Copyright 2009 by Corwin.
First Skyhorse Publishing edition 2016.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
Cover design by Michael Dubowe
Print ISBN: 978-1-63450-370-9
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-0134-2
Printed in Canada
Contents
Sheila E. Durkin
Foreword
A s my son worked his way through the public school system, I approached each new school year with some trepidation, always wondering whether I would be a welcome participant in his classroom. So I was intrigued when I saw the title of Neal Glasgow and Paula Jameson Whitneys new book, What Successful Schools Do to Involve Families: 55 Partnership Strategies. While family involvement has always been a topic of intense interest to most parents, I was curious to learn more about it from the teachers perspective. I was rewarded with a treatment of the issue that I think both teachers and parents will find informed, instructive, and worthwhile.
In this book the authors present a new approach to collaborative partnerships that invites and encourages parents, siblings, grandparents, and other caregivers to be involved in the life of the student. Citing the increased involvement of parents and families as an important predictor of school and student performance, the authors open the discussion on how to develop a more inclusive environment. With specific advice on how to get every type of family group to feel connected and valued, they seek to create the homeschoolcommunity connection that truly brings the public back into public schools.
Based on the principle that everyone who touches a students life is a potential teacher, the book looks at the role of teacher as facilitator in the learning process. Whether addressing homework issues, math and reading difficulties, or the challenges of teaching students from nontraditional families, the authors approach their subject matter with compassion and respect, encouraging teachers to form meaningful partnerships with parents and other caregivers.
Recognizing that schools have a responsibility to help every studentnot just the privileged onessucceed, the authors also address the complexities of the socioeconomic, ethnic, racial, and cultural differences that can act as barriers to the communication between school and families. Focusing on ways to break through those barriers with a combination of intellectual effort and heartfelt passion, Glasgow and Whitney provideconcrete and practical strategies to give teachers the knowledge and confidence to craft their own personal approach.
While their work underscores the intense challenges facing public school teachers in this increasingly diverse and fragmented student universe, the authors are far from being deterred by this. Instead they have delved into educational research to explore applications that have worked both within and outside the United States, offering practical and proven techniques, providing encouragement, warning of potential pitfalls, and giving both new and veteran teachers effective management tools.
The concise and straightforward format synthesizes a wealth of information covering both traditional topics, like open house and homework help, to more hot-button issues, like bullying and discipline. The research references provide the foundation for the practical and proven applications that link the research to real-world examples. This makes the book an especially useful resource by providing both teachers and parents with the opportunity to see how a collaborative approach, even in the most difficult and highly charged environments, can lead to new and innovative solutions.
As a parent, former PTA president, and current director of a nonprofit educational foundation, I have been involved with public schools for almost 20 years. Too often I have heard parents complain about not being a part of the process, about schools not listening to their feedback, and about nontraditional families who have little or no access to the classroom. It is inspiring to hear from experienced educators with such a positive, practical, and proactive approach to embracing parents and families as partners in learning.
As the poet William Butler Yeats once remarked: Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire. Glasgow and Whitney aim to light many fires by encouraging schools, families, and communities to work together to bring every student into the warm glow of learning.
Sheila E. Durkin
Executive Director
San Dieguito Academy Foundation
Preface
If a child cant learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn.
Ignacio Estrada
The greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say, The children are now working as if I did not exist.
Maria Montessori
What Is a Teacher?
Parents are a childs first teachers, but somehow parents lose some of that notion as the child grows, especially after the child leaves elementary school. Slowly, the parents turn over the teaching to the schools. How do we help parents to retain that identity and role of teacher and stay involved? Try to widen your paradigm for what a teacher is, where and when learning takes place, and how the community, parents, and other caregivers can be empowered as teachers. It is the goal of this book to help teachers and schools in the K12 paradigm continue to keep parents, families, and communities in the educational mix.
All of us, from the day we are born, learn within and from a huge range of life experiences that are lived and experienced formally and informally, sometimes intended and sometimes coincidental. Buddhist philosophy says that a teacher appears when the student is ready. Children learn a language before they are 5 years old, and most of it is learned without the help of a formal teacher. This bit of wisdom within the philosophy suggests that there are teachers around us all the time. The goal, then, is to do everything possible to develop a ready and willing student. What circumstances and set of experiences produce a ready and willing student?
Sometimes children are teachable because of simple curiosity. Curiosity is a gift from birth, and ambition is the sibling of curiosity. Lets think about what passes as a decent education and how students and teachers perform their respective roles, measure their contributions, and collaborate in the outcome of learning.
The way we teach in America doesnt guarantee anything. There are wonderful people with minimal formal education or specialized training who do wonderful things, and there are others with multiple degrees from very good schools who do little in life. In the American system of learning, within an open society operating in a marketplace culture, learning opportunities and professional participation are open to all. The downside to this availability is that universally accepted standards in teaching, learning, and success in this system are not always predictable or easily defined. People rarely agree on what we should teach, when and how we should teach it, and exactly what will lead to success outside the classroom.