Co Znamená Otevřenost Pro Lidi Ve Škole

Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, University of Hamburg, 17-20 September 2003

OPENNESS OF SCHOOLS TO THE PARENTS AND THE PUBLIC: CASE OF THE CZECH REPUBLIC1

Klára Šeďová, Milada Rabušicová, Kateřina Trnková, Vlastimil Čiháček

Department of Educational Studies Faculty of Arts Masaryk University Brno, Czech Republic

Abstract: The paper deals with the question to what extent the Czech schools are open to their environment, i.e. how effectively they are managing to integrate into both the local and regional environments. The basis for the investigation are the empiric data from a

1 The article represents one of the outcomes of a research project “The Role of Parents as Educational and Social Partners of the School” which was supported by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic, No. 406/01/1077.

1 comprehensive questionnaire survey carried out among headmasters/headmistresses on the one hand, and in-depth interviews carried out in selected schools with both the headmasters/headmistresses and ordinary teachers on the other hand. Thus the methodology of the paper combines the quantitative and qualitative approaches. The results show that at the level of general statements the idea of openness is accepted very well at the Czech schools. On the other hand, at the level of the everyday reality lived in the schools both the headmasters/headmistresses and the teachers perceive a number of barriers preventing them from realization of this idea.

Key words: School, parents, family, local community, opennes, lifelong learning, support of family.

In the current pedagogical thought the school is more and more regarded as an open system in which the influences of the outside environment are reflected – both the local environment and the society as a whole. These influences are then reflected in the internal processes, relationships and organizational structure of the school. The concept of openness is in general based on the theory of organization management. Though a school is considered as a specific organization with a number of characteristics that make it different from other organizations, there is no doubt that just like all other organizations it has to cope with external influences and transpose them to its own benefit and to the possibilities of its own development. Experience gathered up to now by effectively functioning schools have shown that a school becomes really successful if it is not isolated, but if the public interest integrates it organically into the local or regional environment. It is the school’s business and responsibility not to separate itself and not to shut itself off from the outside world. The openness of the educational work to the influences of the immediate environment and a close cooperation with parents, economic subjects, municipal authorities and other social institutions and groups result in the formation of a „safety net“ that the schools need for their work. Therefore if we think about a school in the dimension of the so-called open school, or a community school, then we also have to take into consideration the external circumstances, conditions and relations in which the school exists and into which it enters. In this kind of thinking an open school means a concept that tries to use the school and the community as partners supporting each other and brings the school teaching nearer to the local situation in that it is organized as a component part of the local and regional development (Rýdl, 1997a,

2 b). As a community school can be considered a school that is connected with the life of the local community to a significant extent (Kraus, 1999, Loretová, 2001). From among its many characteristics we may point out that such school meets the demand for education expressed by the general public, relates the school curriculum to the life in the community, closely cooperates with the parents of its pupils, cooperates with other local subjects, is a centre of cultural and public life and provides social services for the community. Whether we consider the terms “an open school” and “a community school” as synonyms or at least as definitions that are very close to each other, in our opinion it still means one thing: the concentration of these schools on communication and relations outside the scope of the internal relations. Besides, it also means that to be able to cultivate those external relations it is, in the first place, necessary „to be in the right mood for them” that means a certain climate of opinion at the school that prevails and leads the school and the people in the school exactly to the type of behaviour and action that we could describe as „open“. The aim of this paper is to show to what extent this open conception of the school has been deep-rooted at the Czech schools. We will try to examine to what extent the people at Czech schools are favourably inclined to the opening of schools, what chances and risks they see in it. And so our aim is not to describe the actual state of cooperation of Czech schools with the local communities, but the climate of opinion that is connected with these issues at the schools. We are interested in the openness of the school to the public in general, i.e. how important it is to the school to be in contact with its neighbourhood and to present itself good towards the outside, the openness to the parents and to the public as the possible participants in the lifelong process of learning, i.e. whether the school should consider its activities beyond the scope of its basic educational task in relation to the pupils, and finally the openness to the families of its pupils, i.e. whether it is worth it to think of exerting a positive influence on the families and of supporting the families.

