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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- Themes: Charlene Klassen Endrizzi
- Descriptors: Debates & Trends, Student Connections, WOW Currents
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.
I think that the student family message journals are a great way to get families involved in reading and writing with their children. It provides a bridge between the teacher and school and the parents. When parents choose not to participate in the journals it could be hard for the students and a big hit to their self-esteem especially if everyone else’s parents in the class are writing to their children. I love the idea of the teacher or literacy coach writing to them. It allows to feel special and apart of the class activity.
I think that as teachers, even though we are only part of the students lives for 25% of time we make a large impact. If we write to them along with a parent in the family journals, it could make the bridge between home and school even greater! Student could write to parents and teachers and each one could share in that connection with the student on a deeper level. This could also show the parent how much a teacher values and loves their child.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this article. Coming from a middle class home, I never would have thought about the tension that home journals could cause between teachers and parents. Call me close minded, but the thought just never occurred to me before reading this article. I think it is wonderful that the teachers who were struggling with the tension from the parents really took the time to have home and school connection in a way that made the parents more comfortable. My favorite part of the article is the idea that it is not just the parents that have to participate in home journals. Having an uncle, aunt, or cousin participate is a great way to even further extend communication between home and school. I hope someday as a future teacher, I can display the same kind of flexibility these eight teachers showed.
Family Message Journals are a great way for teachers to be able to gain a better understanding of their students home life and how the dynamics of the family they spend majority of their time with. By having each student use a family message journal to communicate with their family, it makes the student proud of the work they are doing, when their parent or guardian comments of the things the students are working so hard to accomplish. By having the teachers respond to the family messsage journals, as well as,responding to both the student and their parent, it helps the gap between school life and home life. Parents and guardinas will feel more at ease about contacting the teacher if there already a basic connection between the two. These journals will make the families and the teachers much more comfortable in communicating with eachother.
I love reading posts about new ideas that I have yet to experience with students, but look forward to being able to use them in the future. I feel that student message journals are an incredibly useful tool to get to know more about the parents of a student, while also giving the students an opportuniy to know and understand their parents or relatives better.
Communication between a teacher and the parents of the students in their classroom is critical to learning. As mentioned in the blog, students spend more time at home than in the actual classroom. If a teacher can have all parents get involved and understand what kind of an impact they have on their children’s learning, then they will work much more cooperatively with the teacher.
I also enjoy how this blog discussed that parents do not always feel adequate enough to participate in these jounrals. What a creative way to use different techniques of writing and expression in the journals. It kept the parents happy and excited to share with their children. This also would keep students interested because they can respond in creative ways as well.
Overall I enjoyed this entry and look forward to interact with future parents someday in a way that is welcoming and understanding.
I really enjoyed reading this article. One concern of mine when I have my own classroom is how reluctant some parents will be in wanting to help their children further their learning at home. As mentioned in the article, children spend majority of their time in their home so it is important that parents are willing to help provide their children with the opportunity to learn outside of school.
There are parents out there that have fears of helping their children because they don’t want their children to see areas that they may struggle in, which causes some tension between the teacher and the parents. Therefore communication between the teacher and the parents of the students is crucial throughout the year because it shows parents that there are different ways to help their children besides showing their weak points. This is where the family message journals come into play, and this article does a great job of explaining how to incorporate the journals in school and in the homes. I love that the article mentions that not only parents can take part in the family journals, but aunts and uncles, or even cousins can use these journals to show different communication that the student has throughout their time at home. I really enjoyed this article and I can’t wait to incorporate this idea of family messaging into my classroom, and set up a environment that parents feel comfortable and have understanding to why these ideas are important.
As a future teacher, I believe that it is crucial to mend the bridge between a child’s home and school life. I really like the idea of reaching out to children and their families through various types of journals. Especially in more difficult situations, these journals can help give the teacher some insight into the child’s home life and family situation. As a teacher, it is our job to ensure that what is being sent home is culturally relevant and plays on the attributes of the family. I want the parents and families to feel comfortable sharing information with me, realizing that if we act as team players, their child will benefit. Overall, I found this article very interesting and enjoyed the many ideas it gave for connecting with parents and families through various means.
I found this article to be very interesting. Communication between teachers, students, and families is vital to learning. As mentioned in the blog, students spend 75% of their time at home and only 25% at school. The more teachers know about what their students do in the 75% of time they are not in school, the more beneficial it is to the teacher when creating lessons and activities. It will help see where a student may be struggling or striving. Having open communication lines between teachers and families, opens up a window for trust. The more families feel comfortable with their child’s teacher, the more cooperative and supportive they will be. Using family journals is an excellent way to enhance communication. These journals give families one-on-one experience without having to be face-to-face. Parents can write anything from something that happened that night at dinner to concerns they have about their child’s math homework. They can even draw a picture if they have trouble writing what they need/want (because not all families have the same writing abilities). Additionally, there can never be a ‘wrong’ response or question in a journal. Whatever is written in the journal is private and personal, and it will only be between the family, student, and teacher. Journals give the teacher a better understanding of where their students come from.