Tammy’s Teaching Tips
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Parents & familiesNew teachersFuture teachersVeteran teachers

Call home with something good

Parents brace for the school's number. Break that pattern before anything goes wrong.

With Tammy Striler · 2:18 · Filmed fall 2020

What to take away

  • Parents want to hear positive things about their child — not negative, negative, negative.
  • Keep a check-off list so you get around to every kid, every week.
  • The children it's easiest to call about negatively are the ones whose parents need the good call most.
  • When you do have to make the hard call, you've already shown you like and respect their child.

Why it works

Tammy tells this one as a parent, not a teacher: she had one of those kids, and she'd be in tears most of the time from the negative calls. The occasional teacher who understood that and called with something good changed how her son saw that teacher — and he wanted to do more things that were good.

TS

Tammy Striler

Founder · classroom teacher

Thirty years in the classroom, most of them with the door open and a student teacher in the back. Tammy started these tips because the best things she learned came from other teachers over lunch, and nobody was writing them down.

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