In gathering my data for the student in context strand and reporting it back to my peers, I discovered a strong disconnect between Parker Elementary and its families and communities. Being one of the most diverse schools in the district, I expected to be a part of many community activities and events throughout my student teaching experience. However, completing the required hours for this strand was much more difficult. Home visits were strictly discouraged under most circumstances, and besides the occasional school spirit nights, I had very little opportunity to interact with the community outside of the school. I felt extremely limited and confined to only interacting with the parents within my first grade classroom, which still, however, had an impact on me and my teaching strategies.
Although THE District held frequent community events, it never seemed as though attendance was encouraged at Parker. We rarely sent home flyers to parents to inform them of events, other than the monthly newsletters that went home. Parker would post upcoming events on their website as well as on their front marquee board, but this was not reaching the families of students who rode buses or did not have access to the internet, ßGood, you made an assertion and explained your belief! which I believe is the population that needs this community aspect the most.
It also came to my attention that the events that Parker did actually advertise to its families were fundraisers, ßgreat observation! which cost families money so that a portion of the proceeds go back to the school. These events were typically held at Skate City, Carl’s Jr., and Barnes and Noble (see Appendix A). When I attended these events I noticed that the same groups of families went to these events. They were not necessarily only white families, but they were two-parent, middle-class families. I rarely saw the single-parent families at these events, and the students of these families typically went along with a friend instead, if they attended the event at all. I believe this is could be due to the fact that these events cost money and typically took place around four or five o’clock in the afternoon, which is before many of the working-class parents get off work. In fact, many of the “minority” students are in after-school care until six o’clock. It was mainly through these examples that I realized Parker was not addressing the specific needs of a very important population within their school. Not only does this school lack community involvement, but they are also not making their few opportunities very attainable for a big portion of their families. Nor are they putting in the effort to reach out to these families to support and encourage them and their involvement. ßEllen, GREAT job with your critical piece. You observed what was going on, questioned who was being served, and then noted that a whole group of people were privileged while others were marginalized due to the way the school approached and organized events! FANTASTIC reflective work!
The week before the school year started, the school hosted an “Open House”. This allowed students to come to the school with their families, see their classroom, and meet their teachers. This type of event is a great way to kick off the school year and get families connected with the school and teachers. However, only about thirty percent of the students in our first grade classroom attended the event. I think this event would have also been a great way for families to learn about all the upcoming events throughout the school year. Not only should Parker work on getting a higher attendance rate, but maybe a quick ten minute “assembly” would have been a great way to get parents informed about how to get involved. Instead, families just quickly visited their child’s classroom and maybe walked around the school and then left. I truly felt it was a wasted chance to reach out and make a change in a school and community that definitely needs it.
The school also held a Back to School Night, in which the planning and results were very similar to the Open House event. The attendance was just as low and the responsibility of making the families feel welcome and important fell on the teachers. There was simply not enough time for teachers to go through their classroom policies, procedures, and goals for the year while also trying to get parents connected within the school. I feel that my cooperating teacher used this time as more of a chance for her students’ families to get to know her and feel comfortable with what she planned to do for their children, which was great.<-- Good you are balancing your criticism by noting the clearly useful and good things that were done. However, it also needs to be a time for the teacher to get to know the families and what accommodations need to be made in order to effectively reach them. If it were me, I not only would have called all of my students’ families and personally invited them to the event, but I also would have ensured that the families that could not make it to the event would have gotten the information. This is not something my cooperating teacher did, and instead she waiting for parents to ask her questions regarding the information that was discussed at the event. I would have, and will in my own classroom, sent home a packet of all the information. Perhaps I could even video tape the event and post it online for parents to view at home. Overall, I strongly believe that parents should not have to do all the work in order to be involved and connected.
Although I have always known that it is crucial to know and understand the different cultures and backgrounds of your students in order to effectively teach them, the idea became more evident to me in my student teaching experience. As discussed in my previous reflection, the first grade classroom I taught in consisted of thirteen Caucasian students, ten African Americans, two Hispanic students, one Korean, and one student considered “other”. I immediately began to try to gain insight on how these students’ cultures play a role in their education. One of the biggest trendsßYES! You provide the trend and the variations within the trend! I noticed through observation and conversations with parents was that regardless of the ethnicity of the student, every one of their parents valued their child’s education and wanted them to achieve. The differences existed mainly in how they wanted their children to achieve and to what degree they were able or willing to be involved in their achievement.
Looking back at the student and parent surveys that I conducted for the student in context strand, I was able to see these differences among parents more clearly. Although these surveys were anonymous, many parents still chose to put their name or their students name somewhere throughout the survey, which overall showed me that they wanted me to know this information and thought it would help to improve their child’s education. This lack of anonymity allowed me to further examine the data and therefore helped me in improving my teaching to better reach my students. More specifically, I focused on pulling out what I thought was the most important aspect of school for both the student and their parents. Because of the knowledge I gained from my multicultural class at Regis, I was not surprised to see that the majority of “non-minority” families and students were more concerned about learning specific tasks well, such as reading, math, spelling, etc. For example, one white student’s parents stated that one of their goals for their child was to enjoy reading, become a fluent reader, and grasp the concept of telling time as well as build on other math skills. This same parent, when answering the question, “in what ways do you help your child with academics at home?” stated that they read with their child, practice math skills on paper and in authentic situations, and have their child complete workbooks in the summer (see Appendix B).
