Almanac: Back to School Nights-A Teacher's Perspective

I’m not sure when the concept of “Back to School Night” began. While the event is known as “Open House” in some areas, the principle is the same, regardless of the title.

• School gets out early one day. Late September is a common time for the event. I’ve taught where there was a “Spring Open House” as well. More about that below.
• Teachers prepare to meet with parents in the evening.
• Parents come “back to school” during an “open house” at the school.
• In most instances, at least part of the evening involves parents mimicking their child’s day in an abbreviated format. Middle and High Schools commonly reduce the length of the class periods to around 10-minutes. 
• Parents start the room of their child’s first class, listen to a presentation of some sort by the teacher, then try to find the next classroom in the schedule within the time designated as the “passing period.”

There are variations on this theme, but this is the most common schedule I experienced in my 31-years of high school teaching.

Assuming the “most common” schedule is in place, teachers have 10-minutes or so to discuss curriculum, discipline plan, and grading scale. Fortunately, that wasn’t a time for parents to ask questions about their students’ grades.

Below are the actual Powerpoint slides I used during my final three Back to School Nights at Great Oak High School.

I started with “Pre-AP Biology, Dr. Downing” on the screen. The first mouse click brought the banana snake to the screen. I began,

“I am Dr. Chuck Downing. I’ve been doing this a long time. I graduated from San Diego State University with High Honors in Biological Science and began teaching high school as the last T-Rex collapsed from hunger and died. I taught science for 23-years at Monte Vista High School in San Diego County and was full-time faculty and Point Loma Nazarene University in Teacher Education for 8-years. I taught at least one biology lab every semester in addition to my Teacher Education course load. I’ve been at Great Oak since we opened in the fall of 2004.”

It took me the entire ten minutes to complete this presentation. I left no time for questions. I had a sign-up form at the back of the room for parents who wanted to schedule a conference. I found that most parents had the same concerns. Since my presentation address those concerns, I had to schedule few parent conferences.

Score!

For the first few years at Great Oak, Back to School Nights—note the plural—were on the days that the first student report cards were released each semester. There was no time for an in-class presentation. Teachers sat at tables arranged along the outer wall of the gymnasium.

Parents, who’d just picked up their students’ report cards, lined up in front of a teacher they wanted to “talk with.” After talking to one teacher, they could move on to another table.

For five semesters I was the teacher with the longest lines of parents. Twice they had to shut off the lights in the gym to get parents in my line to speed up the process.

Most parents were “concerned” about their child’s grade. The fact that less than one-third of the semester was complete—there was plenty of time left to get any grade—failed to sway some. I explained, over and over and over and OVER that this class was unlike any their student had in middle school. The expectation was that students would learn thinking and problem-solving strategies along with science content.

I knew what I said was true. I’d been teaching the same way since 1973.

Parental line-up nights were most unpleasant experiences.

On the flip side, the best Spring Open House ever was at Great Oak.

We were teaching Global Science, a hybrid science class for 9^th-graders. The course connected biology, chemistry, physics, and earth science principles with an imaginary trip to six locations around the world. It was different and intriguing. Here’s a sample assessment piece.

Global Science Semester 1 Final

Investigation and Experimentation Section

Igor is the lab assistant for Dr. Frank N. Stein. Dr. Frank, as his friends call him, is working on a new project. Igor’s job is to sort the stored body parts in Dr. Frank’s lab and put them in order on the shelves.

Igor likes this kind of job. Below is a table showing how many of each body part Igor sorted.

Hour	Legs	Feet	Toes	Arms	Hands	Fingers	Ribs	Vertebrae
1	10	26	12	29	5	62	14	57
2	14	21	20	26	8	55	20	49
3	16	18	25	22	18	49	22	41
4	20	14	28	18	20	42	30	33
5	30	10	35	14	22	38	36	28
6	31	9	41	12	30	33	41	22
7	33	8	44	10	35	25	49	19
8	40	5	52	8	46	15	54	12
9	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?

Make a graph of this data for the body part you are assigned. Be sure to follow ALL THE RULES OF GRAPHING.

Questions.

1.             What body part was assigned to you?

2.             Define: Independent Variable.

3.             What is the Independent Variable for your graph?

4.             Define: Dependent Variable.

5.             What is the Dependent Variable for your graph?

6.             What is the range of your body part data?

After you are done making your graph, answer these questions.

Assume that Igor took his lunch break after his fourth hour of work and could have stopped after 8 hours. Dr. Frank offered him one hour of overtime. Igor took the offer.

7.             Based on your graph, how many of your body part would you predict Igor will sort and store during his hour of overtime work (hour 9)?

8.             Explain how you used your graph to determine your answer to question #7.

9.             Write an explanation for why your think the number of your body part sorted and stored changed every hour.

10.         Would you do Igor’s job? Why or why not?

Once students understood the concept, the vast majority bought into it.

Not so the parents.

“Why isn’t my child taking biology?” was the most common question. No matter what answer was given, parents didn’t really care. Even if they didn’t like their high school biology class, or if they did poorly, their experience of that single-content class was “the right way to teach science.”

My Ph.D. research was on teaching the way described above. I know it is at least as effective as single-content courses. Students in “integrated science classes” learn content and how that content fits into the grand scheme of the field of scientific endeavor.

The year the school announced the Spring Open House would be a showcase for incoming 9^th graders, I proposed that we seize the opportunity for parents and their students to see what Global Science and the rest of our huge selection of science course offerings were about.

Aside. For most of my 8-years at Great Oak there, were 18 full-time science teachers in our department. Over 75% of the student body took at least one more year of science than is required for graduation by the state of California. In addition to Global Science, we offered two levels of biology, AP Biology, chemistry, AP Chemistry, physics, AP Physics, anatomy and physiology, marine biology, AP Environmental Science, and forensic lab techniques. We also offered a complete list of International Baccalaureate offerings in Biology, Chemistry, and Physics.

There was a lot of content to show off. End of Aside.

There are four ENORMOUS lab rooms at Great Oak. Capacity in those labs is 86. We grouped courses by main content title in each lab. We recruited students to come and do some form of activity during their 30-minute volunteer block. Interest students and parents wandered at their own pace. 

Some current Great Oak students/parents came to preview the offerings.

These were the best uses of Open House time I ever experienced.

Next Almanac: Back to School Nights – My memories as a student

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