Problems involving a lack of Communication between the Parents of Students and the School - Research Paper Example

Problems involving a lack of Communication between the Parents and the School Research outline The outline of the research paper on the topic of lack of communication between the parents of the students and the schools has been explained as follows in the given structure. Outline: 1. Developing a research Plan. 2. Defining the rationale for research. 3. Undertaking a review of literature. 4. Designing an appropriate methodology of research. 5. Analysis of research findings. 6. Reflection on the findings of research. In order to conduct the research, it was essential to develop a plan of research on the lack of communication between the parents and the school and the related problem due to the lack of communication. The goals of research have been fixed in line with the future career goals and objectives. The review of literature on the topic of research would be undertaken in order to in order to gain an insight on the previous incidents of lack of communication between the parents and the teachers as well as the school authorities. This would be followed by a systematic method adopted for the purpose of research on the lack of communication between the parents and the schools. The available information on the problems faced in the US schools due to the communication barriers have been accessed from the books and journals. The secondary research methodology has been chosen due to the benefits of time savings and obtaining the research findings through events that have occurred in the schools in the past. The identification of the research problems would help in addressing the root of the problem and in finding solutions that could be recommended for use in the future course of work. These recommendations could be applied in order to remove the barriers of communication when I plan to hold the post of the principal of a school. Research Plan I chose to do a research on the aspect of lack of communication between the parents of the students and the college which is important from the point of view of the development of the children as planned and desired by the families. My research reveals the differences between the expectation of the parents and the actual performance of the students in the school. This has reflected the importance of effective communication between the parents and the schools. I intend to find the several problems that occur due to the lack of communication between the parents and teachers, the parents and the school authorities. I have researched on the degree to which the progress of the students is hindered due to the communication gap between the parents and the schools. The various factors that lead to the communication gap between the parents of the students and the schools have been researched by me. I started to do this research from with a systematic plan. My first step was to do design an appropriate research problem and undertake a literature review on the aspect of lack of communication between the parents of the students and the schools. I have primarily adopted the secondary methodology of research where I have collected information on the various problems due to lack of communication between the parents and the schools. My research has been specific to the areas of problems in the schools located in USA. I have researched with the help of existing sources, the various factors that have led to lack of communication between the parents of the students and the US schools during the course of academic and personal training. The identification of the problems have helped in finding solutions that would be useful in removing the communication barriers through application in the future place of work. Research Rationale I have a specific rationale for conducting the research on the topic of lack of communication between the parents of the students and the schools where they send their children to study and grow. I have a career objective to become a principal of a school in US in future. I believe that the schools in the country play a significant role in the nurturing, growth and development of the students into matured individuals of tomorrow. The students spend most of the time out of their home in schools. The academic and moral lessons delivered to the students by their teachers is most important and even more important is a close coordination and communication between the parents and the schools in order to identify the strengths and weakness of the students. A close communication between the parents f the students and the schools is the easiest way to understand the needs and capabilities of the students and to adopt the measures of reinforcements required on a personalized basis for every student (Buttery and Anderson, 1999). With this research, I would be able to identify the various factors that lead to the lack of communication between the parents of the students and the schools. This would lead to the root of the problem. The various problems faced due to the lack of communication between the parents and the schools have been identified with the help of this research. With this research I would be able to figure out the various ways by which the communication barrier between the parents and the schools could be removed. These findings could be applied by me in future when I would become the principal of a school. The research rationale is thereby justified as it would allow me to apply the various ways of reducing communication barriers and foster good communication between the parents and the school in future. Literature Review The involvement of the parents in the education of their children has been one of the most important factors in the education of their children. The review of the literature provides a deep understanding of the practices of nurturing and educating children in the families and households. The role of the parents in sending the children to school at the perfect age and then following up with the educational development of their child have been reviewed in the