Does a Positive Parent-Teacher Relationship Improve the Educational Outcome for Students - Thesis Example

EFFECT OF PARENT – TEACHER RELATIONSHIP ON EDUCATIONAL OUTCOME by Student’s Name Course Name Professor’s Name University Name City Date of Submission In each and every learning institution that is aimed at producing intellects and all-rounded students that would play a beneficial role to the society, building a positive relationship between their teachers and parents is a very vital aspect. Parents have to be aware that the first contact with the teachers of their children is often the most essential encounter because at this particular juncture, it always provides them with the ideal platform to build a good rapport with those teachers and be able to develop a form of relationship that is bound by trust regarding their students. Regular contact between parents and teachers is important because, however, astonishing some folks may find to believe it; it is true that the students do spend most of the weekday hours with their teachers than the time that they spend with their parents (American Federation of Teachers, 2007). This is true because after parents arrive home from work and their children on the other hand arrive from school, there is always very little time left for the day for parents to spend together with their offspring. To make matters worse, most of this time left is often spent on preparing the dinner for the day, the students perhaps working on their homework; in some cases some students use the time to attend to an event organized to some kids home and later everyone surrenders to bed. It is therefore crucial that parents maintain a good relationship with their children’s teachers because they get to know them even much better in regard to their respective performances and even their character (American Federation of Teachers, 2007). Moreover, in the case where a student happens to be fully aware of a positive relationship co-existing between their parents and the teachers, such students are likely to exhibit more effort in their school work and maintain better standards of discipline. However, if a case happens to exist where the student is aware that his/her parent rarely keeps in touch with their teachers or even a case where the respective parents happen to distrust the teacher in question, this provides an ideal opportunity for the student in question to turn the parents and teachers against each other. The resultant effect will always put the teacher at a very critical position that is not healthy in regard to their profession. However important the matter at hand may be, some teachers may disregard the importance of establishing a good relationship with parents; they ignore the fact that parents can be their greatest friends and they can equally be their greatest enemies in line with their profession as teachers. It is important to note that when parents and teachers of their children are sailing in the same boat or in the same team, the kids will often perform exceptionally in their studies. When the parents and teachers uphold the trust for each other, it is always difficult for the students concerned to play them by simply turning one against the other most especially when they find the assigned tasks challenging or when they simply desire to avoid one. In addition, it is important to note that when parents maintain a stable communication with the teachers of their children, it usually ensure that any accomplishments in place are duly acknowledged and any minor misunderstandings or problems never attain the state of major ones and even any major problems that may rise are managed accordingly will ease. However, whereas maintaining a good productive relationship between parents and the teachers of their children guarantees outstanding educational outcome, in today’s society, the general lack of respect is increasingly threatening the profound educational outcome as it has been observed over time. There are several ways through which the lack of respect between parents and their children’s teachers can/does affect the educational outcome that would have otherwise been achieved. To start with, over time, for a parent who is seriously concerned about the educational welfare of their children, they have often strived to introduce themselves to their children’s teachers at an earlier stage most especially right off at the start of the year without necessarily waiting first for a problem between the teachers and their children. In most cases, such effort by the parent has always been with a sole objective to establish a cordial relationship with the teachers that will see their children attain outstanding educational output at school. Even in the cases where various schooling institutions have had to set limits to when you can meet a teacher especially after school hours, some parents have had to communicate with the teachers via email and this bore fruits as the children most likely recorded higher performances due to the constant positive relationship between their parents and teachers. However, in today’s society where most parents are more concerned with their jobs and do not respect the important efforts that the teachers of their children are investing to see the success of the students, most teachers rarely keep a close eye on the individual students relative to how they would have in case the parents constantly reminded them to do so. Therefore, in such a case, the teacher only delivers whatever he is supposed to and never goes an extra mile to evaluate the student’s performance at a closer perspective. This also provides an ideal platform for the student to play them and even abscond various assigned