Research methodology This paper is based on the findings of the second and third phases of the three-year project „The Role of Parents as Educational and Social Partners of the School“, that won a grant of the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic in the years 2001 - 2003. And so this paper follows up with the papers presented at the ECER conference in the past two years (The Role of Parents as Educational and Social Partners of the School in the Czech Republic:

3 Legislation and Media Analysis, Lille, 2001, The Role of Parents in Relation to School: Case of the Czech Republic, Lisboa, 2002). The methodology employs in part quantitative and in part qualitative methods. In the quantitative part we have used data acquired in a questionnaire survey carried out within the framework of the second phase of the project. Questions concerning the openness of schools were part of a more comprehensive anonymous questionnaire meant for headmasters/headmistresses of nursery and basic schools. We made up the research sample by random selection from Czech schools and we stratified the selection according to the grade of the school (nursery school - NS, 1st grade of basic school - BS, 2nd grade of basic school) and according to the size of the community (in the country – in the cities). Altogether 900 schools were sent a questionnaire by post. The rate of return of the questionnaires was 31 %. In the qualitative phase, individual and group interviews were carried out in 9 schools (namely 6 basic schools, 3 nursery schools; 6 schools in the cities, 3 schools in the country). In six schools individual interviews were carried out in which 10 respondents (most of them headmasters/headmistresses) took part. In three schools we carried out group interviews in which 33 respondents (most of them were ordinary teachers).took part. Using these interviews we try to eliminate, at least in part, the usual methodological problem of a roughness of data affecting the questionnaire survey, and to put its results in more precise terms.

I. OPENNESS AS A PRIORITY AND TASK OF THE SCHOOL? (from the results of the quantitative survey) In the questionnaire we first investigated whether openness counts among the priorities of the school, and then also the attitudes to the three component parts of the openness that we have defined for our purposes as openness to the public in general, openness to the parents and the public as participants in the lifelong learning and finally openness to the support of the families of the pupils). In view of the fact that the whole project was primarily focused on the parents we had chosen exactly these three dimensions of the openness of a school even though we were aware of the fact that the whole concept of the openness of schools offers quite a number of other possible views (e.g. communication with the municipal authorities and other social partners, looking for sponsors, etc.).

Openness in the context of the priorities of a school

4 We were interested to know how important it is to a school to open itself to the parents and the public in the context of other tasks that the school has to fulfil. Therefore we invited the headmasters/headmistresses to choose from fifteen tasks listed below three tasks on which they lay the greatest emphasis in their activities. The exact wording of the question was as follows: We are aware of the fact that school management is a complex and varied activity in which it is necessary to concentrate on the most important tasks. From the following offer that represents various fields of the management activity choose three items which represent the priorities of your school at the present time. 1. development of contacts of the school with the local environment 2. relations between adults at the school 3. relations between adults and children 4. relations of the school to parents 5. self-assessment of the school 6. management of the formative-educational work with children 7. handling the changes and innovations at school 8. acquisition of financial resources 9. utilization of material resources 10. professional development of the teachers 11. management of the everyday running of the school 12. building up of an image of the school outwardly 13. solving of educational problems 14. negotiations with the superior school administration authorities 15. others