literature review. The barriers to the communication between the parent of the children and the school has been studied which has been able to explain the problems due to the lack of communication. The effective communication between the parents of the students and the school helps in building the relationship of trust among each other. This relationship of trust is a factor that is crucial for the development of education of the students. After a primary level of education and parenting of the new born babies, the children are sent to the school where they are admitted as students. The students attend schools regularly which is taken care by the parents. The parents feed their children, take care of them and send them to school on a daily basis. The students undergo the lesson of academics and continue to learn and grow under the guidance of the teachers. The teachers take over the primary role of teaching the students where they spend maximum amount of time for learning the lessons of life. The various moral values are taught by the teachers in the school. The students get enriched with the academic lessons under the guidance of the teachers. It has been found from the review of literature that the majority of parents start to lose track on the education and progress of their children (Balli, Demo and Wedman, 1998). Although the parenting is continued at home, there exists a lack of communication between the parents of the students and the schools. The schools do not exhibit the practice of involving the parents about the progress of their children. The parents do not get the information on the activities of their children in the classrooms. Unless there is a sever violation in the conduct of the students, the parents do not get the information on the practices of the students and teachers in the classrooms and the changes in daily course of teaching that are implemented in the schools. Although there are annual parents-teachers meeting held in the schools, this has not been found to be sufficient for effective communication between the parents and the teachers, school and administration. This lack of communication between the parents of the students and the teachers has been found to pose several problems over the years in the course of schooling of children. The investments of the parents n the academics and schooling have been found to produce relatively lesser returns due to the lack of communication. The parents are not able to track the areas of academic strengths and weaknesses of their children. For this reason, the parents are not able to give feedbacks to the schools on the status of progress of their children. The abilities of the children and their academic needs could not be discussed due to the lack of communication between the parents and the schools. As a result of this, the measures for improvement of the students both academically as well as an individual could not be implemented for which the level of educational attainment is hampered. The expectations of the parents have also received setbacks as the students have not been able to reach the desired success levels as per their potential. There are several reasons that have led to problems due to the lack of communication between parents of the students and the school. One of the major reasons of the lack of communication is the constraint of time and money for both the parents of the students and the school (Balli, 1998). The mismatch on the availability of time of consultation has led to long gaps in communication on the development of the students. The monetary restriction has also kept the two parties far apart on this crucial issue on parent involvement in the activities of students in the school. The lack of abilities of communication has led to the difficulties in expressing the needs of the children which the teachers may have found difficult to understand. In normal cases of good interpersonal communication skills, the teachers have mostly found that there is a mismatch of opinion with the parents on the academic procedures. Several instances of criticism of teachers by the parents have been observed for which the parents have been found to be threatening for the school environment. The parents have also felt uncomfortable in reaching the school authorities thereby leading to communication gaps. The problems arose due to this as the necessary measures for reinforcement of the academic procedure were never discussed and the ultimate development of the students was hampered. It has been observed that the parents in certain instances have been reluctant to approach the school for which the communication with the teachers was affected. The communication gap between the school and the parents have led to a situation where the teachers have been the sole authority for feedback and decision making on the development of the students (Christenson and Sheridan, 2001). This has resulted into sever problems as all individuals have not played the role of teacher with equal responsibility. The problem was identified due to the uncertainty about the role of the teachers. The teachers have been found to concentrate on the development of students on a personalized or a group of students according to their decisions. The students belonging to the families of the low income segment as well as minority classes have been found to be less represented in the activities of the school. All these problems have occurred due to the lack of communication between the parents of the students and the schools that has affected uniform distribution of resources and reduced the level of attainment in education and personal fields for majority of the students. Research Methodology The methodology adopted for this research has been decided by taking into account the objectives of this research and the timeline of completion of this research work. The secondary research methodology has been selected for this piece of work. The research is qualitative in nature and has started with the design of a research outline, plan of research and the rationale for conducting the research. This is followed