Soap Box; Teachers' Meeting on Integration. Teachers and parents

Teachers meeting on integration. Today's subject, teachers and parents. Hello, this is Ryan Lincoln. The first and probably the most important place where the community and the school meet is at the point of their common interest in children. So today in our third meeting on integration, we're going to talk about the relations between parents and teachers as they deal with children in the integrated school. In working out this meeting, we've talked with a great many people in the community and in the schools to find out how they feel about themselves and about each other. Today we're going to present some of our findings to you. Obviously in all of these many people that we've talked to, no one person perfectly examples any one attitude. Each human being is really, I guess, a collection of partial attitudes. So in order to present the material to you in the clearest possible way, we've asked some people to act out typical feelings,

ideas and attitudes in a more concentrated form than we would find in real life. This is Miss Clark, a fourth grade teacher in the Peterson School. And Miss Clark is busily working on that basic primary means of communication between teachers and parents, the report card. Miss Clark, whose report card is that that you're working on there? This one happens to belong to John Jones. You know John is just one of 42. I have all the others to make out too. John's an average student. He's done fairly well in his regular work. But I'm concerned about his conduct. What's the matter with it? He's just one of those kids who always does something, like pushing a book off a desk, you know, or taking a drink after the lines have passed. How are you marking him on conduct? I wasn't real sure how the parents would understand this, but I decided to use the word uncooperative. It covers all those little things. I hope

they understand it. Miss Clark, what are you doing about this conduct problem with Johnny? I haven't decided just what to do. One time I had a parent conference and that was on George last year. And it was just a waste of time. After I talked to his parents, I wondered just what I had accomplished. I think this would be just about the same. I can't see what I'd get out of talking with them. You never have talked with Johnny's parents? No, I have all these other records to do too. You see, after the report cards are filled out, I have to record the grades on the S1s. Then there are levels to do too. By the time I do all of that work for 42 children, there isn't much time for things like parent conferences. Well, Miss Clark, when you send this report card home to Johnny's parents, how do you think they're going to react? I don't know, but I can guess. Well, let's find out how the parents do react. The next day, Johnny Jones' father gets the report card. Mr. Jones, what do you think about it? I don't like it.

You for uncooperative. I don't think those teachers know anything about Johnny. He's a good kid at home. He's got M's. He does all right in his studies. What does it mean, you for uncooperative? Have you talked with his teachers about this? No, the teachers never send a note home. It can't be too serious. He's never bothered to ask us about it. What do you think you're going to do about this situation, Mr. Jones? Well, it can't be too serious. I'll talk to Johnny about it. I don't know. I don't think I could get too much if I did talk to the teacher. Why? Oh, Johnny's just a kid. I don't think they understand. Oh, 10-year-olds all the time. Well, even if children wouldn't understand, how about parents and teachers? Don't you think they might get together? You know, teachers are pretty hard to talk to sometimes. I went through school and I don't know. I guess it would be

possible, but I don't think we could get anywhere. Well, how about next year then? Well, you'll get a new teacher, fifth grade. Maybe things will be all right. So, it seems that the report card is not always the very best and most successful means of communication between a parent and a teacher, and sometimes it's all the communication that there is. But let's get on with our story. Johnny was promoted to the fifth grade, and the next fall, he took his place in an integrated school. Let's see how the parent-teacher communication is working out now. This is Miss Smith, Johnny's fifth grade teacher. She, too, is filling out a report card at the end of the first term. Miss Smith, how is Johnny doing now? Well, Johnny is still very satisfactory in his work, but I'm not pleased with his mark in conduct. How have you marked him? Well, he's still unsatisfactory and he's still uncooperative. And the thing I'm concerned about, you see, I'm new here and I am just wondering if the principal is going

to stand with me on my evaluation of Johnny. I have a feeling if I could get to talk with Johnny's parents that I would really understand the child and be able to at least give an honest picture of him on this report card. Have you tried to talk with Mr. and Mrs. Jones? No, I haven't. I've gathered from the other teachers that they're sort of indifferent and it doesn't seem like it's worthwhile. But I still feel a need for his contact with the parents. Well, do you think that's something you might do is to try to get in touch with his parents and ask them to come in or maybe go see them? Well, I've turned over many approaches and for instance, I have wondered if I should maybe call them on the telephone. That's the least desirable of all the methods of communication, but it beats nothing. Or I'm wondering if I should request the parents to come in to see me. But it's just a question in my mind whether the parent would say or the nerve of that teacher. Then I have a concern would the parents feel that I'm biased?

