Parents and Teachers Relationship: It’s a Two-Way Street
Effective partnerships between parents and teachers greatly boost students’ success in school.
On one hand, parents not only get to view their children in another environment apart from their home, but they also get an idea of their children’s performance and areas for improvement.
Likewise, as teachers, you get an idea about the home environment of your students, thereby making suitable adjustments and getting a chance to convey to the other how a caring and attentive parent can make a difference in their children’s life and academic career.
Below are some tips for a more effective collaboration with your students’ parents:
- Give positive feedback. Most of the time, teachers only talk to parents when their kids have misbehaved or are getting low marks in class. But it is also important for parents to know when their child is doing well, getting them to be more attuned to their child’s studying weaknesses.
- Give practical suggestions. Parents should know their children’s curriculum, and the specifics on where their child is having trouble. Give detailed and precise suggestions to them on how to help their child get over these hurdles.
- Be personal. Try your best to reach out to parents, whether through hand-written notes or phone calls or conversations on the street. These personal interactions not only bring you and the parents together, but the parent and their children as well.
- Share class routines. Parents become active in their children’s performance if they know the grading criteria, homework and test schedules, projects, and class trips. These encourage the parents to monitor work and studying habits.
- Indicate understanding. Since children may get affected by whatever happens at home, encourage parents to share some of their issues as they can create a negative impact on school performance.
- Be open to feedback. Most parents regard themselves as experts on their children. So ask parents for feedback and suggestions, and when asked, also give expectations for their child as well.
- Work around obstacles. The main obstacle to parent-teacher meetings are schedule conflicts, as are transportation, child care needs, lack of telephone access, and cultural/language barriers. For successful interaction with parents, let them realize the benefits of a meeting like this to their child’s studies. Then be flexible. Use Internet and mobile technology for faster, easier communication.
- Provide something extra. As additional incentives for parents to come to meetings and if the school budget permits it, give parenting-skills, advocacy or school reform workshops, or continuing education courses, after parent-teacher dialogue forums.
- Make them part of the team. It is important for the school to recognize parents as part of the public school’s stakeholders. Organize a school improvement team that includes the administrators, teachers, students, business, community and religious leaders.
- Get older kids involved. Use grade incentives, and get students from the higher years to baby-sit younger children when their parents have to attend school meetings and get involved with school activities.
Both parents and teachers want the students to succeed. It might be an investment in time, money and effort, seeing as there are a lot of them and most are busy with work, but it can never hurt to try. The pay-off is definitely worth it.
Sources:
“2002 Teacher-Parent Engagement ThroughPartnerships Toolkit.” Retrieved October 7, 2007 from
http://72.14.235.104/search?q=cache:RnNZckHVQS0J:napehq.org
/ML-cards.pdf teacher parent effective relationship&hl=tl&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=ph
“Creating Effective Teacher-Parent Collaborations.” Retrieved October 7, 2007 from
http://www.glencoe.com/sec/teachingtoday/educationupclose.phtml/5
“Effective Parent-Teacher Partnerships.” Retrieved October 7, 2007 from
http://www.ldac-taac.ca/indepth/partnerships_teacher-e.asp
