback about the podcast, a topic of interest or want to be a guest, email extraordinaryeducators@cainc. com. Subscribe where you listen to podcasts and if you'd like to help more educators like you, join the conversation, please leave a review.
Danielle Sullivan:
And remember, be you, be true, be extraordinary. The Extraordinary Educators podcast is produced by Curriculum Associates. Editing by Whiteboard Geeks, social media by Atziri Hannon, guest booking by Sari Laberis, production by Hayley Browning. This podcast is copyright, material and intellectual property of Curriculum Associates.