Here’s a neat idea for starting the new school year off from Education World: Ask parents to tell you about their kid in a million words or fewer. You’ll probably learn alot more than you ever wanted to know about some of them, but you will have an instant way to connect with every student in your class. You can learn about hobbies, problems, strengths, outside stresses your kids face, health issues, and lots of other topics that you can use to build rapport with students. It won’t take you long to pick out the potential troublemakers in the class. Knowing something personal about them can help you connect with them which makes discipline much easier.
Of course, you’ll likely have some kids who never bring the letter back. A simple reminder phone call to the parent might help. You could offer extra credit for returning it or if a parent just won’t do it, have the kid write it. You’ll still get to know more about the student than before.