by the review of literature on the topic as per the plan of the research. The review of literature provided an insight of the past occurrences of the communication gap between the parents and the teachers of the school. The various factors responsible for the communication gap have been identified with the help of review of literature. After identification of the factors responsible for the lack of communication, the lack of communication between the parents and the teachers of the schools has been explored. The various problems faced due to lack of communication and the effects on the growth of academic and personal profile of the students have been understood (Eulina and Carvalho, 2001). The secondary research includes obtaining access of data and information from the scholarly articles, journals, educational and government websites, books and works published on the research topic. These sources of data and information have provided the existing information on the issues of communication gap between the parents of the students and the schools in USA. The information on the problems pertaining to communication gaps between the parents and the teachers have been obtained from the secondary sources. The secondary sources used for this research have proved to be useful from the context of time spent in data collection. The information obtained from the government and educational online sources, journals and books are genuine information. Thus the relevance of the information and data used in this research has not been compromised. The data collection step is followed by the analysis of the information obtained from the secondary. The analysis of the various problems has helped in understanding the effects of the communication gap between the schools and the parents. The next part of the analysis has been to note down the lessons in order to avoid the problems of the communication gap between the parents of the students and the school. This has led to the findings on the various ways of communication that could be adopted in order to remove the gaps in understanding and coordination between the parents and the schools. The role of technology in removing the communication gap has also been revealed through the research work. Based on the findings and lessons obtained from the research work, the reflections on the significance of the lessons have been explained. These reflections are useful for the career path in future and could be applied for better communication in the workplace. Research Findings and Lessons The research on the lack of communication between the parents of the students and the school in USA has revealed that several problems have cropped up which has set back the level of development of the students in comparison to their potential. The lack of communication between the teachers and the parents of the students has led to the erosion of trust and mutual understanding between the two parties. The research findings have revealed that there should a good level of coordination between the parents and the schools so that the feedbacks on the progress of the students at home as well as in the school could be exchanged (Callahan, Rademacher and Hildreth, 1998). This would be beneficial for identifying the capabilities of the students and reinforcing the areas of academic and personal growth in order to help the student to reach the level of success as per his or her potential. The various factors responsible for the lack of communication between the parents of the students and the school have been identified with the help of this research. These factors include the initiatives of communication on the part of the parents as well as the school, the inter-personal skills on part of both the parents and the teachers, the level of understanding between the teachers and the students and the empathy shown towards the roles and responsibilities of the teachers in the school (Finn, 1998). The research findings provide us with the following lessons that could help improve the communication between the parents of the students and the school. In order to ensure good level of communication among each, the parents and the teachers should ensure a healthy relationship and co-ordination levels so that the information on the progress of students could be exchanged with the ultimate aim of contributing to the development of the student’s academic and personal profile. It has been found from the research that the students belonging to the minority groups as well as from the low income families are not represented and focused at a higher degree as compared to the students belonging from the affluent families. It has been found that the parents of these students have either shown reluctance or stayed back from contacting the school. Thus, the feedbacks on the capabilities and needs of the students have not been shared due to which the steps for development of the students could not be taken. The parents have also been found to criticize the teachers and the school in an unfair manner. In such cases, the parents have been viewed to be threatening by the schools for which they have not been welcome in sharing the progress of the students at home (Hoover-Dempsey, Battaito, Walker, Reed, DeJong and Jones, 2001). The shortage in the level of understanding, empathy and respect towards each other has stopped the process of consultation to take place on a normal course. The lessons learnt from the problems due to lack of communication between the parents of the students and the schools have led to the adoption of various channels of communication that could foster the process of communication between the schools and the parents. The various modes of communication could be classified as one-way and two-way communication. The several means of one-way communication are the newsletters, report card, notebooks, etc. The newsletters have been implemented by the school authorities in order to solve the problems due to the lack of communication. These newsletters are means of providing information to the parents, families and the communities on the general progress