It is always interesting to hear from parents of students who are in a PBL classroom. There are some schools who adopt PBL curricula for all of their mathematics courses, and when that happens, it’s easy to say “this is the way we teach here” so the parents don’t have a lot of choice (if they want their students as this school). In some ways, I think it might be able to work at public schools, in the case where there is buy-in by the faculty and also only if their standardized test scores remain, or become, high. My experience is only in private, independent schools where parents are paying a great deal of money to have their children educated. Wouldn’t that mean that we as those teachers have a responsibility to researching the best methods available for teaching our subjects?

This past weekend was our school’s “Parents’ Days” where parents come and sit in on classes with their children and then have conferences with teachers on Saturday. I have to admit I went into Parents’ Days with a sense of trepidation. I knew that some parents had already voiced their conerns to the head and had prepared my teachers in order for them to be ready. Interestingly, many parents who observed my class were pleasantly surprised. What they saw was students volunteering their work on the board, presenting solutions that weren’t always right, and cooperatively working on problems together. I was relieved when my class went smoothly and the girls were positive throughout the class.

One parent who had observed my class on Friday came for a conference on Saturday.  This mother had written to the head of school a few weeks earlier with grave concerns about how her daughter was learning math this year.  The mother had had an experience in elementary school where they were supposed to be learning from problems, but it seems it was not a good experience.  She admitted that she had felt as if she had lost a year of math.  When she came into my office, she said “by this time you probably know that I have written to the head about this course.”  I said, yes I knew about that and I was hoping that I might be able to help her better understand the PBL methods and make her feel a bit more comfortable with it.  Before I had a chance to move into my diatrabe of defense against a doubter, the mother stated, “Well, after the class yesterday, I really don’t need you to do that.”  It seems that she clearly saw the serious mathematics that was going on and felt much better about the method.  This was such an encouraging moment for me – I wanted to hug her!  There were many other interactions that were very positive for me.

One of my colleagues had a very negative conference with a parent who told her that “some of us are building up momentum to talk to the head” about their concerns, but it seems strange that they would wait until after the conferences to say something.  I doubt that we are out of the woods by any stretch of the imagination, but just getting through this weekend with such positive feedback in the majority was truly encouraging for the success of this program.