Do you email, text, call or Facebook your parents?

I came across an interesting blog on communications with parents in the digital age. The writer was amazed "how DIFFERENT parent-teacher communications seemed to be for each teacher [...] You’d think that with so many new communications tools available to us in the digital age (from cell phones, to e-mail, to Facebook) it’d be EASIER now for teachers to talk to parents. But it seems like it’s getting HARDER. One parent might prefer the phone. Another might just find e-mail easier. One parent might check their e-mail 10 times a day; another might check it twice a week." (Tyler, 2011). 

Technology doesn't always make life easier for us, and this is true in the case of parent-teacher communication. Some parents are extremely busy that they prefer that teachers communicate via email and have only-call-when-it's-emergency policy. While other parents don't have an access to email 24/7 and prefer that we call them (although they don't always pick up or check their voicemail, so teachers have to continue pressing redial). And surprisingly, some parents want to "friend" teachers on Facebook so there's a more "open" communication! Complicated, isn't it? 

When I grew up, the only way that my teachers could communicate with my parents was via "student diary." It's basically a book where both parents and teachers write comments and notes to each other about homework, upcoming school events, and reminders. Because there were about 40-something kids in my class and there's only 24 hours in a day, my teachers wrote a simple note on the board and asked all of us to manually 'copy-paste' the note onto our student diary. Of course, they reminded us a thousand times to show it to our parents at home! Still complicated, isn't it?

As a homeroom teacher, I asked my parents to identify which mode of communication that worked best for them during parent orientation day. It turned out that the majority favored phone calls to their cellphones and text messages, and only a few mentioned emails. I ended up only calling my parents in the case of emergency because I had to share the only phone available in the teachers room with 15something teachers. Plus we had to go through the school operator to get connected to the outside world. So I learned that sending SMS worked best! My parents were very responsive and replied to 90% of my text messages. On top of that, I had a record of our communication for further purpose. Worked out well, didn't it?

On  the down side, I had to pay all of the expenses of the text messages!
The school subscribes to some text message service where they can send out mass sms at once, but it was only for school-wide purpose and it takes forever before your message get sent out. Digging into my own pocket for classroom purpose isn't a new thing for teachers, and for me so long as there's a smooth two-way communication between my parents and I, I was happy! Good thing that text message service is fairly cheap then... Ain't so bad, is it?

I consider myself as an "email person" and I personally prefer using emails when it comes to "regular" communication with my parents. I can take my time finding the proper words to convey my messages, and I have a record of our communication. I tried sending out regular emails to the parents with updates on school events, highlights of the students' work and important reminders and study tips. BUT... Later I learned less than 50% of my parents actually read the emails! :( Some asked that things are printed so they can read it "when they have time" instead! Gosh, so much for digital age, I thought!

It may seem that the whole communication between parents and teachers is complicated and challenging. Well, yes and no... I think it's significant to let the parents know that they are important part of the support system for the student and it takes a lot of effort to build a strong team. And a part of that effort is creating an open, three-way communication between parents, teachers, and students! Sometimes the students are the best people to relay the message to their parents, right?