Educators value the involvement and support or parents, guardians, families, and communities in schools.

The communities one can build in their classrooms, outside their classrooms with parents, and within schools is a vital part of education.

I begin every period with a community building exercise or activity. These have ranged from silly icebreaker questions, games & class debates. Each activity is tailored to the specific group of learners I have at the time, and they go a long way to developing a unique feel and spirit for each group, one which each student feels connected to.

Connecting with parents is absolutely critical if one is to teach to the whole child. The home lives and relationships of students are such a significant part of who each of them are, and I believe teachers would be doing themselves and the students a disservice by not also being invested in parts of their students lives outside the four walls of their classroom. An unfortunately reality of practicums being so short is that, for the most part, interactions with parents via phone and email are usually follow-ups for undesired behaviour in class, missing work, etc. One of my commitments for my future practice is to have meaningful connections with each parent that are positive, and about what is going well for their child.

School community changes radically from building to building. My experiences have been overwhelmingly positive. Each schools’ unique feel promotes different opportunities for students to connect with each other, express themselves, and contribute to the overall community. Over my brief practicum stints I’ve been fortunate enough to attend school functions, such as plays, participate in special days/events (Pink Shirt Day), and have helped promote extra-curricular activities. I think having a building students genuinely want to be in, are proud of, and want to contribute towards can only provide positive outcomes for all staff and learners.

Exemplars:

• In my first practicum, I conducted parent-teacher interviews with parents of the students in the class I was teaching. I prepared evidence of their children’s learning over my short time with them.
• Prior to my second practicum starting, I sat in on all of the parent-teacher interviews with my Coaching Teacher.
• Here is a copy of the letter I sent to all parents/guardians prior to my second practicum beginning: Parent Intro Letter

Exemplars from EDUC 491 Practicum:

An example of the self reflection I had students write for parent teacher night. This is what I presented to parents instead of a mark update. I think it is more important for students to take ownership for what they have done, or haven’t done, and reflect on/describe to their parents/guardians how things are going in the class.

4 Feb

• Made self-reflection templates for students to fill out later in the month in preparation for Parent Teacher Interviews.

7 Feb

• Helped another teacher promote Grade 8 Basketball

14 Feb

• Have been making connections with parents/guardians, and have tried to recognize and acknowledge school spirit/extracurricular during our community building exercises at the beginning of class

20 Feb

• Have been in contact with a few parents re. missing work, absences, etc.

28 Feb

• Spent the afternoon making phone calls/writing emails to parents of students who have a significant amount of missing work – making the point of celebrating students success in each interaction so it is not just an overwhelmingly negative phone call

2 March

• Had a meeting with a student’s parent after school with the other teachers of this student
• Helped created a plan of action to get this student back on track – admin did not show up, so it is unclear if the plan will stick/actually be followed with consequences if not followed

5 March

• Had students do some reflective writing to show to their parents on parent teacher night

9 March

• Making one final effort to connect with parents before parent teacher night. Doing my best to have any important conversations prior to parent teacher night actually happening. I know if I was a parent, I would feel like important info about my child shouldn’t wait until parent teacher night

11 March

• Parent teacher night
• Had meaningful conversations with a number of parents/guardians, sharing their children’s reflections on the course, and their grade if requested

13 March

• Over the last two weeks we have been doing class community building through a “March Madness” single round elimination debate tournament. The topics or “teams” were the highest grossing movies of all time. The movie that one each round did so based on the merits of the arguments posed by the students — every student was randomly called on to share. Those who had seen neither of the movies facing off helped me judge.