Years ago, when I picked up my youngest from her last day of Grade
Three, I looked at her teacher’s cheerful expression and said, “You see that
smile on your face? That will be me in September.” The root of this joke, of
course, is that our children are shared responsibility between teacher and
family, albeit one that has relied on a clear division of time and labour.
No-one is laughing this year. We have experienced a very difficult three
and a half months, uncertain about what learning happened at home, how
our children are faring, or where to go from here. My great hope, however,
is that school and home have come to appreciate each other and see the
advantages of working together, sharing and valuing our different skills and
knowledge.
What have we learned from distance teaching - other than neither group
was prepared and it’s a bad name? I think school and home have finally
discovered that
1. we are not alone, working in solitary silos;
2. everyone has a better chance at success if we are prepared and
confident in our capabilities;
3. when we feel supported, our strength multiplies and our children
benefit.
Silos Don’t Work
Research tells us that when schools engage in authentic family
engagement, one of the bonuses is teacher retention and family
satisfaction. Why? Because as important as it is to have cohesion
amongst the school staff, it’s equally consequential for teachers to feel
supported by their families - and vice versa. During these past months,
families have discovered how difficult it is to teach. They are challenged
with scheduling, discipline, curriculum content and delivery, expectations,
and technology. Teachers, meanwhile, have struggled with the challenge of
transferring learning from the classroom to the living room in effective,
differentiated ways. Neither school nor home is in it alone and each has
come to respect the trials and efforts of the other.
Building Bridges
We no longer have an excuse to separate the two aspects of a child’s life
and assume one does not need the other. We realize now that life has
ways of blurring those lines and showing us how dependent we are on the
healthy functioning of the other. Moving forward, we need to build those
collaborations. It’s not doing more, it’s doing differently.
First, we have to work to maintain and strengthen relationships with our
families. This will lead to mutual trust. Two-way communication is the key.
Schools must find ways to share, and receive, information. But it goes
beyond that. Educators must be primed to listen to, as Dr. Debbie Pushor
puts it, “parent knowledge”. This particular knowledge should then be
incorporated into future pedagogy. Similarly, “teacher knowledge” can be
imparted to families so that they may fully support learning at home. When
school and home co-plan, we are on the road to creating and
understanding reasonable and achievable expectations.
Authentic family engagement is not fundraising, school concerts, or letters
home. As Dr. Karen Mapp argues, it is relational, linked to learning and
builds the capabilities of families to support learning. It is valuing what
families bring to the table rather than viewing them through a deficit lens.
We can share our worries and limitations. We can ask for help. When we
school and home work together, we can confidently celebrate our
successes and find ways through our challenges.
Re-thinking Covid Through the Lens of Family Engagement
How much easier would this final term have been if family engagement
was systemic and already embedded in our education systems? I believe
it would have been much easier. Teachers would have a better
understanding of their families’ capabilities. They would have an
awareness of the lived experiences of their students; resources available
at home and in the community; availability of parents/guardians/caregivers
to guide learning; the number of children under one roof and their needs.
Families would have had a better grasp of curriculum expectations, how to
assist with school work, and whether their home technology and
knowledge could support online learning. Families would have felt more
confident in their role of “coach” and teachers would know what and how
to move learning into their student’s homes. Need I add that this would
have been particularly important for our families struggling within the
opportunity gap— families hindered within the system by biases and
assumptions.
I am reminded of family engagement and the necessity of school-home
collaboration everywhere and in the most unexpected places. In 2018, I
was watching a Q & A with Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Speaking
about his practice toward “interaction, and a team working spirit”, Clinton
advised, “Diverse groups make better decisions than homogenous ones.” I
wrote it down. Little did I know that two years later, a pandemic would
sweep the world, throwing school and home together in supporting the
education of our children. The lessons we have learned may profoundly
change our practice. While teachers and parents may be frustrated that
they can no longer easily hand off our child to the other at the door, our
new immersive connection reminds us that, “Diverse groups make better
decisions than homogenous ones.”