HEATHER
MIGDON
Diary #2
The
Power of Positive Phone-Calling
"Inner city parents don't care about their kids' education," or so say many teachers in urban schools. Teachers have told me that it is impossible to get help from most of the parents in "these types" of schools because the parents either don't believe or don't care that their children exhibit poor behavior in the classroom.
Despite the many warnings that phone calls home have no effect on children's behavior, I was forced to make my first "bad call" to a parent of a student in my new class this week. I had been told by other parents that this child (let's call him Thomas) was a terror. One teacher even claimed that he was crazy. And so far, I had seen nothing in my classroom to prove them wrong. Thomas seemed intent on breaking as many classroom rules as I could remember. One day this week, Thomas behaved so poorly that he warranted the third consequence in my classroom management system -- the dreaded phone call home. Thomas was unconcerned when I told him that I would be calling. Indeed, it was me that was doing the dreading. I called Thomas's mother that night. When I identified myself as Thomas's new teacher, the only response I got was a curt "Okay." Since this was my first call to Thomas's mother, I decided to use the 3:1 ratio that my former principal suggested to teachers. I would tell his mother three good things that he had done, and then drop the bomb that he had "had a bad day." It actually wasn't difficult to identify three positive things about Thomas. Thomas was quick to volunteer during class discussions, and he always offered a pencil or paper when another student announced that s/he was lacking his or her supplies. But what impressed me about Thomas the most was that, every single morning, he was the first student to put away his belongings and start on his morning warm-up. He often responded to a writing prompt warm-up with a full and complete answer before some of the other students had even written their date on the top of the page. After Thomas's mother responded to my introduction with just "okay," I started to tell her how proud I was of him for always finishing his morning warm-up so quickly. She interrupted me. "Wait. Do you mean to tell me that Thomas did something GOOD???" I replied that he had indeed done something good, and I also told her the other good things I had noticed about him. She was obviously shocked. She exclaimed, in a stunned voice, "I've never gotten a GOOD call before!" She went on to say how happy she was with him, and how delighted she was that I had called to let her know about his progress. I hated to interrupt to tell her about what he had done that was not so good. I feared that she would discover my real reason for calling, and I didn't want her to be angry with him or me. Instead, she surprised me as much as I had surprised her. "I am so sorry that he was bad in class today, Ms. Migdon, but I will not let him mess up what he has going for himself with you. I want to keep getting these good phone calls!" She said she would talk to him, and she promised that tomorrow I would see a new child. Thomas's behavior was stellar for the rest of the week. In fact, on Friday, he stayed after school to ask me if I needed help with anything in my classroom. This child, who countless other teachers had warned me about, was actually offering part of his Friday afternoon to help me. With one positive phone call, a boy who had been suspended every year since second grade had become one of my best behaved students. Thomas and his mother taught me an important lesson -- that so-called uninterested parents can become allies when they know that the teacher is on their side.
