A Call Home

On Friday, day three of this school year, I assigned my first discipline consequence, for what I perceived to be an act of flagrant disrespect.


But that wasn’t how I wanted to start off the year, and so on Monday I talked to the student before class:


“D–, I want to call your mom or dad this afternoon after school. Who’s the best one to reach?”


He shifted on his feet and looked anywhere but at me, and then finally said, “My dad.”


“Okay,” I said. “I’m going to call your dad after school today, and tell him something good that you did in my class today.”


Another pause, then: “Oh. But my dad’s working today. Call my mom.”


(When I told my principal this story, he said, “Now we know who to call when we need to!”)


I did call D–‘s mom, and it was textbook case of surprise that a teacher called just with something good to say (that D– had helped another student with a classroom procedure).


A couple days later, in a moment of down time and torn between working on my band’s new CD and sticking to school related tasks, I called more parents. The first one I reached was the mom of a set of twins I teach.


After introducing myself and saying that her children seem like great kids, and I’m honored to have them in class, she said, “You mean they aren’t in trouble? Every time a teacher calls home, I say to myself, ‘What did one of them do now?'”