In the past few years, the education system of our country has seen a lot of drastic changes in almost every field, from the curriculum to teaching practices, from resources to technical adaptation everywhere. It will not be wrong if someone says that the last few years have changed the entire image of the education system in the world. The last one had some serious issues to be resolved that we have covered to an extent. However, you can not deny the fact that the past system had some benefits too. The biggest benefit was the interaction of parents and teachers, which is a requirement for the betterment of the child. Sure, there are still measures in place to keep the parents informed about the progress or downfall of the students, but the monthly parent-teachers meet is losing its existence day by day.
One of the most common yet crucial aspects of having the parent-teacher meeting was to keep the parents informed of all the highs and lows of their children in academics. How they can help their children enhance their performance in life? While there are still some schools that continue the practice, it has been observed that unlike parents before, modern parents are not interested in getting all the insights. What used to be a mandatory day has just become a formality. Most of the parents skip the meeting due to any reason, which is just harming the entire process. You can say that things are not the same anymore, and that is a reason for worry. There are some interesting aspects that one must be aware of about this phenomenon of parent-teacher meetings, and this post aims at clearing them for the masses. Let’s begin!
Understanding The Concept of Parent-Teacher Meet | What Difference Does it Make?
To speak, this ancient way of keeping everyone in a loop has been around since eternity. Schools of all types across the globe adapted to this simple yet effective mechanism of creating a two-way communication channel among teachers and the parents of their students, and it showed a lot of potentials. Many teachers will go to the extent of saying that this meeting made things a whole lot easier for them. The concept is simple, in a particular amount of time every month, or every week or in every fifteen days, whatever suits the administration, the schools host a parent-teachers meet where they invite the parents of every standard to interact and show the reports of the students. While this might seem like a 1-dimensional exchange, it has a lot of depth to it.
Here are some ways in which parent-teacher meeting is helpful and crucial –
- Improves Communication
– Every teacher who works at a school wants to bring some details about the child in the knowledge of their parents, but since they do not have the appropriate access, the communication never takes place. The same is the case with the parents, they always believe that they have the right to know where their child stands in the classroom, what are his strengths and what are the weak points that they need to pay attention to, which they have but since the teachers have a packed schedule to follow, the follow-up never takes place. Points like if a student needs help with assignment or is capable of doing it on his own, remain untouched. Parent-teachers meet provides a fairground to both of them and improves communication among them.
- Helps Administration
– Every school has an administration that takes care of the facilities in the school premises. When outsiders visit a place, they tend to point out certain things that the administration is unfamiliar with making it a complete two-way transaction in which teachers state the feedback about the child, whereas parents provide feedback about the facilities, what is excellent, and what needs more effort. All in all, it helps the administration to understand where they need to pay attention and how they can make the school a better place.
- Enhances Opportunities
– There are certain times when students feel shy in classrooms while speaking and later share their hesitation, issue, a suggestion with their parents. The meetings open up a new channel of communication between a teacher and an introverted child through the parent, which makes it better for both the teacher and the student as now everything is in sync. If a student needs a new opportunity or needs extra care, the parents can communicate with the teacher, whereas if a teacher needs certain help from the parent or wants the parents to prepare the child for an opportunity at home, they are more than happy to do it!
These are just 3 of the many opportunities that can be of great help and are not limited to these 3. Many places have their way of handling and hosting parent-teacher meets. Some states use the activity to raise funds for schools, which is a way of enhancing the quality of available resources. The concept is one of a kind and makes a lot of difference while using. It is catastrophic that people today are not taking it seriously and are just letting it die!
How Parent-Teacher Meeting is Dying? What Can We Do?
We all know that the concept of these meets has just vanished from our modern and digital schools. People prefer calling to know things that are of any use to them, beating the motive behind the concept. Parents today have no time for handling these meetings, and the worst part is, even teachers are not pushing hard enough to make things happen. The decline has been drastic in the interaction of teachers and students among the past 5 years and on top of that, the pandemic situation blew it out of the park.
The big question that arises here is what we can do? For starters spreading awareness about the use cases of these meetings needed to be spread among young parents. The generation that is responsible for the parenting of gen z kids is the one who hated the concept of the parent-teacher meeting, due to all the scoldings that they used to get, and that needs to change. Teachers need to push harder, and parents need to understand the importance of it. Then and only then things can come back on track else there is no hope whatsoever.
Hope this post opened your eyes and made you realize exactly what we are losing by ending the tradition. If it did, feel free to share it with your colleagues and friends. It’s time to take the matter into your hands, it’s time to revive the long-forgotten parent-teacher meets!
