Working with Parents
You want your students to be responsible, educated, and productive members of society so, during your daily classes, you teach them as best as you could and try to instill in them discipline and a real love for learning. Unfortunately for you, your desire to monitor your students’ progress, behavior and development is hampered by the fact that you only get to interact with them during school hours, after which they go back home to their parents.
There is a simple and effective solution to this problem: get your students’ parents more involved in their children’s education.
Numerous studies conducted over the past years have shown the benefits of getting the parents more active in school-related projects and informing them better about their kid’s performance. For one, parents’ involvement creates a more stable learning environment.
If a parent is made aware of his/her child’s irresponsible behavior in class, then the disciplinary action you imposed in class could be carried out to the home. Greater parental involvement also results to better student-performance. Because parents are actually aware of what is going on in class, they can check if their child is doing his/her assignments or studying for the history exam he/she is supposed to be having tomorrow.
Also, parents could provide you with invaluable help in performing tasks like creating, billboards, visual aides and checking quizzes -- chores that would normally cut away too much from the time you should be spending in developing lesson plans and actually teaching.1
You must make them aware of how their children are doing in class, behavior- and academic-wise. Here are some tips you can use:
- Establish communications with the parents early on. Try sending them a letter during the start of the school year outlining what you plan to do for the year. Also, you could ask them to write a short essay about their child just so you could institute the communications line between you and them. 2
- Develop class assignments and activities that would require the parents’ involvement. 3
- Create a weekly, or at the very least, a monthly newsletter that features the different class activities, assignments, and projects. 4
- Ask parents to volunteer for programs like tutorial sessions, book clubs, etc. 5
- Try to visit the homes of your students at least once as this will create a more personal relationship between you and the parents. 6
- Update the parents with any positive development or improvement in their child. This will foster a better relationship between you and will also not make the parents dread you’re your every call or visit. 7
- Make the parents realize that their kid’s learning does not stop after the last bell rings. One suggestion is to make them sign a contract that promises that they will ensure that their kid accomplishes every assignment assigned to him/her. 8
- Schedule class sit-ins for parents. Doing this would give the parents first hand knowledge of what happens in their kid’s school. 9
- If they are willing, assign the parents tasks like creating bulletin boards, visual aides, or checking quiz papers. 10
- Send them regular reports, evaluations and checklists about their child’s performance.11
- Contact them immediately if you think there is a problem with their child.12
Getting the parents involved is of course, much easier said than done. There are parents who will be too distrustful of your efforts, too busy to help or simply too apathetic to care. But then again, everything worth doing is always hard, right?
Sources:
We would like to acknowledge the following sources for this article:
1 “How Technology Impacts Teachers, Parents and Teachers,”
http://www.csun.edu/~hbchd114/paper2.html
1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10 “Working With Parents: Advice from Teachers,”
http://www.educationoasis.com/resources/Articles/working_with_parents.htm
2, 4, 9, 12“Parents and Teachers Working Together,”
http://www.education-world.com/a_curr/profdev/profdev124.shtml
