8.09.2018

The Struggle Bus


Something I struggle with as a teacher is....making phone calls.

I don't like to talk on the phone at all and I only feel confident about calling businesses to make an appointment and such. Even if someone in my family calls me I wonder why they didn't text me before I actually answer.

At school I don't call parents unless they call me first or my principal says I have to. It's not the talking...I will easily e-mail them, message them on facebook if we are friends, or talk to them in person. It's not making conversation, it's making the call.

First of all, I always feel like it is a bad time when I call and that I will be interrupting them or bothering them. I pray they don't answer every time I have to call. I'm also afraid that they will get angry and start yelling at me and I won't know what to do. What if I just panic and hang up? Making phone calls makes me feel like a child again and it definitely is my worst adulting skill.

To be proactive, I made a school themed template for positive post-cards to mail home and I set up a Google survey to automatically send out a parent email every week.

Then at our staff institute today, the principal tells us he wants the first parent contact we have to be a phone call before any mail or e-mail. He also said we will be dedicating some of our early release time throughout the year to parent contact.

My plan is to suck it up. Maybe I'm always scared because I only ever call about bad stuff? I'm thinking I can trick myself into doing it by calling each parent and asking them for their e-mail address, when they feel I should contact them, and if there is anything they would like me to know about their child.

That doesn't seem scary, right?

And now I'm thinking I could make a google form for myself so I could enter in all the data while I'm on the phone and have it organized automatically!

Is there anything a spreadsheet can't fix?

4 comments:

  1. I feel the exact same way! I like the idea of a for form to fill out while on that initial call. Perhaps having that to do will make it feel more like the business task of setting an appointment, along with getting the information organized for you.

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  2. I'm with you on phone-anxiety 100%. I'd rather send 10 emails than make 1 phone call. Let us know how your plan works out. Spreadsheets are amazing and this seems like a good situation to use one.

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