Blog 10: Parent Involvement

Beyond the Bake Sale

I thought this was a great article for many reasons. I think it was important to look into what truly might be affecting parent involvement in schools and how much can it truly affect student achievement. I like what was chosen to be focused on- I think they are key aspects of what goes on with parents: “(1) an emphasis on relationship building among parents and between parents and educators, (2) a focus on the leadership development of parents, and (3) an effort to bridge the gap in culture and power between parents and educators. We contrast this community-based approach with more traditional, school-centric, and individualistic approaches to parent involvement.” I think that many people believe the issues exist between students and their parents, but I think the true issues are between parents and educators. Learning to work together and do what's best for the students (because that is, after all, the reason these people are even communicating to begin with). I would hope that all educators are interested in helping parents become more involved and take advantage of what can be learned from this study: “First, educators can benefit from taking a patient approach, building relationships over time. Second, schools may not be able to do parent engagement work alone; they can profit from the social capital expertise of community-based organizations. Finally, educators would benefit from understanding that communities bring different needs, aspirations, and desires to their children’s education. If educators collaborate with community partners and help to develop parent leadership, they can form initiatives that meet the interests, values, and capacities of any particular school community.” I think that having the specific cases can help us as educators to truly realize the simple things we can do to increase parent involvement. I like that “Camino Nuevo offers parents the opportunities to take paid positions that use their growing body of skills and knowledge. Parents are hired as paraprofessionals to work in the cafeteria, in the office, and as classroom aides.” I know that my mother worked in the office at my elementary school and also did some substitute teaching. It was something that I enjoyed her doing.

Urban Education

An aspect of parent involvement that we have been starting to pay much attention to is the fact that students want to be involved but encounter several issues that prevent them from being fully engaged. I can imagine how frustrating that might be. I always knew that parents would react to their children's education in similar ways to how they dealt with education when they themselves were in school, but I don't think I realized how big a role this actually played: “Parents’ educational histories powerfully shaped their aspirations and beliefs about their role. Most spoke bitterly of their lack of educational opportunity, in part due to parents who were obstacles or absent parties in their education.” I think it would be really hard as a parent to want to be involved in something that, from their personal experiences, could be impossible to achieve at. Educators need to help these parents especially realize they can do more and gain more by being active in their child's education.

On a side note, I was very interested in the cues that parents were taking from their children, and how this would affect most of their educational careers: “Across the sample, parents took their cue from their children’s invitations for involvement, that is, students’ academic performance, motivation, responsibility, and requests. The Supporters’ view of their children’s high academic ability and motivation reinforced their predisposition to be more hands off and to depend on students to navigate their own college pathways. The Advocates saw their academically borderline children as “needing that extra push” and thus took more hands-on, proactive steps. The Companions waited for their daughters to assert aspirations or ask for help rather than impose parental goals or initiate help.” For me personally, I never had too much trouble in school. I remember being proactive about asking for help when I needed it. It wasn't always accessible at home though. My brother was very smart and never needed help with anything academic, but there would be times when I would try to ask for help and my parents wouldn't be able to, because they were not used to having to help. I know if my child needed help with homework and I was unable to provide the needed help, I would be upset and somewhat embarrassed. This could be something that happens to students regularly. Their parents may want nothing to do with the homework that they don't understand, and now that student is on his or her own for that assignment. But instead of trying to find out why a student is not doing his or her homework, we give bad grades for incomplete assignments. Helping parents to not feel so separated from their child's education could make a world of a difference.

Blog 9: The DreamKeepers

The first chapter of this book was scary to take in as truth. I knew that segregation still existed, but not in the ways described here. And I certainly had no idea that places were considering re-segregating! But the arguments make sense. Things still aren't fair. African American male students spend more time getting in trouble than learning in their schools. There is a way out though: “only when individual classrooms are desegregated is there an improvement in the achievement levels of African American students.” (7). This strongly connects with the idea of multicultural education that we've been talking about in class. We need to have students of different backgrounds meeting and interacting in the actual classroom, and have them actually doing things together; just having it down on paper that a school is integrated means nothing.

