As educators of children or adolescents, we know that we are not going to get the full-story all of the time. We are likely to get rather elaborate stories or sometimes nothing at all...and it is through our connection with the students parents that we are going to be able to decipher when we are getting a story or when we are getting the truth. However; with that being said, not all students will have the best home 'situation' and they may want to keep that private out of embarrassment and may also latch onto the teacher as a way to gain that sense of parental support they may be missing.
The best way that we can ensure that our students are seeing successes in and out of the classroom is by ensuring that we are keeping an active, open and honest dialogue going with the parents. This can help to relax those parents who are too intense for their child, or conversely engage those parents who might be less active in their Childs educational experiences.
By providing information for parents on programs and opportunities such as Special High Skills Majors can be a great way to reengage both the parents and the students in the course content and get them doing something that they like! For example, growing up my brother was always detached from a lot of school work because it wasn't enjoyable to him and he wasn't able to connect it to the areas in his life that he found interesting. So by possibly doing the OYAP program for auto mechanics, he could have begun his auto mechanic apprenticeship much sooner.
Or for myself even, I enjoy learning about body and how it works and doesn't work, how we can re-shape it and how our m mental states affect our physical states...but when I was in high school I was only able to take the kinesiology program and regular gym classes, however if I had known more about the fitness classes, leadership classes and the SHSM designed towards health care I would have had a blast being able to create the high school experience that was tailored to me specifically.
By providing access to informational sheets, such as the linked one on Health and Physical Education and Daily Physical Activity through the schools website or social media sites like Twitter or Instagram we will be able to reach more people and gather more interest from parents in these different classes and hopefully through these processes, increase retention in the courses that are seeing numbers dwindling.
No comments:
Post a Comment