The openness of a school was conceptualized in points 1, 4 and 12 (in the above list they are printed in bold type). Therefore we were interested to know to what extent these items will get among the three priorities of a school. Besides, we were interested to know whether there are any differences in this respect between the individual grades of schools and between the schools in the cities and in the country. Table 1a: Priorities of schools according to the type of school total NS 1st grade of BS 2nd grade of BS % place % place % place % place professional 38,9 % 1 32,7 % 4 40,6 % 1 43,6 % 1 development of teachers relations to parents 36,2 % 2 45,9 % 2 35,6 % 3 26,6 % 5 relations between adults 34,5 % 3 28,6 % 6 40,6 % 1 34 % 2 and children changes and innovations 32,8 % 4 51 % 1 25,7 % 7 21,3 % 9 contacts with the local 32 % 5 32,7 % 4 30,7 % 4 33 % 3 environment formative-educational 28 % 6 34,7 % 3 23,7 % 8 25,5 % 6 work acquisition of financial 22,2 % 7 16,3 % 8 26,7 % 5 23,4 % 7 resources image of the school 21,2 % 8 18,4 % 7 26,7 % 5 18,1 % 10 everyday running of the 19,5 % 9 14,3 % 9 21,8 % 9 22,3 % 8 school educational problems 18,4 % 10 8,2 % 10 16,8 % 12 30,9 % 4 self-assessment 10,6 % 11 8,2 % 10 9,9 % 10 13,8 % 11 relations between adults 8,2 % 12 5,1 % 12 6,9 % 11 12,8 % 12 others 3 % 13 5,1 % 13 1 % 13 3,2 % 13

5 utilization of material 1,7 % 14 2 % 14 1 % 13 2,1 % 14 resources negotiations with the 1,4 % 15 1 % 15 1 % 13 2,1 % 14 superior school administration authorities

Table 1b: Priorities according to the size of the community total in the country in the cities % place % place % place professional 38,9 % 1 31,5% 5 46% 1 development of teachers relations to parents 36,2 % 2 33,4% 3 38,7% 2 relations between adults 34,5 % 3 33,6 2 35,3% 3 and children changes and innovations 32,8 % 4 32,9% 4 32,7% 4 contacts with local 32 % 5 48,3% 1 16,7% 10 environment formative-educational 28 % 6 31,5% 5 24,7% 5 work acquisition of financial 22,2 % 7 23,4% 7 22% 7 resources image of the school 21,2 % 8 19,6% 9 22,7% 6 everyday running of the 19,5 % 9 21% 8 18% 8 school educational problems 18,4 % 10 18,9% 10 18% 8 self-assessment 10,6 % 11 5,6% 12 15,3% 11 relations between adults 8,2 % 12 6,3% 11 10% 12 others 3 % 13 2% 13 4% 13 utilization of material 1,7 % 14 1,4% 14 2% 14 resources negotiations with the 1,4 % 15 1,4% 14 1,3% 15 superior school administration authorities

It is obvious from the tables that the priorities of the schools include particularly the relations to parents (all in all they are the second most frequently stated priority behind the professional development of teachers). The group of the first five items includes also the contacts with the local environment. The image of the school is not regarded as very important. Naturally, the priorities differ according to the grade of the school. It is particularly noticeable with the item „relations to parents“. While at a nursery school the relations with parents are put the second place by a wide margin before the other items (stated by 46 % of the schools), at the second grade of BS the relations to the parents are found only in the seventh place (27 % of schools). This difference is statistically significant at the 0.00 level. Basic schools, especially the second grade, see as a priority the professional development of teachers and relations between the adults and the children. Much more than the nursery

6 schools, they for instance concentrated on the solution of educational problems. Thus, with the children growing older the interest of the school in the relations with the parents decreases. It may be caused, on the one hand, by the fact that the parents themselves show a more active behaviour in the relation to the school as long as their children are young, and the school reflects this decreasing involvement of the parents. Another cause may be the fact that the teachers take the older children as independent subjects and solve a number of problems directly with them rather than with their parents. As regards the differences between the cities and the country, there appears a marked disproportion in the item „contacts with local environment” which is perceived as task number one in the country (declared by 48 % of the schools), while it is as low as in the ninth place in the cities. Also this difference is statistically significant at the 0.00 level. Thus the schools in the country are probably more significantly connected with the local sources and it is more important to them to cultivate local contacts and to draw from them a support for the work of the school. It follows from the results that openness is perceived as an important task at the schools especially in the relation to parents and contacts with the local environment. The image of the school – i.e. its presentation towards the general public anonymous to the school - is not emphasized very much. But, as regards the emphasis laid on the relations to parents the schools considerably differ depending on the grade of the school, as regards the emphasis laid on the contacts with the local environment they differ depending on the size of the community, both differences are equally significant.

