The Importance of Parents and Caregivers in the Educative Process
Students spend 30 hours a week at school, for 40 weeks of the year, for 13 years of their lives. Given this amount of time spent at school, it is safe to say that school is one of the biggest influences in shaping students. The other biggest influence in their lives is their home lives, therefore it is important to have an open line of communication between these two areas of a child’s life. This reflects Element 7 of the NSW Institute of Teachers Professional Teaching Elements, that “Teachers are actively engaged members of their profession and the wider community.”
In terms of student management, or issues that may be happening at school or at home, it is important for the student to have consistency. Communication is therefore required for the best interests of the student. Parents may have concerns for the student, knowing about an issue occurring at home, and need to speak to a year advisor or welfare staff in order to ensure that the students needs are being addressed whilst at school. The same works in reverse. If there are concerns for the student at school, perhaps behaviour or otherwise, the school will need to communicate with parents or caregivers to ensure that they are both working to wards reaching the same goals for the student, and that whatever achievements are made at school are not undone when they go home.
The people who best know students are generally the people they live with. It is therefore very important to try to involve parents and caregivers in the education of their children. Parent teacher interviews, other scheduled interviews, notes in diaries, phone calls and letters home are all ways for the classroom teacher to make contact with the parents regarding students’ education. Reasons to keep contact may be:
- concerns of ability, or progress and ways of improving
- finding out student strengths and interests that may aid in their learning
- positive achievements made by students
- behaviours or attitudes that may be of concern or in breech of school policy
These reasons all require the mutual input of both parents and the school for the overall benefit of the students’ education. Teachers and parents often see very different versions and have different perspectives on the students, therefore it is in the best interest of the students’ education for these two parties to work together to achieve the best outcomes for the student.
-A reflection on how well I achieved the goals I set in Blog 1 and the areas of further improvement that are still ahead of me.
In terms of achieving the goals I set in the pre-Internship blog, I feel that I achieved some of these to quite a high degree and others still have much room for improvement.
My first goal was to learn as much as I can about each individual student so that I may know my students and how they learn (Element 2) so as to maximize their learning experience. I feel that I was able to do this quite well with most student, however, there were still some students who I managed to have trouble getting to know so well in the ten weeks. For those who I did get to know, I learnt things about their homes lives, their interests, hobbies, strengths, weaknesses, skills and extra curricular activities, all of which I tried to incorporate in some way into my lessons. For example, in year 9 I was teaching a visual texts unit and gave students the task of creating an advertisement for a product, charity or event. In my explanation I gave students examples which I had taken from what I had learnt about them. One student who has a cultural background from the Pacific Islands advertised a cultural food called taro that is eaten a lot at home, another who was passionate about animals advertised for support of the RSPCA, one student who loved anime and comics advertised a website that they loved to go on. By making activities like this that allowed students to engage with things they enjoyed they were able to create advertisements of quite a high standard and achieving the intended outcomes of the task.
My next goal was to KNOW the subject matter I was teaching (Element 1), beyond what the students needed to know, so that I may be able to cover the content required and to answer any questions students may come up with. I feel that I was definitely able to cover this practicum goal of mine in the ten weeks. I did not once enter the classroom unsure of the content of the unit at hand. Aside from my own insecurities of not knowing the content that motivated me to learn it, I wanted my students to have faith in my ability to teach them. This is not to say that I was able to answer every question on the spot, however if there was a question that I did not know the answer to I would ask the student to look it up, and I would look it up and together we would come up with an answer. In making sure I achieved this goal I thoroughly researched the units I was teaching and read widely so that I may be ale to decipher and pass on the best information to my students.
The third goal for my practicum was to create a safe and supportive learning environment that challenged students to step outside of the idea of ‘traditional’ learning in the classroom and embrace new experiences with a positive attitude (Element 5). I feel that I did manage to achieve this with some students, but again, not with all. I utilised activities that were new to students with enough instruction and direction for them to feel comfortable in taking the risk to engage in their learning in a new way. Strategies I implemented in my classroom included jigsaws, graffiti walls, question dice, wikispaces, youtube clips, smartboard interaction, debates, group presentations and group evaluations to name a few. For many of my students this different way of learning was something they had not been used to, particularly not in their English or History classes. Most students were highly engaged in these activities and worked well in these challenging environments, however, there were still a few students who did not respond to these challenges, which is where I still need to improve. For some students, this was not enough to encourage a stimulating learning environment.
