Topic 4: Communication with Parents and Parental Involvement

Introduction

The plethora of literature on parental involvement clearly shows the relationship between parental involvement and the academic achievement of children. The recent articles call for Teacher-Parent Partnerships, proposing that parents are also "teachers" and that the "home" environment is an extension to the "school" environment. With this view teachers are encouraged to establish this partnership with parents. But it is often a challenge to establish them in culturally diverse communities. There are many perspectives on what parental involvement entails. Some think that parental involvement means participating in school activities, such as PTO meetings and helping teachers in the classrooms. Many parents especially in lower socio-economic communities simply do not have time and the luxury to participate in classroom activities and they feel guilty because they believe that parental involvement means "going" to school to help in school/classroom activities. Another form of parental involvement is when parents are encouraged to discuss school activities with their children, and also to help them with their homework. Many parents feel inadequate in helping their children with their homework especially if the language of the home is other than English! Some feel inadequate in helping their children because they may not be familiar with the homework topics. The perceived inability of parents to "help" at home, in turn, is perceived by educators as "parents who don't care about their children's education." Of course, this is a myth because all normal parents do CARE! They sometimes just do not know what they can and should do!

Last year I gave a speech to Hispanic parents at a local Flagstaff elementary school. I encouraged them to read books and newspapers to their children aloud in Spanish. I also encouraged them to have authentic "conversations" with their children about school activities in Spanish! Even if they didn't know how to help in the content of the homework, parents were encouraged to have conversations about the content with their children explaining it in Spanish. People in general might consider that the primary purpose of this advice is to maintain the home language while students learn and acquire English through the schools and the community at large. The primary purpose of this advice is to promote literacy and critical thinking skills in the home environment, and to view education as an important family and school endeavor. Critical thinking skills, academic content and literacy skills taught and encouraged in any language are transferable to other languages acquired! That is, if you learn to read in Cantonese, then those reading and writing skills are transferable to English once you have acquired it. If you learn US history in Tagalog, you will be able to explain it in English! If you learn higher order cognitive skills in Farsi, then those skills are transferable to English. Parents helping at home tell the student that education does not stop once he/she leaves the school environment. It tells the student that English is not the only language through which one learns academic content and literacy. It tells the student that the teachers and parents are partners.

In a study I conducted in a Chicago Mexican neighborhood, I found that the community viewed the school as a "segundo hogar," [Spanish for, "second home"], and by extension, they also viewed teachers as "surrogate parents," that is, as part of the extended family! This view differs from the American perspective that "parents are also teachers." For this Hispanic population in Chicago, "teachers are also parents." This means that teachers are at once teachers and parents, and that parents are once parents and teachers. "It takes a village to raise a child," indeed.

To complete this topic successfully, please complete the following activities in the order shown below:

ON-LINE LESSON: Readings

ON-LINE LESSON: Communication with Parents

WEB & VCC ACTIVITY: Models and approaches for parental involvement

Go on to Youth Gangs in Schools
or
Go back to Module 6: Culture as Communication