Effectively Involving Parents in Education

1732 Words4 Pages

Effectively Involving Parents in Schools

Parents are the first teachers of the students in our future classrooms. From the student’s birth until they enroll in a school program, the job to educate them is up to their parents. Once a child has started school, the job of the parent is not finished in regards to their child’s education; the role is just changing. No longer are parents solely responsible for their child’s education. Instead, parents now have a new partner, teachers. As future teachers, it will be part of our job to facilitate this relationship further and to encourage parents to be involved in not only what happens outside the classroom, but what is happening inside the classroom as well.
I chose this topic because as a future teacher I value the role parents should play in their child’s education. According to the Michigan Department of Education (2001), school age children spend seventy percent of their waking hours including weekends and holidays, outside of the school setting. It is not only up to the teacher to educate the child, but it is integral that parents have an active role as well.
What Studies Show
Studies show that engaging parents as co-educators in the education of their children has lead to many positive results. These studies have also yielded reasons as to why or why not a parent chooses to become involved and in what capacity.
The Student
In their paper, Parent Involvement: The Critical Link, the Oregon State Department of Education (1990) wrote that involving parents in education lead to students feeling more valued, competent, effectual and created a family environment in which achievement was stimulated and encouraged. The Michigan Department of Education (2001) showed through decades of ...

... middle of paper ...

...ifference? Teachers College Record, volume 97(2). Pages 310-331. Retrieved from http://www.vanderbilt.edu/peabody/family-school/papers/childrens _education.pdf
Michigan Department of Education. (2001). What Research Says About Parental Involvement in Children’s Education. Retrieved from http://michigan.gov/documents/ Final_Parent_Involvement_Fact_Sheet_14732_7.pdf.
Oregon State Department of Education. (1990). Parental Involvement: The Critical Link. Retrieved from ERIC http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED387219.pdf
Robson, Maggie & Hunt, Kathy. (1999) An Innovative Approach to Involving parents in the Education of their Early Years Children. International Journal of Early Years, volume 7, no 2. Page 185-193. Retrieved from http://web.a.ebscohost.com.oberon.ius.edu/ehost/ pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=8919849e-1d4d-4b13-91ec-200069d583bc%40 sessionmgr 4004&vid=2&hid=4206.

Open Document