tasks. Therefore, the lack of respect by parents for the teachers’ efforts in providing education does threaten the educational output attained by students. Secondly, the lack of respect in the parent – teacher relationship affects educational output in the scenario that may arise especially when a parent fails to attend a parent – teacher conference that may have been prepared. Normally, in such conferences, the parents are always able to take note of the various exhibited areas of weaknesses by their children in their performances and even inform the teachers the various factors that may likely be affecting their children from home. In regard to this, the parents and teachers are then able to work as a team towards combating the various challenges and seeing their children successfully through the learning process. However, in today’s society, most parents always ignore the call to attend such conferences and even in some cases, they never get there on time hence end up losing more details on the subject matter of discussion. Therefore, when such parents do not respect their children teachers’ time, they jeopardize the chances of their children ever attaining high quality educational output in school. Due to this, parents should receive the call to attend such conferences with the level of seriousness that it calls for. In today’s society, most parents disregard to remember or take note of the golden rule. Basically, taking note of the golden rule means that the parents should show support and a level of understanding to their children’s teachers (Meador, 2013). Normally, it is always expected of parents to assume or extend some form of goodwill on the respective teacher’s part. This is because; it is believed that when one decides to pursue the profession to be a teacher, then they must be liking kids and the most important of all, they love the general teaching and learning process that defines them. However, during their profession and interaction with students, some mishaps may arise as different persons tend to react differently to other persons. Therefore, a child may find it difficult to adjust and cope up with a certain teacher whom other students comfortably relate to. Sometimes, these respective teachers handling your child may be going through some form of crisis in their personal lives that may make some of them maybe snap at your child or behave in an unreasonable manner but this does not mean they are bad folks. In such a case, most parents tend to always side with their children against their teachers. This would amount to disrespect by the parent and child towards teacher and most of them might feel offended, a state that will negatively affect the smooth learning process and thereby result to poor educational output. It is paramount that a teacher relates well with the students to attain better scores failure to which, poor educational output is the result. Therefore, parents should also extend some amount of respect and understanding to their children’s teachers as it finally determines the final educational output of their children. In today’s society, lack of respect in the relationship between parents and teachers has also emanated most especially in the cases where a parent willingly decides to help out in delivering teaching support. In recent times, we have seen the economy get strained and this has had a very adverse impact on the on schools and the level of education provided. The tough economic times have seen many schools reduce the number of employed paraprofessionals, in most cases increase the sizes of the classes and even had to cut on the supply budget of the respective institutions. Some institutions may or have requested qualified parents to offer to help in the teaching process especially those who have retired or employed in other fields but on leave. However, this does not always guarantee that the relationship between the parents and teachers always remains intact. On various occasions, some proud teachers may disrespectfully look down upon some helping parents who happen not to have specialized in the field. This may also happen not necessarily because they have come to help out in teaching but some teachers may also despise some parents because they lead a miserable way of living that is far much below theirs and therefore, any opinions that such parents may air may not be taken into account seriously even if they have a point. Equally, the same treatment may emanate from the parents who have specialized in fields that seem more superior or advanced than education. At the end of the day, persons in the despised quotas may feel offended and disrespected and this may lead to wrangles and a bad relationship between parents and teachers. When there is no unity among the teachers and the helping parents, it might lead to poor service delivery to the students. Some of the students may even utilize such misunderstandings to turn one against the other and in effect, this will lead to low or poor educational outputt (DeHass 2013). In addition, in today’s society, most parents fail to keep track on how their children participate or relate in groups with the other children at school. In various occasions, the way a parent relates to a child or the degree of freedom that he/she provides for the child, goes a long way to determine how the child will relate his/her peers. In today’s society, parents nurture their children differently and some even find it difficult to fit in a group of other fellow children at school. Therefore, such children may get in trouble with the other children at school and since that is the way most are used at handling certain situations, they report to their parents who in turn take their sides and