Another Shift to Curriculum Night

I don't remember when we started calling it "Curriculum Night" vs. "Parent Night" or "Open House," but I'd like to share what I tweaked this year, and how it went. (Previous posts about parent night are here from 2017, and here from 2013.)

I kept the same question of the day (night?) for parents to answer with their child's magnet - they seem to like finding the magnet and moving it, then discussions continue as they sit down while I'm greeting more arrivals. (How much did YOU enjoy 7th grade?)

One thing I felt I NEEDED to do was to cover the white board tables. I went for - and received! - grant money four (?) years ago for IdeaPaint for my classroom tables. We'd painted 12 of the 15, as some students didn't want it. Since then, they've been scrubbed with some super-amazing cleaner that has now washed off the protective layer they used to have. So... those goofy drawings of odd faces? Yup. They now look pretty permanent. The questions about the text we're reading? Yup. Still there. It doesn't seem to bother the seventh graders, but it bothers me. Hubby went to the dollar store and bought me six white table cloths, and we folded them twice to place on six of the nine whiteboard tables that are left (I swapped out three of them for two smaller - and square - tables last year - students decided which tables needed to go). If I don't get the gumption to purchase this whiteboard contact paper a colleague recently used to cover his tables, I'll go with the table cloths again next year, too!

Then I collected many books from home. I wanted parents to understand that I keep up with professional development. I also thought - what if THEY read what I've read? They may understand my teaching a bit more, and perhaps share with other parents. So.... I created check out slips for the books I thought parents might enjoy reading. (Here they are - make your own!)

Some books I kept at home, thinking they would be more beneficial to teachers than parents, but I did bring over twenty, so the box was heavy enough as it was. ;)

Was my plan successful? Three points that make me think it was... I was able to share that The Power of Reading really simply stated, "The only way to understand reading more is to READ MORE." One parent (who also teaches ELA) said I had some "awesome books" there, and another parent CHECKED ONE OUT!! Yes! The Feedback Fix by Joe Hirsch was the winner of the night.

Side note: My husband and my co-teacher were the ones who said I should bring Shift This. I just couldn't! Plus, it was not a text that had influenced my own teaching. It was a result.

The rest of Open House / Parent Night / Curriculum Night went very well. I let parents know I was available after the night was over for further questions, and no one showed. (I figure the ones that need to ask weren't able to show this night.)


The next day, one student shared with me that his dad said we had a "touchy-feely" class. He said this right after I had touched his shoulder to say hello when he walked in to class. So I sprang back and said, "Oh, I'm sorry - I just do that automatically!"
He replied, "No. He means it's a comfortable class." I'll take it!

Parent Night

I keep looking back at the parent night post I wrote in 2013. I've looked back at it each September for four years now, and each year I tweak it for myself a bit. It is past time for a new post. Here's what I was hoping to convey this year...

I have no syllabus. We are starting the year with a pilot curriculum that I'm actually looking forward to. It's reading and writing workshop, which is what I believe we need right now in ELA. The bookmark I hope you picked up on your way in has a link to our class website, among other resources, where you can explore to learn more about the content in our class.

Instead of telling you all about me, I’d like to start with asking you to think about a question:

Who was a teacher you liked - or at least respected - in 7th grade?

Now try to come up with WHY this person was someone you remember.

I hope to be all those things.

I asked your children to finish this statement in a survey this past week -

"A great teacher is _____"
Your children hope I am the following:

kind, funny, fun, helpful, fair, understanding, friendly, respectful...
I let them know I expect the same of them:

kind, helpful, fair, understanding, friendly, respectful…

Without these expectations, we won’t have much learning occurring.

One more question: What CONTENT from 7th grade do you remember?

      (Long pause... Nobody seems to remember!)

Your child won't remember very much either. What will he or she remember?

My hope is that once your children leave 7th grade, I hope they will remember that I never gave them answers. I only guided them towards tools they can use for the future. We shared our ideas in a respectful manner, and learned how to learn even more about topics that interested us, or bothered us... topics that kept us reading, writing, and discussing.

I am the most fortunate of all of your child's teachers you'll see tonight.

I get to enjoy your child’s presence for 80 minutes of every day - and I really get to know them.