What do you mean? How? Well, you see, I have children of two racial groups and of course they might feel that I would favor the children of my racial group in this marking situation. Well, what do you think his parents are likely to do, Mrs. Jones? Well, I think that they might think along the lines that possibly that teacher's racial background, her socioeconomic background, her environment have been different and she simply does not understand my child nor his problems. So you're not very hopeful when you're sending this report card home to his parents? No, I'm not because it isn't the true picture. Yet I feel if I could get to those parents, I could give a better picture and I'd give worlds to know how to contact those parents. Well, let's see what happens when the report card goes home to the Jones household. Again, Johnny's father looks over the report card and Mr. Jones, how does it strike you now? I don't like it. There must be something wrong two years in a row. Johnny is still a good kid around the house. He still has this you unsatisfactory

in conduct. The school is different this year. It's always been a good school. I think there are eight or ten Negro kids in Johnny's class. Has he said anything about the new situation at school? No, no he hasn't. Have you seen any effects of it in him when he's around home? Does he seem different this year? He doesn't say much about it. We think he gets along alright in school and we get along alright in the home and that's the way it is. But still he's unsatisfactory in his conduct. Have you thought about talking to his fifth grade teacher? Now, this new teacher she may be very good but I don't know whether she'd understand our kid. And I wonder if something, how the school the room situation is. Well, Mr. Jones, what do you think you can do? Well, I don't know. I'd like to do something but I don't know what it could be. Alright, sir.

Well, we've seen a parent and two teachers at least trying to communicate and there seem to be problems. There may also be some answers. And to help us think about these things, here is Dr. Jean Grams consultant on intergroup education for the National Conference of Christians and Jews. We've seen two things and I think they're both fairly reminiscent of the things we've all been through. Wondering how our report lands at home, what they think of it and wishing, wishing there were a way to meet with parents, talk with them, help them and they'd help us. Sometimes it becomes quite important and as we move into the year of transition time of integration it becomes even more important that we work with parents and establish somewhat better means of communication. Perhaps if we call

back our role playing parent and teachers we can get some help. Mr. Jones, will you help us on this, get some solutions? And Ms. Smith, our fifth grade teacher, maybe you can help too. And Ms. Clark, you had Johnny in fourth grade, I'm sure you have some ideas. And then we asked in a mother, Mrs. Adams, who would give us the point of view of a mother too as a parent. There are solutions, I'm sure there are. Do you have some ideas on this subject? Well there is one logical one it seems to me. Why don't we, it's a big problem and one we recognize. So can't we have a meeting? Maybe we could get all the parents and the teachers together and have someone who has dealt with this problem successfully come and talk to them. That should work. A speaker and a big meeting?

Well I don't think it came up but Mary and I have been to some meetings. We don't go for these big school meetings. Reports, speakers we don't know. We never get to talk to our teachers alone. I don't think a meeting would help. I want to know what my teacher thinks about Johnny. But all of these are basic problems. I mean all the teachers are having similar ones and the parents are having similar ones. So if we have an authority that authority could talk to everybody along general lines of course but a lot of information could be obtained. Ms. Clark, how do you feel about that? Well I'm just wondering about the time that you're going to hold these meetings. You know we have an awful lot to do. And if we have to come back in the evening for some of these meetings I'm wondering how valuable that is to me. I have so many reports to fill out that maybe I'm tired the next day. Maybe it'd be better if I didn't have to come to an evening meeting.

I feel that it's so very important that any amount of time that we spend in an effort to get to know the child, especially on an individual basis is worth it, well worth it, especially at the beginning of this program of integration or any other new program. Let us take the time at the beginning and we will more than make up for it. It would be better just a child toward the end. But Ms. Smith, Johnny now for two years in the row has had unsatisfactory and his other teacher didn't bother to call us so we figured it wasn't too serious. If you have something that is wrong in school we'd like to know about it. Well I think we both are fearful. You're fearful of coming to you. I think if we forget you, forget me, concentrate on Johnny. Johnny is the one who needs help. If we can get that through and then get together. Well when are you going to get together though? I am willing to come early in the morning, especially to meet a dad. I can't come early in the morning, I work for a living. I'll stay after

school in the evening, especially to meet a dad. I'm anxious to get the dad in the boy's problem. You know, you dads feel that we women don't know how to handle men anyhow. So I'd like to get your opinion on how to get to Johnny. Well, couldn't we find a time that we could all get together? I'm still willing to work on an individual basis. Johnny is Mr. Jones' child. Mr. Jones' problem. Yes, and perhaps there's an idea here of having some interviews, of scheduling some interviews. Ms. Clark, would you feel that this would be a possibility maybe? Well when would you schedule them? You see, I have 42 children who have to be cared for, and if I schedule interviews with one parent, it means that I have to double another teacher's load. She takes my room while I talk to one parent. I don't think that's being very fair. There's something too about the parent going over to the teacher. You interrupt the classroom procedure so much, and yet you feel like you should see the teacher, so then perhaps we can