Dimension of openness in the attitudes of teachers and headmasters/headmistresses We have further studied the attitudes of headmasters/headmistresses by means of a block of six questions focused on three dimensions of openness: (1) relation to the public in general – contact with the environment and presentation; (2) openness to the parents and to the public as possible participants in the process of lifelong learning taking place in the school – thinking of the activities of the school exceeding the framework of the actual education of pupils; (3) openness to the pupils’ families – the possibility of their positive influencing and supporting. The exact wording of the statements (items) was the following: 1. It is important to the school to be in a very close contact with its environment. 2. It is important to the school to present itself good towards the outside. 3. The basic task of the school is to provide high-quality education for the children attending it. Anything else only diffuses this basic task of the school. 4. Many parents, if they were interested, could learn a thing or two in our school.

7 5. The school should look for ways how – in the interests of a good care of the children – to exercise influence on their families, as well. 6. It is not our business, as teachers, to be interested in what’s going on in the families of our pupils.

Items 1 and 2 indicated to us the first dimension, items 3 and 4 the second dimension and items 5 and 6 the third dimension. Respondents expressed the degree of their agreement or disagreement with the suggested statements on a ten-point scale from absolute agreement (1) up to total disagreement (10). Results have been summed up in the following tables: Table 2: Openness of the school to the public in general statement average 1. contact of the school with the 1,94 environment 2. presentation of the school towards 1,98 the outside

It is obvious that the degree of agreement with both statements is high though not absolute.2 Thus at the level of a penetration of the school into the public area, the idea of opening is accepted by the headmasters/headmistresses. But if we compare this result with the preceding one concerning the building up of the image of the school it becomes apparent that - though the headmasters/headmistresses considers it important - the endeavour to build up the image of the school is rather fading in the competition with the other tasks the school is confronted with. Table 3: Parents and the public as participants in lifelong learning in the school statement average 3. the only task is a high-quality 4.91 education of the children 4. parents can learn a thing or two 3.27

The results show that the opinions on „the basic task of the school“, which should not be diffused by other activities, are somewhere in the middle between agreement and disagreement – so they are in a neutral, ambivalent position. We have noticed a bit more favourable attitude to parents’ attending lessons in the school, but it seems as if the attitude implied an expected activity of the parents and not of the school itself. Table 4: Exercising influence on families statement average 5. exercising influence on families 3,34 6. privacy of families 8,16 2 We would like to point out that it is a scale of 1 (absolute agreement) to 10 (total disagreement) and so the lower is the numerical value the higher is the degree of agreement and the other way round.

8 In this dimension the headmasters/headmistresses basically (though rather more hesitatingly) agree on it that the school should endeavour to exercise influence on the families for the benefit of the care of children. Quite resolutely they then refuse the statement „it is not the teacher’s business to be interested in what is going on in the pupils’ families”. Both these statements thus support each other and imply the readiness of the school to open up. As to the attitudes of the headmasters/headmistresses, in principle we can say that they unambiguously tend to an openness to the public in general i.e. that they consider it important to the school to be in contact with its environment and to present itself good towards the outside. They take a rather less clear attitude to the question of the openness to the parents and to the public in terms of the lifelong learning exceeding the framework the basic educational task of the school toward the pupils. It seems to be a dimension about which the schools have not been much thinking yet. On the other hand, a clear tendency towards the openness to the pupils’ families becomes apparent, i.e. the respondents consider it meaningful to exercise positive influence on them and to support them.

