This thread seems to be unwinding into two strands - overdue books and responding
to parents.
In regard to the first issue, I have referred to Corey's Story (Teacher Librarian
Oct 05) before.
Even if you haven't read this, the key theme is flexibility because always, always,
always, people
come before policies.
In regard to angry parents, this is always a difficult issue because your action
(or reaction) might
just have been the proverbial straw for that parent (or you) that day, so it's good
advice to have a
strategy up your sleeve to deal with that because defence is the first reaction to
attack. In fact,
it has been proven that when we are put into any sort of threatening situation, for
a split second
our whole brain shuts down except for the part that determines flight or fight. So
that old adage
of "deep breaths" has a lot of validity..
Some might suggest that you invent an 'emergency' or a visitor and call the parent
back in five
minutes when both of you have had a chance to calm, although this might add to fuel
to the parent's
fire that you are not even prepared to take the call. Others might suggest that
you keep calm,
apologise without being subservient, and suggest a way of helping the child be more
responsible in
the future. Others might suggest listening to the issue and then saying, "I hear
your concerns. I
have a number of students with overdue books. May I call you back after I have
done some
investigation?"
I don't know that there is a definitive answer because it depends on the
circumstances, the
relationships with the parent and the student - so many variables. But if we can
avoid meeting
anger with anger, that is always a positive.
The problem is that we might receive one of these sorts of calls in a year, and
human nature being
what it is, that is the call we focus on and beat ourselves up about. "I could
have said this or I
should have said that." If, during the course of the call you can talk the person
down from their
anger so you can reach a compromise, if not peace, then that's grand. But if it
ends with angry
feelings on both sides, then both people have bitter feelings and as Doug said in
his blog that's "a
bad PR home run". So never be too proud (or whatever the word is) to pick up the
phone the next day
and make a call to the parent and have a more rational conversation about jointly
assisting the
student in the future. That's the call you will both remember and that's "a good
PR home run".
Barbara
Barbara Braxton
Teacher Librarian
COOMA NSW 2630
AUSTRALIA
E. barbara.288@bigpond.com
Together we learn from each other
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