The teacher in my classroom did something awesome. She was asking the class to come up with sentences that include the words on the board. One child told her that her mom was home all the time now and they were able to spend a lot more time together. The teacher proceeded to ask if she lost her job. The child said no she just retired. This was good to see because it showed that the teacher had knowing of what was going on in her student’s life.
As a teacher you have to be aware of how the student’s homes lives are. It is at home were the children will learn to read and study for tests. It is where a lot, if not most of schooling actually happens. If the student is having family trouble they could lose focus and start failing. It is up to the teacher to make open communication with all the parents of their students so that they feel comfortable enough to inform the teacher of changes that could affect the child’s performance in school.
When collaborating with parents, especially in an intercity setting one big problem that I can see is lack of communication. These parents not only have to work one or more jobs but a lot are from different countries that speak different languages, including the two students I tutor. Education theorist Claude Goldenberg, author of Teaching English Language Learners, talked mostly about educating children that use English as a second language, but I do not see why the same facts would not work for adult English language learners. He says that a child being educated in English, who does not have English as a first language, do not learn what is being taught because they are too focused on trying to figure out what was actually being said and miss concepts. My thinking is that this same concept can be applied for non English speaking parents. They would be too focused on trying to understand individual words and miss the issue their child is having or the fact that they need to do something to better the child’s education.
Goldenberg also makes it a point to say that because these students cannot understand the language the subjects are being taught in, does not make them learning challenged. They fall behind in their class, grade wise because they do not know what is being said, not because they do not hold the capacity to understand the academic concept. Non-English parents have an extra hurtle to overcome. If you ask them in English to sit and do math homework with their child and they don’t, it’s not because they do not care, it is because you failed as a teacher to identify a barrier that limits communication. Having a transltor is one way to combat this but also trying to speak their language, even if its just one word would show them that you care about them and their children, by learning some of their culture.
Even if the child is doing well it is still good to open communication between both teacher to parents and parents to parents and that way if one has a problem they can talk to each other if they do not want to go straight to the teacher and help each other as a community.
