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?