Skip to main content

Working in Partnerships with Parents

I have been rethinking my relationship with parents as I read, Becoming Teammates, Teachers and Families as Literacy Partners by Charlene Klassen Endrizzi, a National Council of Teachers (NCTE) publication. I am noticing a subtle change in the way I am willing to frame the conversation at the same time that I realize that many of my colleagues are not there, yet.

As I reflect on the ways I involve parents in my classroom I recognize that there are a lot of issues that I need to come to terms with and some perceptions and practices that I need to change. Most of this soul searching comes in the guise of questions for reflection. For example, how can teachers and families share and be responsible for the literacy learning of children? How will this re-visioning change my relationship with parents? How will this change impact children's learning? How can I relinquish control of my classroom in order to better partner with my parents for the sake of their children's learning?

What kind of parent involvement do I practice: avoidance (parents are seen as adversaries and it's better not to involve them in school at all), dependence (parents are seen as supporting teacher and school programs and as needing to learn from the teacher), mutualism (parents are valued as partners in their child's education so that an attitude of "let's learn together" prevails)? (Source: Becoming Teammates, Teachers and Families as Literacy Partners by Charlene Klassen Endrizzi.) At the moment, I see myself as falling into a dependency relationship with parents and moving towards practicing mutualism; intellectually I am a mutualist.

More in a subsequent post. In the meantime, into which paradigm do you fit?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Partner Reading and Content, Too Routine (PRC2)

I'm a hoarder. There, I've said it. I try to deny that I'm a hoarder but it comes back to haunt me every time I move houses, or pack up my classroom at the end of the school year. I have old articles, lesson plans, handouts, folders brimming with teaching ideas, past issues of profesional journals. I hardly throw anything out though I've learned to be more selective over the years. My one rule of thumb, and I really try to stick to this, is that if I haven't used or referred to something in a year, then it's time to toss it into the recycle bin. One exception to this rule (you knew this was coming, didn't you?) is past issues of journals from professional organizations. However, with the ability to locate articles online through my professional memberships, even this exception is becoming less and less useful, which brings me to the topic of this blog post. I am currently reading a copy of The Reading Teacher from 2010. I've clipped a cou
Post a Comment
Read more

The Reading Strategies Book - Chapter 12, Supporting Students’ Conversations – Speaking, Listening, and Deepening Comprehension

The strategy lessons highlighted in Chapter 12, Supporting Students’ Conversations – Speaking, Listening, and Deepening Comprehension, in The Reading Strategies Book by Jennifer Serravallo are critical to students’ engagement and comprehension, as well as their ability to write literary essays, or even book reviews, summaries and reflective pieces about books. If students aren’t able to talk about books in a way that is invigorating and joyful, they will be less likely to develop an interest in growing ideas for writing about books. In her introduction to this chapter, Jennifer Serravallo, reminds us that when conversations go well, children are inspired by what they read and are motivated to keep reading. However, when conversations fall flat, then kids get bored and tune out. How do we avoid this situation and teach kids to  have  focused conversations about books?  The answer is easy: teach kids  strategies to help them develop effective conversational skills .  As in
Post a Comment
Read more

Are we listening?

A child sits alone with a ripped worksheet packet on his desk. He appears to be singing or subvocalizing something though no one hears him. Or, perhaps they're ignoring him. The teacher stands at the front of the room teaching on the SmartBoard. The children follow along in their worksheets. Except the child sitting alone. He is in his own world. No one engages him and he engages no one. My heart aches for this child. He is physically and emotionally removed from the class. I ask him why his paper is ripped. (It's not an accidental rip.) He says he did that on a different day. When he had been frustrated about the work. He tells me that he sometimes sits by himself because the work is too hard for him. He later tells me that he sits by himself because the teacher thinks he talks too much during the lesson.  He says he does that because he wants to find out about the "lives of the other children". My first impulse is to rescue him from the wrongheade
10 comments
Read more