Co-Constructing Family Engagement
Every educator wants to build strong bonds between the children we teach. We may need to realize how many routine methods we employ to create these relationships stand from the path of true collaboration. Take a look at the most popular programs that schools provide families. We organize back-to-school nights and family workshops that provide strategies for student support and update parents about the student’s progress via parent-teacher conferences. It is often assumed that families are aware of what is going on at school, are given the resources they need to support their child’s learning, as well as are allowed to discuss their child’s academic performance throughout the school year; we have accomplished our goal of developing partnerships with families.
These activities could be helpful. However, they may also uncover weaknesses in our working method and reveal relationships that are gaps in our understanding. These issues may manifest themselves in a conflict, often under the surface. The engagement in traditional family-engagement meetings tends to be one-way, tightly controlled, and focused on short-term results. These programs are primarily school-related and implicitly (and in some instances explicitly) convey that the school is always in the best (Khalifa, 2018). After the back-to-school night (in which families rarely have the chance to meet with teachers), contact with parents may only occur once more once there is an indication that children need to meet their teacher’s expectations. We, as experts, present the issues–such as a child not listening or, in the case of a pandemic, missing online classes–and families are mandated to either offer or find the solution. This creates an unending cycle of short-sighted issues and blame-game disputes, leaving the slightest space for shared responsibility and cooperation.
Can They Trust You?
However, with just a few shifts in the direction of thinking and perspective, the relationship between family and teacher can flourish and significantly impact a child’s development. Teachers must move beyond the single-way communication strategies we have relied on for so long and build trust and respect for the families we serve.
When you are analyzing the school’s policies on families as partners, it is essential to remember that the issues I am discussing affect marginalized students. It is not just the fact that standard parent-engagement initiatives limit the possibility of correcting inequities in students’ outcomes. They ignore a significant historical context. Marginalized families have no reasons to be able to trust their teachers. This is not because we have bad intentions or desire to commit a crime against children. However, our system has proven numerous times that schools can be a place where marginalized students are at risk of suffering a lot. At the beginning of our country, Black students were in danger of being physically injured and even killed if caught reading (Howard, 2015). Nowadays, Black students are least likely to be referred for programming that is gifted and talented, even if their teachers are Black (Barshay 2016, 2015; Dreilinger, 2020). Indigenous students have had their cultural traditions wiped out in the residential schools.
Moreover, less than 50 % of states are required to incorporate indigenous culture into the school curriculum (National Congress of American Indians, 2019). The findings of equity audits that are taking place across the country frequently reveal how marginalized families are subject to disdain, hostility, and a general sense of feeling included in the schools. It is not surprising that the majority of families lack trust in their teachers.
Although it can be a challenge to deal with, this legacy of dereliction is not something that educators should be ashamed of. It is empowering for educators to acknowledge that they have yet to find out the best way to support every student they have. We are always trying to figure out how to set high standards, provide help, and encourage positive attitudes. Moreover, because of these inconsistencies, we are prone to make mistakes. This is the reason we require family relationships. This is why relationships are essential right from the beginning.
A common understanding of our shared goals will help us redefine how we work with families today and into the future. True family partnerships are concerned with building reciprocal relationships based on shared responsibility and collaborative work across all settings. It is focused on enhancing the development and learning of children. The basic idea is that to be the best caregiver for children; we must establish a rapport, create a shared understanding of the student’s goals and needs, and participate in activities involving collaboration, such as problem-solving.
Inviting feedback and inviting suggestions helps create genuine relationships that can be a foundation for the whole school year.
Establishing Goodwill
Teachers and their caregivers had already been strained prior to the outbreak.
Due to the various tensions that have risen in the last two years for both parents and teachers, the anxiety over the future of working together is probably even more. Family members want to know the educators’ intentions for their children. They cannot discern a teacher’s thoughts, and, in some cases, it is likely that minority families assume that educators’ intentions are based on inadequate expectations of their children and a tendency to ignore their potential and humanity. Teachers are, however, often overwhelmed by the task of forming partnerships with families. They are usually required to work on their own time or feel that they need to extend their job to establish connections, and they need to be given the proper direction or guidance to accomplish this. However, families feel different; they need to observe that educators behave differently. Teachers must communicate to families that it is their obligation as the primary ones to build trust.
However, such interactions can be manageable and simple steps. Simple, practical actions to establish trust can set new expectations and build trust. Make contact with your entire family at the beginning of the year by making an easy video or phone contact to build a connection. This could be more challenging if some families have a different language than you. Writing communications with translation or requesting an interpreter to take the phone is the best option in this situation. Be open and transparent about your goals as a teacher. Be specific about how you intend familiar with your pupils and about the academic goals you have for them. Ask caregivers about their goals for their students and look for common ground.
Ask relevant questions such as what it means for them that the school should set high standards for their child. What would they like you to do to set and increase the expectations? What are they looking for from you? What do you need from them? What are the most important cultural practices to them? What is important to them as a student that is often removed from school? Engaging in genuine dialogues that is this kind of dialogue lays the groundwork for sharing ownership and a unified and generative relationship.
Contact your families again six to eight weeks after the first phone conversation. The next time, you can discuss how your initial conversation influenced your teaching. Request opinions on your teaching as well as their experience with students. Ask questions about ways you can help your child. It is much fun for families to learn about upcoming classes and talk about how they can help their children develop to their full potential, foster enthusiasm, and increase expectations for academic achievement. This method will offer regular and consistent ways to communicate with families.
