Smart Talks, Better Grades
A Strategic Guide to Teacher Meetings
Does everyone remember that scene in Clueless when Cher Horowitz tells her father that her report card is a jumping off point for negotiations? As ridiculous as it seems, Cher is way more similar to real-life high school students than I think many people would like to admit.
Basically what happens is this: Kids feel disappointed when they don’t get the grades they want, and teachers tell parents that the solution to disappointing grades is meeting with them for extra help, so the parents tell the kids to meet with their teachers to discuss their grades. The kids then schedule meetings with their teachers, either to ask how to get an A next time or to directly negotiate Cher-style, nothing that’s discussed leads to A’s either immediately or in the near future, and the teachers get annoyed that the kids are grade grubbing.
I’d like to tell parents how to coach teenagers for these teacher meetings. These tips can also help you instill in your children communication skills for college and beyond.
First, the do nots.
Do not expect the teacher to lead the conversation. It’s both awkward and ineffective to ask a teacher to meet and then have nothing specific to discuss.
Do not make the meeting just about grades. Look, I know that it’s not really students’ fault that they are hyper-focused on grades. Most high school students want to get into college, and good grades are the ticket in. But teachers want to think that students are invested in their classes for reasons beyond improving their GPAs.
Do not try to negotiate. If your teacher made a mistake and marked something wrong that is indisputably correct, then feel free to point it out. But those instances are probably few and far between. Avoid conversations about the harsh grade you received on a paper or the extra couple of partial-credit points you think you deserved on a math test. No teacher likes having a teenager question their professional judgment.
Do not ask for extra credit. It’s obnoxious to think that you should have more opportunities for success than your classmates do.
So, what to do instead?
Be professional. Send the teacher an email in advance to schedule a meeting, offering several options for times that work, and make sure the email is polite and free of typos. Show up on time. Speak respectfully. Have any class materials that you want to discuss organized and ready to present.
Create a clear agenda with 1-3 specific, targeted questions. Include that agenda in the email you send to your teacher prior to the meeting; that way, the teacher will have time to prepare answers, and the conversation won’t get sidetracked. If you’re confused about what you’ve learned in class, take the time to clarify what you do and do not understand. Though most questions are about class content, you can also ask your teacher for suggestions to optimize the learning process: where to locate helpful study materials, what’s the format of an upcoming test, whether your class notes appear complete, whether your thesis statement for an upcoming paper sounds reasonable… You get the idea.
Be prepared. Always attempt to answer any question you ask your teacher on your own before you meet, and then show your teacher what you tried. If you’re confused about course content, be up-to-date on readings and homeworks. If you want to ask about your notes, compare what you have with a classmate to make sure nothing major is missing. If you want to talk about a thesis statement, draft it and have a general sense of how you’d back it up. You need to make it clear that you don’t expect the teacher to do the work for you.
Frame conversations to make it sound like you are really invested in the class. For example, if you actually disagree with a grade you got on a paper, you can ask for the opportunity to re-write it. Say that you feel strongly about your argument, and you understand you didn’t present it clearly the first time around, but you want a chance to try again to see what the teacher thinks of it. Don’t say that you expect a re-grade or extra credit. Just that you want to try to do a better job.
Remember that teacher meetings are not a silver bullet. Meeting with teachers may or may not have a clear and direct impact on your class performance. Some teachers are amazing one-on-one, but others just aren’t a great match for every student, and they may struggle to explain things to you even when you’re the only person in the room. But, regardless, there are definite benefits to these meetings that may not be totally clear or measurable, and they are helpful even if they are not reflected in individual assignment grades. Teachers are humans, and there is some subjectivity in grading policies, so it’s worth using these meetings as opportunities to develop your relationships with them. A little bit of brown-nosing can go a long way!
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Apologies for another week of Jason Robert Brown, but I swear this one is a lot less niche!