Online Lesson 2:
Communication with Parents

When I was doing research in a predominantly Mexican immigrant school community in Chicago, Illinois (Carrasco, 1984), I experienced many interesting situations and events that included parents.

As part of my research, I attempted to visit the homes of the parents of the children in a first grade bilingual classroom. I wanted to interview them in their homes. It was during the daylight hours on a weekday that I attempted to interview parents. I knocked on many doors only to be confronted by dogs and by people inside with their doors partially opened asking me to come at a later time! I couldn't understand why they wouldn't allow me to speak to them. After all, I spoke Spanish and they even knew me as a teacher who was working at the school. I took off my researcher's cap and put on my cultural "sombrero" to try to make sense of this phenomenon. I soon realized that these Mexican parents were using their Mexican traditional cultural etiquette and I was using another. The problem was very simple. I was a male attempting to enter the house when the males of the household, the husbands, were not there. They were working while the mothers stayed home. It was totally inappropriate for the mothers to allow me, a male, to enter the household without the presence of the husband! What would the neighbors think? What would the husbands think if they were to find out that I was conversing and having coffee with their women while they were working? It was indeed a potentially dangerous miscommunication. Once realizing this cultural "no-no" I sent my female research assistant to successfully conduct the interview with mothers (and sometimes with fathers) in their homes.

In this same school community, the teachers in first grade were having "parent-teacher conferences" instead of sending home report cards. I was privy to two first grade teachers' conferences with their parents. It is important to note that the children participated in these parent-teacher conversations. One teacher was Euro-American and did not speak Spanish while the other was a Mexican-American teacher from the community and who did speak Spanish. The children sometimes served as translators. In both of these contexts, the Mexican parents seemed to react the same but the teachers differed in their reactions and responses. I noted that in both contexts, the teachers focused on children's skills in reading, science, writing, homework, etc. The subject matter! As a secondary focus in the conversations, discipline and behavior were also discussed. It was interesting to note that the primary focus of the parents was not on the topics of study but rather on their children's behavior in the classroom. They immediately asked, "¿Cómo se porta mi hijo (a)?" [How is my child behaving ?]. If the teachers stated that there were some problems in their behavior, many of the fathers in both contexts took off their belts and handed them to the teacher with the child witnessing this reaction. The Euro-American teacher quickly reacted by informing the parents that schools and teachers do not physically punish kids and that is was against the law. The Mexican American teacher did not react as did the Euro-American teacher. Instead, she accepted the belt that was placed on the table and continued with the conversation as if nothing had occurred! This is a case where cultural knowledge was necessary in order to successfully communicate. The Mexican-American teacher understood the "belt scene." It was not meant as a tool for punishing their children. Instead, it was a symbolic gesture, a "rite de passage," a passing of the role, rights, and responsibility of parents to the teacher. In traditional Mexican culture, teachers are considered as extended family members, as surrogate parents and the school is viewed as a "segundo hogar, " or as a second home (Carrasco, 1984)!. The Mexican American teacher understood her role and the symbolic meaning of this ritual that was privy to the children who also understood that they had to respect their teachers as they respect their own parents!

Go back to Topic 4: Communication with Parents