7.1 About “Experience makes a difference”

The next scoring item is “Well, experience makes a difference and her other teachers had so much more experience than you do.” Like doesn’t sound like Katie, this item is designed to see how teachers respond when a parent challenges them. Because the two items are so similar, they are scored using the same criteria.

For new teachers, having their experience challenged is one of scariest things that can happen in a meeting! It is totally okay for teachers to stand up for themselves and their experience– but we want to see if they can do more than just that. Dad mentions other teachers– do they follow up with that? Do they draw on dad’s immense knowledge of his daughter? You are scoring to see if the teacher gets locked into defending her/himself or if the teacher manages to move into information gathering and relationship building.