I have to
confess, upon receiving this blog challenge I resorted to research. There was a
lot of literature about why parents should get involved. There were also
suggestions given as to how you can get parents from middle-upper class communities
involved. Gaining parent involvement in a low socioeconomic community has
always been a challenge for me (and my research did not result successfully in
this area).
I
have been very fortunate to work with an incredible staff. Our staff continually
forges relationships with the students and their parents. Keeping the lines of
communication open through positive feedback and social media seems to have
increased parental awareness of school information and activities. It is great
to have parents commenting on facebook posts of activities in the school or
even ask questions about school life. This has proven to be an open door to
communication.
In
order to further forge relationships with parents we had to get creative. We
invite them out to watch their children participate in sports, ask them to
re-do the bulletin boards in the school, or help out with fundraisers. Any
means that we can use to build trust and support is key. Despite the staff's
best intentions and efforts we noticed that that fear and anxiety exist when it
comes to entering the building. On many occasions parents remember being in the
principal's office, or have a memory of dropping out. One other tool that we
have used is to call parents when their child was 'Caught Doing the Right
Thing'. Parents are used to hearing from the school when things are amiss, but
are pleasantly surprised when they are told that their child is doing well (or
doing something great).
The
pressing question remains: how do we get parents to help us help their children
with their education? Teachers frequently ask what we can do to get the parents
to come to 'Meet the Teacher Night' or parent/teacher interviews. When the
parents themselves have difficulty or limited capability to help their child out
encouraging them to meet with professionals can be intimidating.
I
do not have the answer to this.. I am constantly searching and wondering if
there lies a magical formula or tricks. Please share your thoughts with me.
Great initiative. Also an eye opener for me since our generation of parents (at least in my case) have always argued that teaching was "their job" since "we work all day and have no time or money to contribute". So in that sense, yes, the upper-middle class is the easiest approach to begin with to gather some parent-teacher "intelligence" and use that to reach out to the lower socioeconomic class of parents. All I can say is that peer-pressure helps. I, for one, am very proud to have my son at a school were parent involvement is high, and incredibly successful. I always wondered how ALL parents (and also alot of grandparents) were able to attend all 4 kindergarten concerts given in the middle of the day. But somehow they did, and by peer-pressure, I made it happen too (although it is painful everytime I have to ask for some time off to my boss). Parents (class representatives) are sending other parents an abundance of "Thank you" emails, school blogs with pictures of students/parent participation which serves as a reminder to other parents of what their priorities should be. My son even asked me today when I will come to his class to help with game day (hosted by parents every thrusday from 10:30 am to 12:00pm)...it's not necessarily guilt-tripping, but more reminders. Life these days is busy and full of distraction. I, for myself, sure appreciate the nudge once in a while. Hope this helps!
ReplyDeleteHi Natasha,
ReplyDeleteMy response will come in 2 posts because it's too long. Here goes:
Hi Natasha! I absolutely love reading your posts for they do give people a lot to think about. Here's my take on this topic. There are two things you are talking about here: Involvement and Engagement. To me there's a big difference between the two. You are getting parents involved and to some extend, with Governing Board etc, you are getting parents (or the community) engaged. But the focus has to be on "engagement" if you want to achieve your goal. That's the word schools need to focus on. Here's something I found that would better explain my feelings on the topic. http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/may11/vol68/num08/Involvement-or-Engagement%C2%A2.aspx
Now that I am an educator in Quebec, I'd love to implement something I did out in BC when I taught grade 1 (it's doable with other grades too). I had parents come to my class on Wednesdays during my "Reading Wednesday" sessions. On those days, some parents came to class to learn a reading strategy. A session would look like this. I would have a parents read the book of the day to the class (purpose of doing that: modeling reading). The kids would then have a discussion about the book with the "invited guest". I would then divide the parents and assigned them to small groups. Once the parents and students were seated, I would teach all of them a reading comprehension strategy. Parents would then practice (hands-on) the strategy with their small group. This special day was my way to get parents engaged in the learning of their kids and it was such a success.
Another thing I did to get parents engage with their kids' learning was 'Scientist for the Day'. In this learning activity, each student was assigned an experiment he or she had to conduct and explain in class. They were allowed to bring an adult lab technician (aka their parent or a member of their family). In fact, it was a requirement of the task. Both student and 'lab technician' had to explain the scientific notion behind the experiment. Of course, I helped with each presentation by providing them the experiment information and any other information they needed to properly conduct their experiment beforehand. Get this! I did this with my kindergarten class. Well let me tell you, this was quite the "Engagement in Learning" experiment for me. I realized as an educator that if I had the parents learning stuff for FREE and doing so with the kids, it was the key to achieving student success. The kids were so proud of not only teaching the class, but proud that their parent was there to teach the class as well. They wanted to do more experiments ALL THE TIME and with their parents. As for the parents, they had a blast and wanted to come back for more. In this case, the student and parents had to work together at home in order to prepare themselves for 'THEIR' day. They were engaged in the learning at home and at school. Parents were 'working with' their children in the learning.
Here's part 2 of my response.
ReplyDeleteOk, so you're probably saying but how can I do something like this at the high school level. If I were at your school this year, I would have implement, with your permission and backing, Francisation for parent & child. I would teach parents and their kids French language skills....perhaps focus on the oral skills. But it would be just any class, I would have them do a play and present it. Imagine having parent and students doing a French play at your school? Wouldn't that be cool? Not only would they learn something at school (after hours of course), but they would also have some homework to do in order to be ready for the big day.
For this type of activity you are, excuse the expression, killing two birds with one stone. Perhaps you are killing more than 2 birds but here's what I think you'd be doing. You are meeting the school board strategic goals in increasing language art skills (strategic direction #1 objective #4) and getting the community involved in enriching the learning (strategic direction #3 objective #3).
Oh, I can go on and on with this topic, but I'll leave you with this for now. Before I go I just want to give credit where credit is due. If I did all these amazing activities it is because someone in my pass believed in 'building capacity' and planting the learning seed with someone else. I am forever grateful to my mentor who taught me how to teach, Sylvaine von Mende. Speaking of which, I will send you a copy of her Masters thesis.....it was all about getting the parents engaged with their children's learning.
One last thing (I promise)....as an administrator, you have the skills to empower people to come together. It's about bringing people together and working with them to achieve the goals that were set out for student achievement. You can do it Natasha for I believe in you ;-)
ReplyDelete