Educators value the involvement and support of parents, guardians, families, and communities in schools.
I feel that without including families and communities, you are stopping instruction the moment the bell rings. Students spend a huge part of their lives in school, and because of that the majority of habits are formed in the classroom. If you want students to continue with those habits and build their skills at home, you need to include the at-home piece in the classroom. In this last practicum that was seen through frequent parent meetings, parent emails, messages in the planners and agreements that 15 minutes of math and reading would happen every night when the students got home.
The outcome of this strong sense of teamwork was when students had problems or things got strange, the parents would walk into the classroom and say ‘Help, I don’t know what is going wrong.’ We could then sit down, take a few breaths and say ‘OK here is where we will start.’ This worked both ways and allowed for everyone to be supported and feel safe working through life’s trials.
When I think of community involvement, I think of a moment when the girl’s volleyball team began falling apart. There was theft and cruel words. Half the team was ready to quit and the other half was ready to throw them out. I knew that this needed to be dealt with. The students who had little desire to be part of volleyball were now being affected and wanted it to STOP! I reached out to a contact from the Canadian Paralympic Volleyball team and asked him to speak to the class. The kids were able to talk to a professional first-hand about what it means to be a team, and how the actions that were currently taking place were counterproductive and just making them into worse players. The whole class was able to take the conversation and think about how they can be better team players in the classroom and in life.
Without those outside of the classroom, the students would be forced into a very narrow view of the world which would be my own. If you allow it, the classroom becomes a very isolating place.