protect their children’s position (Walker, 2009). However, trouble may arise especially when their child has been offended. Most parents in today’s society fail to follow the right channels in addressing such issues. It is always respectful and advisable to contact the teacher who was in charge of the students when the problem occurred so that you can follow the relevant authorities in addressing the subject matter. However, most parents always go straight to the respective teacher’s heads to report the matter and as a result; this normally put everyone including the teacher, parent and child on the defensive. The teacher will always feel offended and disrespected and this may translate to a bad teacher student relationship in class (Raising Children Network, 2010). It is crystal that when there exists a bad student – teacher relationship, the student cannot be able to perform exceptionally in his/her studies therefore leading to poor educational output. Therefore, parents in addressing issues regarding their children at school, it is highly advisable to adhere to the appropriate channels in solving the problem so as to make sure that no person especially the teacher feels offended or disrespected in order to maintain a positive relationship even between the teacher and student despite just the teacher and parent (Elias 2013). Lastly, in today’s society, wrangles and disrespect may hamper the positive relationship between parents and teachers most especially with the way different teachers may address parents of different sexes of their students in the different conferences and the parent – teacher organizations that have been formed by the school institutions to ease the parent – teacher communication. At different stages of the learning process of students, their parents may be invited to attend conferences or organizations to discuss the various possible ways through which the learning of their students can be championed to greater heights. However, despite the desperate need to ensure that students perform to expectations, the way the teachers communicate to the parents determines a lot in how their relationship will be in the future as well as the welfare of the students’ education. Therefore, it is important for the teachers to communicate to the parents in a manner that is focused or will appeal to both the mothers as well as the fathers of the students (Meador, 2013). They should avoid making statements that are sensitive to a particular gender. This is because members of the perceived despised gender will feel threatened, disrespected and offended and this will automatically hamper negatively their future relationship with the teachers. When the parents neglect the productive corporation with the teachers of their students, it becomes difficult for the teachers or parents to solely push their children towards academic excellence. It is therefore, important that teachers maintain a good respectful relationship with the parents of their students (Zeiger, 2007). In view of the earlier iteratively discussed facts, it is important to note that a positive parent – teacher relationship is an important ingredient for attaining high educational output. However, the increasing cases of lack of respect between teachers and parents will severely hamper the students’ quest to attain exceptional educational output. Therefore, lack of respect in the relationship between teachers and parents threatens the positive educational outcome. References list American Federation of Teachers, 2007. Building Parent-Teacher Relationships. Washington, D.C.: American Federation of Teachers. Retrieved from: http://www.readingrockets.org/article/19308/ (Accessed on 10/25/2013) Derrick Meador 2013. Parent and Teacher Communication. Effective Parent and Teacher Communication. Retrieved from: http://teaching.about.com/od/pd/a/Parent-And-Teacher-Communication.htm (Accessed on 10/25/2013) Gonzalez-DeHass, Alyssa R., Patricia P. Willems, and Marie F. Doan Holbein. "Examining the relationship between parental involvement and student motivation." Educational Psychology Review 17, no. 2 (2005): 99-123. (Accessed on 10/25/2013) Hartwell Walker, 2009. 8 Tips for Building Healthy Parent/Teacher Relationships. Psych Central. Retrieved from: http://psychcentral.com/lib/8-tips-for-building-healthy-parentteacher-relationships/0002452 (Accessed on 10/25/2013) How to foster communication between parents and teachers. (2009). Retrieved from http://www.ehow.com/how_5050934_foster-communication-between-parents-teachers.html (Accessed on 10/25/2013) Jeynes, William H. "The Relationship Between Parental Involvement and Urban Secondary School Student Academic Achievement A Meta-Analysis." Urban Education 42, no. 1 (2007): 82-110. (Accessed on 10/25/2013) Maurice J. Elias 2013. The Relationship Between Respect and Test Scores. Retrieved from: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/05/04/30elias.h30.html (Accessed on 10/25/2013) National PTA , 2010. Helping Teachers and Parents Foster a Positive Relationship. Retrieved from: http://www.learningfirst.org/helping-teachers-and-parents-foster-positive-relationship (Accessed on 10/25/2013) Parent/teacher relations. (2009). Retrieved from http://www.teachervision.fen.com/education-and-parents/resource/4549.html (Accessed on 10/25/2013) Raising Children Network, 2010. Dealing with disrespectful teenage behavior. Retrieved from: http://raisingchildren.net.au/articles/disrespectful_behaviour_teenagers.html (Accessed on 10/25/2013) Zeiger, J. (2007). Teacher guide: How to effectively communicate with parents/guardians. Retrieved from: http://www.worksheetlibrary.com/teachingtips/communicatewithparents.html (Accessed on 10/25/2013) Read More