Displaying items by tag: parent involvement

Being proactive has two major benefits. First, it gives you the opportunity to package your ideas and articulate them in the best possible light. Acting first, you shape the conversation, saying your ideas in the way you want to say them, not in the way someone else has already characterized them before ever having the chance to hear from you. Proactivity increases your credibility, strengthens your voice, and reaffirms your position of leadership.

Second, proactivity is the best approach to problem prevention. Consider the following example: imagine that a brand new shipment of expensive, state-of-the-art math manipulatives has just arrived at school. Because the school could only afford one set, the staff decided that each class would get the manipulatives for three weeks. When our turn comes, I lengthen the daily math period from 45 minutes to 2 hours so we can try all the activities shown in the accompanying teacher guidebook. To compensate for the extra time that we spend on math, I don’t give any math homework for the next three weeks.

Immediately, parents became concerned. “Where’s my child’s math homework?” they ask. “Why did you stop assigning math homework?” they wonder. “Don’t you know that my child will fall behind without math practice every night?” they insist.  

Now, I have to react. The parents have already made up their minds. Based on the information they have received from their kids, they have concluded that I have stopped assigning math homework, and they don’t understand why. I have dug myself a hole, out of which I have to climb.

All this trouble could have been avoided had I been proactive. Before the first day of our three-week manipulative exploration, I should have sent home a newsletter explaining the situation. Then, the parents would have known in advance of the unique, short-term opportunity that we had to use these manipulatives and understood the value of these types of experiences. I could have told them that in order to take full advantage of this opportunity, I would be lengthening our daily math period, and that because of the extra time the kids spent on math in class, I would be decreasing the time they spend on math at home. I could have emphasized that this hiatus from math homework would only last three weeks and that the kids would not be at all disadvantaged because they were gaining valuable practice in class. Informing parents beforehand would have enabled me to accentuate the positive.  

Experience has taught me that teachers’ greatest difficulties with parents often arise from a lack of proactivity. When parents are not informed in advance about rules, units, grading policies, and the like, they have every reason to come back after the fact and say, “I didn’t know.” Once that happens, teachers are forced into a reactive, often defensive, position. The trouble is, no matter how effectively we later explain ourselves, the damage has already been done. Furthermore, by the time we have responded to one problem situation, the next crisis has occurred and needs to be addressed. A pattern soon begins. We find ourselves spending a tremendous amount of time putting out fires instead of using it to communicate proactively.

Consistent parent involvement dramatically increases the likelihood that quality learning will occur in the classroom and at home.  Parents play such a crucial role in their children’s academic, physical, social, and moral development that we, as teachers, make a huge mistake if we view them as anything other than indispensable collaborators. 

It’s not enough to keep parents pleased, appeased, or out of our hair.  If we’re committed to bringing the best out of our students and teaching the whole child, we need to build and maintain long-term relationships of loyalty, trust, and respect with their parents.  Investing the time and effort to work closely with parents throughout the year maximizes our chances of fulfilling our mission and achieving our goals.  The following points provide a strong rationale as to why teachers should make parent involvement a top priority.

1. Parents are their children’s first and most important teachers.  Though not all teachers are parents, all parents are teachers.  As such, they have the greatest impact on a student’s motivation to learn.  Parents are usually eager to play a significant role in their children’s education, but they often don’t know how.  By establishing caring relationships with parents, we can help them help their children.

2. Consistent communication between the home and school enables parents to reinforce the skills, knowledge, habits, and priorities that we emphasize in class. This fact is especially true in situations where our teaching methods and approaches may differ from the norm and require parent follow-up on a regular basis.

3. It’s important that teachers are aware of students’ strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, areas of special sensitivity, and any factors at home that are affecting school performance.  Parents are in the best position to provide this information and are usually glad do so when asked.

4. Students act, behave, and perform differently when they know that their parents and teachers communicate frequently.

5. Frequent communication earns parents’ confidence, trust, and respect.  With open lines of communication, it’s unlikely that feelings of uncertainty, mistrust, and alienation will ever arise.  The favorable impression that we create makes problems easier to solve when they occur.

6. When teachers and parents communicate in a respectful manner, we model positive adult interactions for the kids.  These occasions serve a pro-social function because many children, unfortunately, don’t often have the opportunity to observe this type of relationship.

7. Parents can become our biggest supporters and most loyal allies.  Should a colleague or supervisor ever doubt our methods or question our approach to teaching, these allies will be there to come to our defense.

8. Parents are often valuable classroom resources.  The better we know parents, the more we’ll be aware of the various ways in which they can assist the class. This assistance may come in such forms as classroom volunteering, donations of supplies and other materials, technology support, and arranging for special field trips.

9. Forming trusting relationships with parents can reduce the feelings of isolation that so many teachers, especially newer ones, often experience.

The parents of our students are our partners. Commit to making parent involvement a top priority as you begin the next school year. Keeping parents informed and involved on a consistent basis pays huge dividends as we focus on the academic, behavioral, and social needs of our students. In order for us to teach the whole child, we must work with and value the whole family.

 

Introducing My New Weekly Video Series:

For the next month or two, my weekly blog series will be a weekly video series, and I will be featuring new instructional videos on YouTube. Currently, I have six videos posted on the site. The first video features two former students demonstrating the important role that revising plays in the writing process. The next four videos are part of my “Rock Your Students’ World” series and feature students demonstrating a variety of movement activities that help children learn academic content. The sixth video is the one I am debuting with this post.  In this video I share a powerful way for teachers to create a favorable first impression with students and their families at the beginning of each school year.

Click here to see my YouTube page that contains the six videos.