At school, it is very important to create good relationships between parents and homeroom teachers. However, parents sometimes concern only about their own children, while teachers are more interested in managing the whole class than in individual children. In some cases, this difference of interest leads to serious dissensions and troubles between the teachers and parents. "Handling the problems with parents" has thus been a core theme in teacher training over the last decade. This study presents a format of workshop for teachers, where I adopt the ecological-map for them to cope with such difficulties, and report its effectiveness. The ecological-map is a method to share understanding among the teachers not by discussing but by illustrating the problem with a diagram (Assessment). On the diagram, the teachers summarize accurate information about the parents in question, and draw the interrelationship among the persons concerned. Through making diagram, they explore the characteristics of claims and actions of the parents, and identify the cause and the structure of the problem. Based on the ecological-map, they make an action plan such as what each of the teachers do (Planning). The workshop that I developed proceeds as follows: (1) as a topic of the workshop, provide a concrete example of the parent-teacher problem that one has experienced; (2) in a group of 4-6 persons, discuss the case and draw an ecological-map; (3) consider a solution based on the map, using a white board to make notes and experiment. The ecological-map is originally used in fields such as family nursing, psychology and social work. The method, applied to school management, can contribute to building a better relationship between teachers and parents. Since 2010, I have been practicing the ecological-map workshop at over 90 places across the country. According to the questionnaire after the workshops, about 80% of the teachers who participated felt that the method will be highly useful to solve the problems with parents.
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