In comparison, many of the minority students and parents seemed to be more concerned about other life skills, especially in how they relate to being a part of the family and community. For example, one specific minority parent stated that their personal goal for their child was for him to become self-reliant, responsible, and the man of the house. This parent also referred more to how she interacted with her child while helping him with academics at home, rather than the specific tasks they would work on (see Appendix C). ßGood, you suss out the trends and support them with examples. As you can see, these surveys became very helpful in learning about the values and beliefs that my students’ families hold, which influenced the way in which I interacted with them.
During conferences or even informal conversations with parents, I would try to speak more about the behaviors or achievements that were most important to the parent. If I was talking to a Caucasian student’s parent, I would discuss more academic-specific skills that their child was doing well/struggling with. Whereas, if it were one of my minority student’s parent, I would discuss the child’s behavior, attitude, social skills, and other life-specific skills, unless they asked specific questions about academics. This is a technique that I learned from reading the book Con Respeto. In this book, Valdes (1996) discussed how Hispanic parents typically are more interested in shaping their child’s character so that they are responsible, respectful, appreciative, and cooperative, especially in their role within the family. Knowing this helped me to be more sensitive to my minority student’s parents and their values.<--You might also consider doing parent led conferences (I think it is described in Bridging Cultures) that really allows parents to ask you about what is important to them.
After further reflecting on the cultural differences of my students and listening to Jennifer’s presentation on her Korean students, I have discovered a need that we were not responsive to in our classroom at Parker. I think it is common for teachers to overlook the values of a specific cultural group if only one or two students in the classroom are of that particular ethnicity. In our case, we only had one Korean student. She was a very well-behaved and advanced ability student, who received additional tutoring after school from a Korean academy, which unfortunately caused us to place our attention elsewhere. It was also as if we assumed her parents did not need to be as involved since she was doing so well in school, which I believe is common misconception.<--Yes, the literature suggests that the cultural characteristics of many Asian students allow them to be ignored in American schools. This particular student’s parents never showed up for the school events, and did not even show up to their scheduled conference time, which we sent home in the form of a letter to the parents. This was something that was difficult for us to understand. However, the both of us felt uncomfortable in approaching her parents, which perhaps was due to our lack of experience in interacting with people of this culture. ßAnd maybe because the child was doing well.
It was truly through Jennifer’s presentation that I learned about the norms of the Korean culture and became inspired to do further research to learn more. She explained that Koreans are very reserved and are very wary about opening up to people outside of their family and/or culture. She also shared a conversation that she had with one of her Korean student’s family, in which they informed her that they need to feel personally invited in order to attend school events. They explained that a flyer sent home was simply not enough for them to feel welcome. This really brought me to the realization that we were not doing our part in getting our one Korean student’s family involved.
Through this realization, I also became aware of a level of apprehension I have about my interactions with families from cultures that I have had no prior exposure to. I have very little experience in working with people from cultures different than mine and do not want that to get in the way of connecting with my students and their families. But during my student teaching, I felt very uncomfortable asking a student’s parents about their background and cultural beliefs. My first thoughts are to research the cultures of all of my future students in order to help me understand the best ways to interact with them and reach out to them. However, I also feel that it is important to speak directly to the student’s families about their needs, because there are many families who have conformed to the American ways and no longer hold their native culture’s traditions and morals. In other words, I do not want to automatically label my students and their families and assume their beliefs based on the color of their skin or overall appearance. I need to overcome my anxiety about communicating with my non-white student’s families. This strand forced me to step out of my comfort zone, which helped tremendously and I feel that as I continue to be involved in the community in which my students live in, I will only become more comfortable in my interactions.
Another cultural barrier that existed in the first grade classroom that I student taught in arose from a conversation we had with a parent during parent-teacher conferences (see Appendix D). This was a Hispanic parent of a very low-performing student. After a long discussion about the struggles her child was having and the types of support he was receiving at school, she broke down into tears and informed us that she did not feel intelligent enough to not only help him at home, but even to speak with teachers about his academics.<--Wow! This does track with the information in Con Respeto about the school doing the academic piece and the home focusing on the behavior, but I am sure it was a very concerning exchange nonetheless! It broke my heart that it had gotten to the point where they felt worthless as a parent. I never want another one of my student’s parents to feel this way for as long as I am teaching, but I’m not sure that I know exactly how to prevent this. Will my immediate efforts to gain my parents trust and support by showing my desire to get to know their backgrounds in order to effectively educate their children be enough? In this particular situation, we found ways to build the confidence of both the student and his parent. Something as simple as having the parent come in and assist us in completing small tasks in the classroom helped the both of them tremendously. I do, however, feel that these types of situations can be avoided completely if teachers take the time to form a relationship with their student’s families early on. The article Reaching Out to Families and the Community (Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement, 2009) suggests having parents participate in activities alongside their children within the classroom. This helps parents learn strategies for working with their children at home, which would have further helped and more effectively benefitted our particular student. GREAT use of literature here!