Back To School Night is an annual school tradition that usually happens a couple of weeks into the new school year. At my school, the regular school day is shortened and ends at noon, then teachers have about six hours to prepare for the 1.5 hour long event that night. Parents get to experience their child’s class schedule, getting 10 minutes for each class period with a 3-minute passing period in between. The purpose is for parents to meet their child’s teachers, and get a slight inkling of what a regular day of school is like. And it’s…completely terrifying.
Put me in front of a group of 13-year old students and I’m fine. As long as I have a plan, I can pretty much always make it happen. Swap out the kids with adults and I become somewhat useless as a human being. I ramble, repeat myself, and get cotton-mouth about 2 minutes in. I have so much adrenaline in my system that I feel as if I could self-power a unicycle to San Jose in less than an hour.
When the school day ends at noon my anxiety slowly begins to build, I get super itchy all over, and my mind begins to think of every possible negative scenario that could occur. By the time 6PM rolls around I have rehearsed my presentation about 30 times and I still have zero confidence that it will go well. Once the event begins I struggle through my first 10-minute presentation, trying to cover the most important information I think parents need to know, but really all I’m doing is going over the course syllabus with the aid of a mediocre Google slide deck with various Bitmojis of myself in the corner of each slide saying “Welcome Back” and “Thank You!”. If I were to take this 10-minute act on the theater circuit, zero people would buy a ticket (unless they enjoy a healthy dose of schadenfreude). After doing the same performance 4 more times, somehow I get progressively worse each time, and by the end of the night I drive home in shame and lay awake in my bed perseverating over how I must have looked like a crazy person.
Last year was probably my worst performance ever (although I’m sure Year One version of me would disagree). I had just read the book “Building Thinking Classrooms” by Peter Liljedahl that summer, and I was trying to implement some of the strategies in my class. They were all new to me, so I wasn’t as confident in my teaching methods. I tried to explain how class was going to be different for students that year, and I just wasn’t very good at communicating my vision for the school year. I left school that night feeling pretty defeated.
About a week ago I was beginning to dread Back To School Night again. I knew I needed to work on my presentation, so I sat down at my computer and fired up my usual set of Google slides and began thinking of which creative Bitmojis to insert. Then I paused and thought again about the true purpose of the event.
What does a parent really want from Back To School Night? I was always told by administration and my peers that I needed to cover the core information in the syllabus. One of my mentors early on told me to always keep talking for the whole time and never let the parents ask any questions. If every teacher does that though, the parent goes to six different PowerPoint presentations in a row and gets talked at for an hour. What do they gain? All of the information is already covered in the syllabus or on Canvas, and they know how to read. At best, they get a small sample of each teacher’s personality and get to see what the inside of the classroom looks like. If they are going to make the effort in their busy lives to come to an evening school event, it should have more value that getting talked at about information that is already available. Wouldn’t it be better if they could experience what an actual class period…felt like?
So I had an idea.
How can I both help the parents understand what math class is like, and also explain the new strategies I have been using in the classroom? Why not use the 10 minutes I have to actually teach them a math lesson? So, that’s what I did.
Last night my first period Math 8 parents came to class and the moment the first bell rang I began my lesson. In less than a minute I went over the class agenda for the day:
In the next minute I explained the structure of how working at the VNPS Thinking Stations functioned and then randomly grouped the parents using my Random Team Picker pre-loaded with their children’s names, just like I do in class each day. They had 30 seconds to find their Thinking Stations and introduce themselves to their random partners. Next, I explained the Thinking Task for the evening, using the Split 25 task the students did the previous week. I said “Begin!”, and off they went.
Over the next five minutes I cycled through the room, checked in with each group, listened to their conversations about the task, and talked through their strategies. Parents were thinking, laughing, smiling, asking others for help, and were fully engaged in the activity (well, I had a few off-task parents, to be honest). I saw strategies evolve on the whiteboard, and heard them make connections about what would make the answer get larger and larger. With the last few moments in class I thanked them for their hard work, had them clean up their Thinking Station, and then the bell rang. And off they went to their next class period.
This was, without a doubt, the best Back To School Night I have ever experienced. I felt confident, joyful, and excited to be there. I wasn’t concerned about covering a bunch of redundant information, or thinking about what they all thought of me as a person. There was zero cotton-mouth and the whole night was just plain fun. I taught my lesson in the way I love to teach my students, and I am hopeful that each parent left the classroom feeling how much passion I have for this job.
So much better than a slide deck with Bitmojis.
Thank you to all of the parents who came to Back To School Night last night and allowed me to do what I love most. You embraced the lesson, engaged in the task, and brought joy to my heart. This was a night I will remember for the rest of my life.
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