just take those problems and let some one person talk about them. This business of having a big meeting again, well perhaps there's some other things we can do too. Now Mr. Jones, you didn't understand what the U for uncooperative was. Would a letter have helped? A phone call? A home visit? If the letter was in the same terms as the report card, no. I think, I mean we've really found it pretty hard to get much out of teachers. I think if we're going to learn something about Johnny, the only way is to talk about it face to face. So if I can't understand the teacher, I can tell her and she can help me. Mrs. Adams has a fifth grade boy. Yes, and problem too. I mean I think perhaps all boys do have problems, and girls too. But I found that when I went to the teacher and talked over the problems, we were able to discuss it,

and I did see some results. But the best thing I found was when the teacher was able to come to the house, then she could see some of my boys' problems there. Because after all, seeing the child in the home does give the teacher another side of the child, and most teachers do want to know all about the children. It's just a problem I know of when they have the time to do it. Did your husband like the teacher coming to the home? Did it help? Of course it did. The teacher's just human. She's just a friend. She too is searching for the right answers. For the opportunity to know the parents. We do have a problem with Johnny at home. Nine o'clock murder mystery TV. I don't know what to do, neither does my wife. She just stays up. Yes, we have it also. I think all of us, the children around the fourth, fifth, and sixth grade had a problem of drawing net and so forth.

Perhaps that's when homework doesn't get done too. That's another one of our problems. You see, a child is tired out. He doesn't have his homework finished. And we don't understand that. We think that's a parent's problem to handle. Maybe if these parents got together with the teacher and you help them see your problem of homework. And then Mr. Jones could talk with Mrs. Adams about how she solved the television program. Maybe there'd be some real communication. Get together, but how? And when? That's a problem. When did your teacher come to visit you? Well, I believe she came during an afternoon, so some arrangements must have been made so that she could come. But we enjoyed having her come. It was an education for us. And we'd hope that she was able to see a little more about our child. I wonder what she did with the rest of her class, though, while she was visiting in this afternoon.

Perhaps they had the early dismissal, as some schools do, when it is important for parents and teachers to get together in room meetings or in interviews or home visits. Maybe that is a possibility. I'd like, we talked about this, I'd like to see what goes on in this new room situation. There is a new situation in our school, and I think we'd like to know what the new room looks like. You might visit in the classroom yourself if you were invited. Yes, we have to be invited. And you'd like to see Johnny's work. Yes, I would. We do have open houses occasionally that parents can come to. Have you found that? I'm sorry, but in an open house, you don't get a chance to talk to the teachers. You want to, you really don't. There are too many people, too many parents with the same idea. And while you're talking to the teacher about your particular problem, your child, then someone else has just completed talking and someone else is looking over your shoulder wanting you to

move on so they can talk. And the children are there watching you and wondering what you're going to say about them. I don't think that's satisfactory at all. Not only the children, other teachers, the principal. I want to know what the teacher that's teaching Johnny thinks about him, and I want to talk to the teacher if she has anything to say. I don't know how we can do it. Well, I think open house would be the first possibly opening wedge. You come on the night of opening of open house and you would get the feeling that the school isn't such a bad place. I've been to school. Well, you come back to the modern schools on open house night and you'll get an altogether different opinion. There's such an attitude of happiness and joyousness and keen interest. And then you see you get to know the teacher, the teacher gets to know you, and then you can set up the exact time when you can come for a longer interview. Well, that's all right if a parent has just one child, but we run into the difficulty of a parent with two or three or four children who aren't able to see each of the teachers, and that really doesn't solve the problem

either. Have you found that the parents come on open house, the ones you want to see? Well, you know which ones do. They're always the ones you would expect to come who will come. So we must invite them in and make time for them. That's one thing we can do. What other kinds of things? Now, Mr. Jones, perhaps you could help on a trip. I don't know. We don't have too much time. If it would help the situation and if I get to know more about what goes on with Johnny at school, yes. Now, Mrs. Adams, would you be able to give some time? Yes. If I were asking if it was something I think I could do, I think that could be worked out. But I'm not sure. I still feel a little uneasy about this new situation. I know you're probably a very fine teacher, but I don't think his other teacher understood Johnny, and I don't know that you do.

