Open House

From the Star

Open House is a great time for students and parents to mingle with and get to know their child's teachers. What they don’t tell you is that it’s really a chance for parents to have a mini conference. Although the principal talks about it not being a mini conference night, it absolutely is! Open House is suppose to last from 6-7 pm but I left the building at 7:45 thanks to the mini conferences that are not suppose to take place.

I learned the day of Open House right after school that I was going to have to speak in front of the parents. Our Open House is done as a pod with all four teachers together. When I was told that I had to speak I was okay. How bad could it be? Little did I know that they were going to give me the two sections that I know nothing about - school celebrations and parent conference night. I was nervous, stressed, overwhelmed. I was still getting the run down 15 minutes before Open House began. But I did my best from what I could remember from our 15 minute conversation and my pod-mates told me that I did a great job. They may have just been making me feel better since I was so nervous, but it worked.

Let’s move to the positives and more interesting aspects of the night. The first parent that I talked to said, "I hope you don’t take offense to this but you look just like one of your students. You are just so adorable." I guess I could have taken this offensively but I decided that I would just hear the "you're so cute and adorable" part. I had three parents tell me that they were so glad that their child was in my class because they come home energetic and excited about school. That made me feel good. Since I have always assumed I was meant to be with little kids, it made me feel like I just might be a match for this older age group. I was also told by two parents how excited their child was to be in my math class. This really made me feel good because as a new teacher I did not expect to hear good things - especially after "meet the teacher day" when all of the parents told me how young I looked. I remembered their faces at the thought that I was not only new to the school but new to the teaching profession. Overall the Open House was a great learning experience and I feel that I really got to know some of the parents. Meeting them helps me understand my students even better. However, I do have to admit that I am really glad it's over!