As teachers, we are considered experts in our field. What we deem as important to a child's education is what we will teach them. While we may know how students learn, how to teach mini-lessons, how to correct punctuation, and how to push a student to the next level of reading or writing ability, can we say that we know our students the better than anyone else? In Connie L. White's article "'What He Wanted Was Real Stories, but No One Would Listen': a Child's Literacy, A Mother's Understandings", teachers' knowledge of their students is examined. As a teacher, White encountered parents, specifically mothers, that cared about their children's education and had concerns and knowledge about their children that previous teachers had ignored. The school "experts" considered their children behind in their reading abilities. Was it that? Or were the children just not interested in what they were being told to read and learn?
White says that parental involvement is key in the classroom. Parent volunteers have become an expectation in many schools, and if parents are unable to volunteer, they are considered uncaring. She protests this argument, indicating that many parents who may want to be involved may be unable to do so because of their work schedules. With this in mind, though, parents who can get involved should be welcomed with open arms. Parents have spent the first years of their child's life with them; they most likely know their children better than the teachers who have them in class for about 7-8 months. Because of this, teachers should open their classrooms to parents and take into serious consideration the comments and questions parents have about their children. In a particular case that White examines, a woman named Betty was concerned about her son's interests because they were not up to par with what the school expected. He was interested in non-fiction. If it could not happen in real life, it made no sense to her son. Why should this be a cause of concern? He was able to read and had excellent farm literacy and experience with farm animals and techniques. How important is it that he enjoys "airy fairy" stories, as his mother called them? She was never interested in fairy tales either. This information greatly helped White reach out to Betty's son, and White was able to incorporate his interests into the curriculum. His unique interests also pointed out the flaws in White's curriculum. She was basing her book discussions on topics she deemed valuable but was not confirming that these topics also mattered to her students.
To further aid her understanding of her students' home literacies, White met with several mothers once a month and used home-school journals that were written between her and interested mothers. By incorporating these practices, at the request of Betty, students' mothers became well acquainted, communication was formed between White and her students' parents, and White was able to adjust her curriculum to better fit students' unique interests. The home-school dialogue helped White to gain a deeper understanding of the literacy students encountered at home. She learned that several of her students were not "behind" because they were not read to at home because they were read to! They were simply uninterested in what White was teaching. This is not to say that teachers should never teach topics that not every student is interested in because this is just not possible. It merely suggests looking beyond our own interests and the interests of the majority to reach more students. If a student is going to best learn to read by reading non-fiction stories or realistic fiction, then that student should be reading those genres. Students should be exposed to multiple genres in order to help them discover their interests. Learning to read is not about learning to love what the teacher loves but to discover what each student loves and to help him or her learn more about those topics. This should be kept at the forefront of educational practices. Parents can help teachers do this by informing them of their children's interests, learning behaviors, and talents. Once the teacher knows this information, he or she can incorporate students' home literacies into the classroom. The boy interested in farming was able to discuss techniques and farm animals that his mother was able to bring to school. Other home literacies could also be brought into the classroom. This would help students get to know one another better, build confidence in the students who are experts on their home literacies, and teach many new ideas to the entire class in the process.
Including parents in our instruction may be intimidating at first, but their involvement and knowledge of their children will help foster a class of diverse learners with unique interests and a sense that their education truly matters.
Source: White, Connie L. (2009). What He Wanted Was Real Stories, but No One Would Listen": A Child's Literacy, a Mother's Understandings. Language Arts. 86(6), 431-439.
No comments:
Post a Comment