On the earlychildhoodnews.com website, I read an article entitled Does Parent Involvement make Your Job Easier or More Challenging? This week, I had parent-teacher conferences with my oldest and middle daughters' teachers (one daughter in Kindergarten and one daughter in middle school). This article intrigued me because as an early childhood professional, I have asked myself this question many times! But, from a parent point of view, I gladly accept the offer to volunteer at my daughters' schools! In the parent-teacher conference for my kindergartner, her teacher seemed timid in a sense. But, sense I was able to observe her teaching ability through various occasions of volunteering in the classroom, I could openly compliment her on her teaching style and her interaction with the students. It surprised me when she said she was grateful for my compliments and that as teachers, "you never hear you're doing a good job; only complaints about what you're doing wrong". When she said this, it made me reflect on my experiences dealing with parents and it made me realize that because I had the opportunity to be involved in my child's learning environment and to informally observe the teacher, I had a better understanding of her teaching personality. To bridge the gap between home and school as well as establish a solid line of communication between the parent and you, the early childhood professional, I feel parent involvement is a must! When parents enter the classroom, even if it's for a few minutes, they have a chance to see the other side of the center (outside of paying fees and signing papers)! "Parents develop positive attitudes toward school and better understand the schooling process, which eventually builds more effective programs with higher community awareness and support." (Beery, n.d., p. 1)
There was a section in the article that talked about how beneficial parent involvement is for the overall success of the center's program. "Parents who understand and provide input often complain less and offer more support to staff and teachers. This in turn strengthens staff morale and stress management—ultimately causing less staff turnover." (Beery, n.d, p. 1) I thought this was interesting because I never considered that simply inviting a parent to read a story or do a puppet show for the students could possibly cause less staff turnover!
As early childhood professionals, especially those who are in the classroom, some of us dread having parents and their "ideas" come into "our" learning environment. But, from what I have read in this article, such involvement and support greatly enhances both the educational experience of the students as well as eases some of the stress for the teachers.
Reference
Beery, M. (2014, September 27). Earlychildhood NEWS. Retrieved September 27, 2014, from
http://www.earlychildhoodnews.com/earlychildhood/article_view.aspx?ArticleID=144
Hi Monique,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for sharing this amazing resource. I'm totally going to take the time to look through this resource. In my center, we have low to no family involvement throughout the year. I took a training to help support father involvement within our center and I'm trying to find the best way to go about encouraging father's to become involved with their child's learning and development, including the center. At my center, we have a family involvement coordinator, and I'm going to take the time to see what we can come up with to support our families at my center to become more involved with their child's education. Does your center have parent involvement? What ways do you support their involvement within the center?
Hi Monique
ReplyDeleteGreat resource and parent involvement is key. I know some of the sites that I work with sometimes have problems involving parents and when they broke it down to smaller activities they had better results. The activities they introduced were hand washing in the morning, reading a short story helping with breakfast set up they were able to attract more parents.