By Charlene Klassen Endrizzi, Westminster College, PA
Although celebrating student success comes naturally to teachers, tackling student struggles and facing tensions takes a unique kind of willpower. My first two posts considered the usefulness of journals where students dialogue with family members about family stories. One teacher, Anne, noted, “When families participated through regular correspondence, it sent the message –- Parents valued their child’s work.” Family participation also sends a subtle message to teachers that this family values teachers’ work.
Out of the eight teachers using Family Message Journals, five experienced considerable family response. Three, Alicia, Joanna, and Alisa, struggled with a lack of response from their urban families. This week’s post focuses on how these teachers dealt with the resulting tension and made necessary shifts to their journals.
We wanted families to become viable members of our literacy community because students spend the majority of their waking hours outside of school (see pictograph below). To maximize their success at school, we need to build stronger connections between home and school.
Novice teachers like Alicia, Joanna, and Alisa face a daunting task. They realize the powerful role of families in each child’s life and are working to invite their African American and European American families into their classroom. One grandmother whose third grade granddaughter participated in Alicia’s group offered this insight, “I signed her up for this after school program therefore I have to come pick her up each Tuesday after school.” Obtaining this insider information enabled Alicia to value this grandparent’s effort. Considering families’ complex instructional histories in school years ago also sheds light on why they may not be responding. One father from Tasha’s group of fifth graders gingerly began to correspond once she personally clarified the value of his response. He reluctantly explained, “I do not want my child to see my poor writing skills.” Similar to Jaden’s father in Pam’s classroom, mentioned in Families Matter: Part I, we need to recognize and celebrate every parental risk.
When we initiated these family journals in January, I overlooked Emileigh’s and Pam’s essential, enticing hook of asking families to record a favorite family story. Generating positive family energy by valuing their experiences away from school through storytelling could have become a stimulating beginning for Alicia’s and Tasha’s families. Also starting journals in September might be more productive, since parents are attuned to new school routines. Alicia plans to broaden the options for response by suggesting photos, drawings, love notes, or other comments. Beyond writing, Anne proposed technology tools like Voice Thread, allowing family members to offer a way to share verbal comments.
Drawings are one natural option for response, used by Pam’s second grade. As Cady, a Down’s Syndrome sibling, witnessed her older sister, Laura, regularly exchanging ideas with her mother and father in the journal, she wanted to join their conversation.
Laura replied, “Cady, Thanks for the picture you drew! Also how was your week? Love you, Cady. Bye. Laura.” This family of four demonstrated the usefulness of alternative responses since they included some sort of drawing in 11 of their 33 entries throughout the year. I witnessed the benefits of drawings when my Kindergarten son began his weekly message journal to my husband and I through illustrations with a brief comment. While Bryce felt comfortable as a writer, most of his Kindergarten classmates needed this more comfortable mode of communication at first.
Family members showed us how to lighten the load of response beyond just moms as dads, siblings, grandparents, cousins or friends voluntarily wrote reactions. With his mother’s support, a Kindergarten child in Jennifer’s group obtained a weekly response from a nine year old cousin living 200 miles away. Alan wrote entries to his cousin Camryn at school and then his mother read each entry over the phone to Camryn, who verbally replied. She jotted down these responses in Alan’s journal for record keeping purposes. Naturally the boys’ conversation ranged widely beyond family stories.
Alan’s written message to cousin Camryn: Do you hav [have] a Wii? Friday afdrwn [afternoon] we will cam [come] for 4 days. Alan
Camryn answered: Hi Alan, I do have an Xbox 360 and a Wii. I’m glad you are coming. What do you want to do when you get here? Good bye.
Alan rarely wrote reactions to family stories that Jennifer explored with his group. Yet he experienced the generative nature of authorship, through his cousin’s responses. Just as I eagerly await response to each blog, at six years old, Alan discovered writing followed by response matters a great deal.
Seventh graders in Alisa’s small group obtained personal response of another sort while delving into When I Dream of Heaven: Angelina’s Story, a family story chapter book centered on Italian Americans during the Great Depression. These adolescents uncovered parallels between immigrant struggles and their own growing up struggles. When they did not receive written responses from their families, Alisa turned to her literacy coach, who faithfully reacted every other week.
- Alena: While Gina was working at the sweatshop, she had flashbacks of good memories to help her through the bad day.
- I remember the day when I got my dog Abby and she got her hair done and I painted her nails pink and purple. She was a Yorkie mix and she was so cute.
- What was your favorite memory? Is it a family memory?
- Literacy coach: One of my favorite memories was when my husband and I were trying for a long time to get pregnant. It was nine months, and still nothing. So my doctor decided to put me on a certain medicine to help. When I called for the prescription, the nurse said, Oh, honey, you don’t need it. You’re pregnant!! It was the most amazing feeling of my life.
When teachers risk sharing personal responses, students see us in a different light. Teacher response does not replace family response yet this literacy coach enabled Alisa’s students to experience the productive nature of writing.
Eight classroom teachers displayed resolve and flexibility as they considered the tensions families experienced in responding to our journal request. Family members demonstrate other types of resolve and flexibility in response to various school requests, which teachers rarely glimpse. We hope many teachers discover new willpower while listening to these remarkable learning partners from two separate worlds, striving to find small points of connection. Literacy learners deserve our continual efforts to keep exploring ways to create essential connections.
* I am wondering, when you risk reaching out, striving to connect with students’ families, what struggles have you encountered? How have you managed this tension?
*Have you explored any other avenues for building bridges with your students’ families? What successes or struggles have you experienced?
Reference
Kroll, S. (2000). When I Dream of Heaven: Angelina’s Story. Columbus, OH: Waterbird.
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2 Comments
When reading this article, I think back to our Elementary Education block class where we discussed the many different ways of communication between teachers, students, and families. As an educator, I strongly believe that communication between “school life” and “home life” is essential. As you explained, there are several ways to communicate but the key is to find the right “fit” for each student and his/her family. One thing every teacher should do is discover what makes each child tick. Having knowledge of his/her “after school life” is a helpful tool on the road to success with that individual.
Coming from a home environment that was closely tied to my school environment, I make the mistake of assuming that all families are automatically able to be engaged in their child’s education, through journals or other means. However, as this article points out, certain environmental or personal reasons can prohibit families from fully contributing.
Early in this article Dr. Endrizzi highlights that we do in fact need to celebrate “parental risks.” Educators may not realize the courage parents show by simply responding in a journal. While this may not seem like a huge feat to an outsider, one needs to look at the individual to determine the value of the action. Educators must think of the father as someone who may not have had the best experiences at school and is ashamed of his poor writing instead of simply a father who refuses to participate. Just as teachers need to learn about each child to truly understand his/her actions, teachers must learn about families in the same manner.