I’m also the most fortunate because I don’t expect your child to memorize any FACTS.

We get to explore great writing, share what we’re reading and writing, and figure out how to read to enjoy and learn, and how to write for an authentic audience - not just for their teacher.

Hopefully, by the end of the year, your children will have learned EMPATHY in ELA.

Hopefully, by the end of the year, your children will want to continue learning outside of school hours.

We spent the first ten days of school building community, respect, trust, and understanding of why we need to read and write. I will continue to try to reach them through literature, nonfiction, and their own writing.

I will also be offering more choice than I was ever afforded in 7th grade.
We will have choice in our reading, writing, and sharing what we've learned.

Our first activity to get to know each other a bit and decorate the room was our Six-Word Memoirs. I'd like to show you the video now. If you'd like to use this time to chat, feel free. Each six-word memoir movie will be published on our blog, and you'll get an email reminder when I send our next two-week update. [Insert video here!]

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Instead, somewhere during this beautifully-planned speech, I got derailed a bit. One parent asked, "What can you tell us about the grading in here?" 

To which I responded, "What did your child tell you so far?"

This led to a super awesome passion-filled me-on-my-soapbox quick explanation of why feedback is more effective than grades or marks. (I only had a total of 18 minutes!) I hope I also made the point that they needed to contact me as soon as they had any questions or concerns - that I would be so saddened to hear them tell next year's teacher to "disregard my child's grades last year - he got to choose them."

I further explained, "Your child and I will sit down together and both of use will bring evidence to the table to support what we believe the final grade should be each quarter. We will share achievement and struggles, and make plans to improve during the next quarter." 

No more averaging. 
No more using practice for points. 
Let's see what each child knows so far, and then see where we can improve.

My "gradeless" resources so far: "FaR" tabs of our classroom Weebly

                                    Feedback Instead of Grades LiveBinder for parents to inspect
                                    My own reflections on this journey

Parent Night

I've changed the way I teach so much in the last 5 years.
It reflects in what I said to the parents tonight at Open House...

I’d like to start with asking you to think about a question:

Who was your favorite teacher in 7th grade?

Now try to come up with WHY this person was your favorite teacher.

I hope to be all those things.

I asked your children to finish this statement on the second day of school - A great teacher is...
Your children hope I am the following:

kind, funny, fun, helpful, peppy, understanding, friendly, respectful...
I let them know I expect the same of them:

kind, helpful, understanding, friendly, respectful…

Without these expectations, we won’t have much learning occurring.

One more question: What CONTENT from 7th grade do you remember?

      (Long pause... Nobody seems to remember!)

Your child won't remember either. What will he or she remember?

I am the most fortunate of all of your child's teachers you'll see tonight.

I get to enjoy your child’s presence for 80 minutes of every day - and I really get to know them.

I’m also the most fortunate because I don’t expect your child to memorize FACTS.

We get to explore great writing, share what we’re reading and writing, and figure out how to read to enjoy and learn, and how to write for an authentic audience - not just for their teacher.

Hopefully, by the end of the year, your children will have learned this in ELA:

Empathy

Hopefully, by the end of the year, your children will want to continue learning outside of school hours.

We spent the first ten days of school building community, respect, trust, and understanding of why we need to read and write. I will continue to try to reach them through literature, nonfiction, and their own writing.

I will also be giving more choice than I was ever afforded in 7th grade.
One of those big choices - that centers around reading and writing this year - will be something we call “Genius Hour.”

Our mission for Genius Hour is to READ. BE INSPIRED. and ACT ON IT.

I’d like to show you a short video of last year’s students reflections on what THEY perceived Genius Hour to be...

In this class, it’s about the learning.

I will work my hardest to help your child become a life-long learner.

I know I didn't talk about specific curriculum, my teaching history, our homework or grading philosophies, but that is because I've put everything on the class Weebly. (Shown on the screen.)

I'd love for you to now please check out your child’s blog - if he or she has written one (or more), please take the time to comment. If not, please encourage him or her to write one for you. I’ll circulate and answer any questions you may have.

I had great feedback tonight. 

This year will be our best year yet...

Update 12/2016 - Don't have too much time to talk with parents at Parent Night? 
          Check out Catlin Tucker's ideas to flip your back-to-school night!