He's fine at home. Don't you think it has gone long enough for us not understanding Johnny? Johnny hasn't improved in a year. Don't you think something should be done about it? I'm willing to come more than halfway to get to know Johnny's dad, to get to know Johnny's mom, to get to know Johnny's situation. I think the more we know about Johnny, the better we'll be able to help Johnny. At a time of integration too, perhaps, if Mr. Jones meets Mrs. Adams, he perhaps would understand about the new situation too. Would you feel that way, Mrs. Adams? I think the basic thing is that my child is ten years old in the fifth grade. He has a child ten years old in the fifth grade. They both like to look at television. They both have trouble getting him to bed at night. There are so many similar things that I don't think the differences are quite as important as their similarities. How does this sound to you

now, Ms. Clark? Well, I think that's true. All problems are the same, but we're still faced with the problem of helping the parents see that they are alike. Parents come into us and talk about one individual child, and I don't think they see the problem as a problem that we teachers have. We know that all fifth graders act in a certain way. All fifth graders react to certain situations in the same way. For us, it's a big problem as a class, not as one child, but we have 42 and sometimes more, all having those problems that have to be coped with in one group. There have been many suggestions given, and we've learned probably a great deal about parent and teacher communication, or at least there have been many issues raised and solutions suggested. This is very interesting, and we have to think of next steps. I've thought out some of the kinds of things that we

might think about. These are some of the things that can be done. They aren't all of them, they aren't all necessarily things we'd all want to do, but let's look at them. Room meetings, when a Mr. Jones and a Mrs. Adams and all the other 30, 40 parents can see each other, all as parents of children of the same age, meeting their teacher together, talking about common concerns. Letters, in which it isn't just you for uncooperative, but it explains something more of what's been accomplished, what we're trying to do, where this child needs help, and where he's getting it. Open house, and as we heard, not open house when the teacher is mobbed

by parents, but one in which we've scheduled a meeting, and the parent knows that he can have a chance to see the room and his child's work, and also to talk with his teacher. Phone calls, this is kind of remote, but at least we hear each other's voices and we can exchange opinions. This is one way to start, though as was said by our teacher, she didn't feel I was too satisfactory, but it would be a start, wouldn't it? And we might think about it that way. Early dismissal, can there be some arrangements? And possibly there are available now times when the school can come early, can let out early, and then teachers, parents can get together on home visits, on scheduled interviews, on room meetings. Home visits,

as we see the child in his own environment, we learn an awful lot about him, and this helps us as teachers, doesn't it? But we must prepare for these carefully, the returns are great, and careful planning, we can have very rewarding experiences in understanding and working with parents. Parent participation, this helps give the parent a real stake in his child's education, he sees him with other children as a human being and as a boy, a girl. The more parents that do participate, the more we can talk together about what we're doing. Well these are many kinds of things that can be done, but before we decide, let's ask a few questions. Where do we start? Here has been a list of possibilities, but which one do you do first? That's something you might want to think about. What plans

would you need to make? We don't go into these kinds of workings with parents without thinking very carefully about what we do and how we do it. Our whole administrative procedures, they need careful working out so that everybody is relaxed and at ease. What about the neighborhood, the school neighborhood? Let's try and understand perhaps the needs here and think which of our possibilities best serves this community and helps meet its problem of recreation or part-time jobs or something here that they need our help with. And then in the school neighborhood again, what help, what agencies are there? They're resources, they're people of skill and talent who know our children and know their school community. Let's find

them, see how they can help, how we can help them. Well, these are problems of parent and teacher communication. And what we want to set up is a two-way street where parents and teachers listen to each other and listen and learn. Why is this important now? Probably at no time do we need to talk with our parents than at the time when they bring us special anxieties, special worries as we move into integration. Then we want to help parents realize that Johnny is getting the best education we can provide. He is going to be with a teacher who understands and helps him. Thank you, Dr. Grahams, and thank you our teachers and parents who

have helped us today by acting out some of the common attitudes, feelings, and ideas of teachers and parents here in St. Louis. This has been the third meeting on integration in the schools. We hope that we have given you some real help in thinking about the problems and about the opportunities of integration. Those of you who are interested in learning more about integration or in getting some help in working out your own plans can find that help in your school system and in this community. In a moment I want to introduce two of the people involved in those things to you. But right now let's take one last look at the possibilities and the questions that you might talk about for the rest of your meeting. Thank you.

You've been participating in the last of three teachers meetings on integration. Today's meeting on teachers and parents was presented with the cooperation of the National Conference of Christians and Jews and the St. Louis City Board of Education was produced by the Public Affairs Department of KETC, Channel 9, the St. Louis Educational Television Station and Production Center. Thank you.