Inclusion of Parents and Teachers in a Learning Community - Research Paper Example

Project for the Inclusion of Parents and Teachers in a Learning Community Inserts His/Her Inserts Grade Inserts Tutor’s Name 16 (Thursday, December, 2010) Problem Statement Saudi Arabia is home to a lot of communication barriers within the society. The communication between the school and the community at large is not good. In most cases, the communication remains confined within the four walls of the classroom without any far reaching repercussions. Communication occurs at a snail pace and there is little importance given to it for the betterment of the community. Communication is an important asset in any school and society. It doesn’t matter how it is being used as long as it is effectively being used. In order to develop an understanding between any two people, it is important to have strong communication between them. Given this in perspective, one must understand that the schools need to form a very strong channel of communication with the parents and the community in order to provide quality service to the community. This will paper will give insight into how the channel of communication can be made stronger and deeper through various methods via which the schools can communicate within the community. The schools under discussion would be elementary schools so the entire discussion would revolve around these schools only. Importance of addressing the problem I want to address this problem because communication between schools and communities is of vital importance; the stronger the communication, the more effective the interaction between the teachers, the parents and the students. This interaction will help teachers in discussing the performance of children with their family members and will help the school over problems such as students’ absence. Education is an entire cycle which is dependent on the action and communication of students the community, the residents and the educators. Effective teaching is directly related to effective communication. Unless communication is not effective, the desired results won’t be seen within the community at large. Literature support and rationale for legitimacy an addressing the problem Various studies have been conducted in this regard. According to Jeri La Bahn (1995), parents would feel delineated from their children’s schools because they would feel un welcomed at schools. A lot of times, parents would feel that education is not important. The study opined a lot of ways through which parents can be involved in schools in a constructive way. There was another study conducted by University of Illinois. According to this research, children tend to perform better when their parents are more actively involved in school. This means, that it is better when parents talk to teachers more often and are better aware of their children’s proceedings in school. There are a number of way through which parents and teachers can communicate with each other than the typical closed door meetings. There is no doubt that a students’ performance is influenced by the school community. The school community consists of teachers, staff, and principals. In my view, parents are also important members of the school community. Involvement of people The two parties which individually cater to the needs of the children will be involved in a project. There has to be open communication between both these groups so that students can be facilitated in the best form. Bryk and Schneider also found in their study that trust is very important between teachers and parents (Palmer, 2007). The involvement would be done in joint collaboration because as Dufour, Dofour and Eaker in 2002 stressed that collaboration can result in improvement of collective and individuals results (Fullan, 2008). Therefore, the project would gain confidence of both these groups, so that the student performance and community interaction can be improved in every form possible. The flow of the Plan Initially, both the school and community members can be asked for feedback. Then parents can be called up for surveys. The parents have to be contacted directly and not through students via circulars etc. Some questionnaires can be developed regarding questions about the improvement of the child’s performance. Eventually, for the purpose of the survey, there could be a meeting between the principal and the parents. In the meeting, there will be an in house discussion which will incorporate both the parents and the teachers too. The parents will additionally be addressed on the concerns that the school has on the communication amongst the community. The school can also listen to any suggestions that the parents might have to improve on this condition. This is very crucial because the ensuing discussions can be extremely helpful. As Fullan explains that knowledge is the result of people pursing and continuously learn what works best for them (2008). Eventually, the questionnaires will be filled, and the meeting can be ended by informing the parents about the new website. Interactive activities of the Plan A survey would be important in determining which channels of communication will be used. For this, there will be a form designed which will highlight different forms of communication and there will be suggestions taken from various participants. After the filled formed comes through the child from the parents, then the surveyor will categorize the forms according to the similarity of answers. The date collected from these forms will be assessed by the senior management as to select only relevant feedback. One very important initiative that can be taken is the building of a website with individual parents given their own logins and password. This will ensure safety from any child tampering. The school website would be a way of continually update the parent of their child’s performance. In addition, instead of sending circulars through the students to the parents, the website can tell about parent teacher meetings. This will be important because in this way there will be no mis-communication. In addition, all the upcoming activities of the school can also be published on the website which will ensure that the parents check up on their children thoroughly. Also on the website there can be a blog page and discussion page, where parents and comment and discuss the latest news. This whole project can take up to the time period of six months. The costs would not be much. In a way, they cannot be calculated but the cost of initiation and the working of website would not be that much. So a web engineer could be hired for six months, but these usually do not cost a lot. In addition, the school management can also plan various activities which will provide a platform where both the school members and the parents can interact. After the event, the feedback can be taken through website from the people who have participated in the event. Parties Involved Permission is extremely important in the articulation of the project, so is cooperation. What has to be done initially is to take the permission from the principle, and also ensure cooperation from the principle, but also from the other teachers. This is crucial because teachers are very important in the articulation of the plan. In addition, the surveys that would be called would be first done on educated parents so that the complexity could be reduced and to ensure the smooth running of the whole process. Eventually, then the other parents can also be involved. Impacts of the Plan and achievements This vision development project will bring many advantages. As Newmann, King and Youngs in 2000 pointed out that when there is collective initiative or the working of the whole staff together, this results in additional school capacity (Fullamn, 2008). When parents will become more involved, the children will face questions at home, which will result in them focusing more attention on studies. The overall performance of the students will therefore increase. Not only this, the project is bringing a new idea to the table, which is what many schools hope to achieve. They hope to gain new ideas which will foster the growth of school and also make the school realize its goals. Parents will also become more aware of their responsibility in their children’s life and they will realize the significance of elementary education. In this way, they will also learn how to implement on the children. The community will develop, and therefore there will be more open communication and eventually all will be reaching towards one goal through this project. Success of the Plan It is very important to know if the plan is successful. Therefore, there should be regular checkups whether the project has shown success or not. In this account, what can be done is that there can be comparison done between the two months. If the participants increase from one month to the next, this will signal that the plan is successful. In addition, parents can also be asked again for feedback whether their child has shown any positive response after the implementation of the project. Future The work should not be stopped and even though the project will be implemented in one school, it can eventually be told to other schools. In this way, the needs of children will be catered to, and the overall society can progress. References Palmer, Parker. "Foreword." The Courage to Teach. 1998. Reprint. San Francisco: A Wiley, 2007. 15. Print. Website: http://books.google.com/books?id=pZsWyb31oBwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+courage+to+teach&source=bl&ots=EjOZSTZKyd&sig=2vV504TaM-8unLYTRoXon9Z6utE&hl=ar&ei=QATsTJvUMcujnQfP1MCbAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false The Six Secrets of Change by Michael Fullhan, 2008. Taken from the website: http://www.meadowscenter.org/vgc/downloads/TRFI/leadership_2008/fullan.pdf Read More