This discussion is necessary for the back-to-school night celebrations at least a few weeks into the school year. Instead of discussing what you plan to do throughout this school year, block some time to discuss the vision and goals and encourage family members to share their thoughts. You could offer a brief introduction to yourself activity that highlights the different cultures present in the classroom. Then, encourage families to consider ways to celebrate and recognize the varied perspectives and experiences students contribute to their classrooms. This type of community brainstorming builds on connections made through smaller meetings and allows families to develop relationships with each other. Inviting feedback and inviting suggestions helps create genuine partnerships that create the foundation for the whole school year.
School leaders should set aside spaces for professional learning at least three times per year for teachers to meet and use feedback from their caregivers in their lessons. Teachers should have the opportunity to review feedback from their families and then check in on how they have applied it and what their results have been.
Focus Interactions on the Child
Although educators might believe that their students are at the center of any conversation or event with family members, this is only sometimes the situation. Through my experience, I have witnessed the best intentions of teachers put aside when other activities have priority or when conversations turn into vague thoughts of advice or support, which do nothing to create genuine relationships with families in order in order to assist their children better.
At the start of the school year, teachers design many ways to connect with students. They often “partner” with families by surveying their child’s strengths and weaknesses. Expect to utilize this data to determine how we can best assist the students. In the initial two weeks of the school year, surveys are often stored in a filing cabinet, and the opportunity to get to know our students better is put off until more “serious stuff”–academic material. Suppose the child is not accepted (for instance, they miss an assignment or are disruptive). In that case, we swiftly switch to negative phone calls and the cycle of challenges to relationships discussed earlier in this article.
The family-teacher meeting, typically scheduled around the time of the report card, is a different event. It is interesting to note that the focus is only sometimes on the student. The typical conference lasts about 15 minutes and is organized as follows. The teacher states that the conference focuses on finding the best way to help the child. The teacher reveals the strengths (“He is a good teacher,” or “He contributes well to the class,” as well as “She gets along well with other students”) and is then followed by the weaknesses (“They have trouble paying attention,” or “She is not on grade level in reading”) and often with very little or no work from the students discussed. Once the teacher has laid out the “facts on the table, parents are given 2 minutes for questions. The discussion is not multidirectional as the experience of the child and requirements need to be clarified. The advice given to parents can be unclear and ineffective, and the emphasis should be on supporting the child.
The interactions require a more profound understanding for a genuinely family-like relationship to grow. The emphasis should shift from sharing the progress (or absence) to sharing meaning. Teachers may share their plans first. However, she should allow the caregivers time to discuss their expectations and concerns. Together, they will look at student work, note where they have seen progress and achieve goals, and then discuss ways to enhance their accomplishments. After the conference, all parties must leave with concrete steps (The teacher could declare, “I will increase positive interactions with three affirmations to every one redirect,” and the parent could be able to say, “I will preview the schedule for the day at home and encourage her effort at writing time”) They can also discuss the results of these steps during an additional phone call. This kind of conference is a great way to build trust because it is evident to families that the teacher’s goal is to work with them to address their child’s needs.
To make these interactions productive and beneficial throughout the school, teachers must collaborate as a group to utilize the feedback they receive from parents to inform their teaching and lesson plans. As an elementary teacher, I noticed from my visits home that family members were constantly looking for ways to become involved in school. I relayed this knowledge to my grade-level team, and we devised a list of events that families could participate in. We integrated these activities into our calendar so that there was a particular day when families could visit the classroom to tell family stories, a different day on which they could bring books to read to students as well as other opportunities for them to be chaperones on excursions to the most critical locations within our local community. Students found it enjoyable to experience the scenes of an ice cream parlor owned by a family of locals shop as excursions to other locations farther away. Listening to your family members is a good start, but incorporating the information you gather and working with the group to put this knowledge into practice and implement changes is crucial.
The Power of Admitting You Do Not Know
One thing the epidemic can teach us about ourselves as teachers and school leaders is that we need to have all the solutions. We are in an unprecedented situation and will require all hands on dictator advance. The power of family partnerships will indeed be realized. Recently, I was at the same school as several teachers who were also parents. One teacher asked, “I want to know what kinds of activities can be designed that make my child want to get out of bed.”
Teachers and parents are pondering the same question! It is okay to admit that you do not possess all the information. When educators and families meet and discuss solutions to a significant issue focusing on dialog and shared ownership, the results are always more enlightening. When we provide those opportunities to families that have been marginalized or marginalized, there are more chances to improve inclusion.
Teachers must get beyond the one-way communication activities we have relied on for so long. One of the most empowering experiences I have had as a school administrator was working with families whose children were using Individual Education Plans to identify ways to promote positive relationships between educators and students and as methods to reorient relationships when they were turning negative. We met with a small group of families and presented my thoughts, ideas, and possible plans. I asked them, what is not included in the plan? What were we unaware of? Do we have any areas where we might intentionally harm students with special requirements? I clarified that I would only move forward if I achieved a position we felt comfortable with as a group. Families were pleased with their input and had the policy improved immediately because of their ideas. When they raised the issue that the policy needed to provide for differentiation, We brainstormed ways it could be improved. It was terrifying to be so vulnerable. However, this is how we can move from seeking input to sharing the power.
A Shared Goal
The pandemic is still presenting schools with myriad unanswered issues, offering families the possibility to brainstorm possible answers together, creating authentic collaboration and an unifying goal of student health, happiness, and success.
If we take an asymmetrical and structural approach to family-based partnerships and relationships, we can create a new direction in our method of educating students. In these strategies lies an obligation to challenge our long-held beliefs regarding power dynamics, whose voice is essential, and if every family is concerned about the expert hair children’s experience classroom. To change these beliefs, we need to acknowledge our past, explore different things, and then move across this new terrain, hoping that we can lead families in partnership to pursue an equitable society.
