1 Simple Way a Teacher Can Reduce Stress at School
You can’t please everyone
You can’t please everyone!
On the surface, that might be true, but is it? Yesterday, I got a call from one of my school’s student counselors.
“You didn’t hear it from me,” said the counselor. You have another student and parent complaint.
Parent and student complaints are not the problems. It becomes a problem when it reaches the principal’s desk. “You need to reach all students,” said the principal.
Has there ever been a time when every student did well, and no student slipped through the system?
I have great students this school year. About 85% of my students are passing. However, there are 15% that refuse to seek extra tutoring during recess or lunch recess. Is it the teacher’s fault that the 15% are receiving a D or an F? The short answer is yes.
Here is why?
Principals are people like everyone else. If there are too many parent complaints, the blame lies squarely on the teacher. A teacher could have a 99% success rate, but if the parents of the 1% are loud and complain, there is a good chance the principal will question the teacher’s teaching strategies.
Types of parent complaints:
The teacher goes too fast in class
Class is too hard
I don’t understand anything the teacher says.
I have a hard time learning in class.
The teacher doesn’t smile in class and is not approachable.
These are some of the complaints I’ve had. The last complaint threw me off guard. “Could you smile more in class?” said the principal.
Teaching complex numbers and drawing argand diagrams in Trigonometry to students who will probably never use 98% of what they are trying to learn in a Trigonometry class is the problem.
If you took higher-level math in high school or college, have you ever needed to use the skill set in daily life?
If you say yes, I’d like to know what you do for a living and what grocery stores you visit. The most mathematics a person will use every day is basic math with budgeting.
The courses we are teaching are archaic.
Simple steps new teachers can do to help lessen parent complaints.
Most parent complaints are because their child is not doing well in school and receiving a low grades. The letter grade is the only indicator most people look at to check if a student is learning. Is it really about learning?
To some students, it is, but to most, the letter grade is the bottom line. That means the end justifies the means.
It’s been my experience that if the student and parents are happy, the principal is happy because there are no parent complaints.
Here are simple steps a new teacher can take to keep students and parents happy with their grades. It’s called the weighted average.
Our school uses an online system to calculate grades. We input and record the grades, and the online grading spits out a grade.
- Use the weighted average to your advantage.
No rule says a test, quiz, or homework must be worth a certain weight. The teacher controls the weight of each category.
That has been my saving grace for grading for some years. It’s the teacher’s discretion to weigh the categories as they see fit.
Final Thoughts
The weighted average will keep any teacher out of trouble. At the heart of every school is student grades. If students and parents are happy, the principal is happy. It means there are no parent complaints. With no parent complaints, work is that much easier.
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