of the students in the school. The school to home notebook is a means of sharing the information on the student’s needs and the progress of the students on an individual basis with their parents. The progress of the students in the classrooms is shared with the parents on an alternate day basis and also in some cases on a periodic basis. The report cards also convey evaluation of the student’s development in the academic curriculum on a written format. These are useful means of communication between the parents and the schools which could help to remove the communication gap between the parents and the schools and address the root of the problems. The information provided by the school should be treated with due importance by the teachers (Mapp, 1997). These lead to the path of two-way communication where the parents would also share the progress of their children at home, the basic needs and capabilities of the children and their expectations from the school. The two-way communication modes include the telephonic conversations, electronic mails, video-conference between the parents and the teachers, periodic meetings between the teachers and the parents, etc. All these means of communication would help in exchanging the information on the needs of the students, the capabilities, the progress of the students as per potential judged and the necessary reinforcements to be adopted in order to help the student attain the desired level of success. The parents and teachers should overcome all negative experiences of the past and then discuss closely with each other in order to find a solution that is best for the career progress of the student. The technology has also played a significant role in helping the parents and the schools in coordinating and interacting closely with each other to address the lack of communication gap and the related problems in the path of growth of the students. The application of technology in the form of use of social media, electronic mails, video conferencing has helped to gain better access to information on the students by both the school and the parent. Due to the use of technologically advanced medium of communication, the time required for the sending the information from the sender to the receiver has lowered (Beck and Murphy, 1999). The promptness of the measures to be taken for reinforcing the availability of the resources required for development of the students has been increased. These lessons have been useful to reduce the communication gap between the parents and the school and remove the problems in the course of development of the students. Reflection My research study on the lack of communication between the parents of the students and the schools could be used to provide the following reflections. I have noticed that the parents send their children to schools with the objective of educating them and guide them to develop into a matured individual in future. I found from the research steps that the communication between the parents and the teachers are of utmost importance as it leads to the exchange of information on the needs and capabilities of the students. The exchange of information on the student leads to the understanding of the areas of strength and weakness. Thus the involvement of the parents in the course of development of the students leads to the formation of effective strategies that would reinforce the growth prospects of the children. The various communication barriers that lay between the parents and the schools are due to the lack of initiative on the part of both the school and the parents, the lack of interpersonal skills on the part of the parent, mismatch of time availability, economic constraints, etc. I have also found through research that equal attention and focus need to be given to the students of the minority selection as well as students from the economically inferior families. I shall implement the lessons learnt from the research in the future course of work when I shall become the principal of a school in future. I shall apply the various ways of one-way and two way communications between the parent and the teachers of the school so that the problems due to communication gap could be avoided. I shall also leverage on technology and its applications to adopt a faster as well as periodic exchange of information on the progress of the students. This would help to take necessary measures required to enable the students in attaining the academic and personal goals as per expectation of their parents. References Buttery, T. J. and Anderson, P. J. (1999). Community, school, and parent dynamics: A synthesis of literature and activities. Teacher Education Quarterly. 26(4): 111-122. Balli, S. J., Demo, D. H., and Wedman, J. F. (1998). Family involvement with children’s homework: An intervention in the middle grades. Family Relations. 47: 149-57. Christenson, S. L. and Sheridan, S. M. (2001). Schools and families: Creating essential connections for learning. New York: Guilford Press. Eulina, M. and Carvalho, P. (2001). Rethinking family-school relations: A critique of parental involvement in schooling. Mahwah, NH: Laurence Erlbaum Associates. Finn, J. D. (1998). Parental engagement that makes a difference. Educational Leadership. 55(8): 20-24. Hoover-Dempsey, K.V., Battaito, A. C., Walker, J. M. T., Reed, R. P., DeJong, J. M. and Jones, K. P. (2001). Parental involvement in homework. Educational Psychologist. 36(3): 195-209. Mapp, K. L. (1997). Making family-school connections work. Education Digest. 63(1): 36-39. Beck, L. and Murphy, J. (1999). Parental involvement in site-based management: Lessons from one site. International Journal of Leadership in Education: 2(2): 81-102. Callahan, K., Rademacher, J. A. and Hildreth, B. L. (1998). The effect of parent participation in strategies to improve the homework performance of students who are at risk. Remedial and Special Education. 19(3): 131-141. Balli, S. J. (1998). When mom and dad help: Student reflections on parent involvement with homework. Journal of Research and Development in Education. 31(3): 142-46. Read More