Preschool Director's Luncheon: School-Parent Communication

Today we hosted the second of a series of luncheons for preschool directors and teachers, dating back to last spring, designed to provide a professional community for preschool directors (raising awareness of TBS being a secondary benefit, of course). The topic of today's conversation was school-parent communication, with an emphasis on understanding how neurobiology influences our communication patterns. The half-dozen attendees relayed anecdotes of scenarios in which they had successfully and unsuccessfully talked to parents about difficult issues as they ate a vegetarian meal. Head of School Mitch Bostian then delivered a quick presentation called "Neurobiology .101", in which he went over the various process and tasks for which different regions and structures of the brain are responsible.

For the final 1.5 hours, special guest Amy MacClain (www.amymacclain.com) lead the participants in an investigation of the struggle parents today face given the structures and values of modern society, and methods administrators and teachers can use to acknowledge their own emotions heading into and during conversation, as well as how to safely hold a space for parents to feel heard. Strategies were discussed to help attendees ground - and stay - in a reflective, rather than reactive, frame of mind when in a potentially loaded conversation. As is wont to happen in a lively group, the conversation also strayed into other topics, such as the perils of enforced sharing; suggestions for future luncheon topics by the participants include multicultural education, cultural inclusion, and classroom management.