The more I read about teachers struggling to teach in a diverse classroom, the more interesting it gets. A lot of current teachers feel as though they need to look at their classrooms and say, “Okay. My class is culturally and ethnically diverse. But I need to pretend it isn't. I need to pretend to not see the color differences.” Of course there are the teachers that aren't afraid to admit that they do see the color differences (like the teachers on pages 22-23) and tend to “feel sorry” for the black students that supposedly don't know how to behave or learn well enough. But what we're learning now is that yes, we do need to acknowledge that different races and cultures in our classrooms, and appreciate them for what they are, not feel bad for students because they are different. It connects to the expectations we have of all our students- we need to have high expectations if students are going to learn anything. No one should be left out of that. No one should be felt sorry for in this regard.

I liked the ideas in chapter four, about the classroom being a family. In the majority of cultures and families, children and students are always wanting to make their parents proud, or do something to impress their parents. Bringing that into the classroom, and having students become a family could be a life-changing thing. It probably wouldn't get rid of bullying, but it could significantly reduce it. Reducing bullying could make a world of a difference to those students who feel they are different because of their home-life: race, culture, etc.

This idea of culturally relevant teaching is so important, I think. It takes individual differences and cultural diversity into account, which are things generally overlooked in the classroom. We need to stop trying to make all students the same. We need to stop pretending that everyone learns the same way and that the same lessons will work year after year. Each new school year filled with new, diverse students is going to bring a new and exciting journey in our lives as teachers. We should be welcoming that. Keeping culture and society relevant to the classroom and our students will help to enhance their learning. So I go back to the beginning of my post. Is it a good idea for African American students to stay among their own in terms of education? I want to say no, but until we can desegregate our individual classrooms and make changes on a cultural level, we aren't going to see anything change.

Blog 8: Organization and Curriculum

Chapter 4: Structural and Organizational Issues in Classrooms and Schools

It was scary reading how many structural and organizational issues exist in our school system that seriously don't work. I know tracking has been questioned for awhile now but I don't think people are really thinking about it too much. "The messages children internalize because of grouping practices are probably more destructive than we realize and their effects more long-lasting than we care to admit. Students may develop enduring classroom personalities and attitudes. They may, for instance, begin to believe that their placement in these groups is natural and a true reflection of whether they are “smart,” “average,” or “dumb.” (111). This is one of the last things we want students feeling. So it makes perfect sense that there is a major issue with this "solution" but there are hug drawbacks. And what do we do? Continue doing the same thing. The same idea goes with retention. "Aside from a short-term benefit for some students – a benefit that has been found to have no lasting effects – there is no evidence that retention brings children up to grade level. Several decades of research that showed retention fails to improve achievement." (114). Another idea that apparently doesn't work at all yet it happens to thousands of students every year. And on top of it: "Children who are retained actually learn less than they would have had they been promoted." (114).

I still struggle to understand why we've come to make standardized testing so important. It's been used in so many wrong ways for years by men like Lewis Terman: “Their dullness seems to be racial, or at least inherent in the family stock from which they came... Children of this group should be segregated in special classes... they cannot master abstractions, but they can often be made efficient workers.” (115). Is this what we've decided to keep standardized testing for? I think it's a decent way to look at what students are learning, but it's certainly not something that should be determining students' futures, especially in such a racist way. I hope this example is not something that is happening regularly.

I also liked what this chapter said about the curriculum: "The problem is that the curriculum is often presented as if it were the whole, unvarnished, and uncontested truth. Instead, we should think of curriculum as a decision-making process." (119). But what's being left out? Are these decisions being made based not on multicultural education, but on something much more narrow-minded?

This chapter was very informative about the recurring problems in our school system but was limited in solutions. Most of the offered solutions were temporary fixes or traced back to the fact that we need to adjust the entire system in this country. How do we start doing something like that?! That's what we need to focus on.

Chapter 10: Implications for teachers, schools, families, and communities

I really enjoyed this chapter in the sense that it encouraged teachers to invite other languages into the classroom. That alone can do many things for students who feel different or like outcasts because of their language (380). Teachers need to be more welcoming of the native languages students have when it's not English. I feel this intimidates most teachers if they don't understand that language. But getting them to use that language in the classroom and showing those students that it's okay sounds like it would greatly benefit the student and their families, knowing they can still use their native language at home and it's not going to have any negative effects on what is going on in school.

"All teachers can become role models for all students as long as they are caring and knowledgeable about their students. One way in which teachers can build substantial relationships with students is by offering help to those who do not seek their aid." (385). First generation college students generally have no on to give them prior experience so they kind of don't even know where to start looking, even though the answer may be simple to us. This chapter was a bit more helpful in coming up with newer ideas that can make a difference in the classroom, and I hope they do. I hope this becomes common practice in schools across the country. A serous change needs to be made.