Parental Involvement
I chose to interview an early childhood education teacher and license Family Service Worker about Parental involvement.
What I gained from my interviews is that parental involvement is important because it helps strengthen the child and teacher relationship. I learned that the most challenging thing is getting parents to attend meetings and set up time that will work for them is challenging. I learned that parental involvement impact early childhood education because they are setting the foundation for this collaboration. I learned that Head Start program identify parents and community involvement as one strategy to promote and provide quality services to children and families. I learned that parents are reluctant and many of them feel guilty and ashamed. I also learned that many parents are low socioeconomically and they don’t have high expectation for their children because of their present conditions. I learned that many parent feel that their child will possibly fail, regardless. The ECE and Family Service worker is trying to come up with strategies to change these beliefs so that they may be able to eliminate these barriers.
The interviews have helped me understand more about why is it important for parental involvement. I know that communication will be the key to get parents involved. The interviews have influenced me to learn more about parental involvement and the barriers that prevent parental involvement.
Three related topics that I would like to focus my research paper on would be why is parental involvement important, what are some of the parents feeling and beliefs that will make them feel reluctant to be involved and the barriers that would prevent parental involvement. I will also like to talk about how parental involvement impact’s early childhood education.
Questions to colleagues:
How can teachers make parental involvement positive and productive?
Hi Shawanda,
ReplyDeleteI emailed you some days ago thinking that this was the correct way to contact you. I'm so glad to have gotten this taken care of. I strongly believe in parent involvement because it truly makes a difference with our children and how they will learn, but I also believe that it makes a bigger difference in how the teachers teach when they know their being watched/observed.
I was so surprised by your post when reading that many parents don't have high expectations of their children and are expecting them to fail. That disturbed me greatly because I don't know any parent in their right frame of mind doesn't want their child/ren to better themselves and go further than they have. Even those who aren't able to give so much in others areas they send them to school with the hopes of them getting an education. So my question to you is who did you get those comments from the teachers or the parents?