II. IMPORTANCE OF OPENNESS TO PEOPLE AT THE SCHOOL (from the results of the qualitative survey) In the preceding part of the paper we studied the declared priorities and general attitudes of the headmasters/headmistresses of Czech schools to the openness. Now we focus on what importance is attached by the people at schools (both headmasters/headmistresses and teachers) to the openness or, on the contrary, to the closeness, and what are the real reasons why the Czech schools try or, as the case may be, do not try to open up to the parents and to the general public. We will make use of the data from the qualitative survey whose methodology has been described above.

Openness of the school to the public in general The concrete contents of the concept „openness of the school“ consist particularly in penetrating of the outsiders (parents, general public) into the school and the readiness to accept their insights and the possibilities of their contributing to the school. The schools included in our qualitative survey very much differ in that how many opportunities for such penetration they provide. On one side of the imaginary scale is a community school that organizes Internet courses for seniors, theatre week for the whole housing estate district, Christmas and Easter handwork. workshops for parents with children and many other

9 activities that bring the parents of its pupils and also other citizens to the school, or a school with an alternative programme „Let’s start together“ whose curriculum directly includes as its component part a close cooperation with the parents who thus come to the school and take part in the actual process of education. On the other side of this scale are schools into which the parents come to the wonted parent-teacher meeting or, as the case may be, once a year to a school concert. Also, an significant aspect of the openness is the functioning of the parents organizations at the school. In this point we have also found a considerable variability during our field research: some schools have well functioning parents‘ representation, at other schools the representation exists only nominally and at a number of schools the parent organizations do not exist at all and, which is important and striking, nobody is missing them. An open school is also given support from the outside: both parents and general public are ready to give it material support (sponsors’ donations) or to help in person (to give a helping hand in the improvement of the school, to drive the children on school a trip, to assist in the preparation of events for children or for the public). In general, it may be said that at all the investigated schools (with the exception of the community school) the openness was directed rather to the parents than to the general public. The arguments which people at schools state in favour of the openness are mainly pedagogical arguments. At the general level they agree on it that if both the school and the family are supposed to give the child their support in his/her efforts, then these institutions must cooperate. A headmaster of the community school says: „I can see that none of the teachers has an easy time of it these days and until we try, as a team, to reach a situation when we will be all in the same boat - both the teachers and the parents and the children - we will not be able to succeed. Because the typical case is that there arises a problem, a conflict, and a guilty person or party is wanted. Parents blame the school, the school blames the parents, and due to this attack the child is totally down.“ His deputy laconically describes the advantages of a closer cooperation with the parents as follows: „If there arises any problem the parents are more ready to lend us a hand.“ The headmistress of a school with special classes for learning disabilities sees the role of the family particularly in connection with the preparation for lessons at home: „The point of it is not that the child will be transferred to our school and so the parents will get rid of the problem, and it will work. It does not work immediately and it does not work if the family does not collaborate. The parent must “sit through” the preparation with the child, the mummy cannot wash the dishes and only listen to her child reading something. We are trying to win for it also the daddies, as well. Father is an unreplaceable model in a family. Every man is convinced that did not

10 produce an idiot and he blames his wife for everything because she does not look after the child properly. If we succeed in getting the father to sit down to read together with his son, he gains immense authority and wins the child’s heart.“ A group of women teachers in a big school in a housing estate gave the following arguments „Parents can help their children. The teachers get a clear view of the pupil’s background. The parents get an idea of the school as a whole. The teacher has got a feedback about his/her work.“ In another school the teachers stated: „The same unanimous view of the educational problems. Consequently, some problems with the children (truancy, bullying, etc.) can be prevented. A calmer atmosphere. ...“ At the general level the assumption that from the cooperation of school and family can profit both these institutions and in the first place the child, was not called in question at any of the investigated schools. While the arguments in favour of the openness are somewhere in the more general planes of the pedagogical discursus, the arguments against it are for the most part based on the actual reality lived in the schools. In the first place they mention the passivity of the parents whose workload is heavy and who do not want the school to burden them with anything. A headmistress of a school with classes where children from several forms are taught, in the country, says: „I keep telling them: when you go to see the doctor and you go there in the morning and have time enough, just feel perfectly free to come to sit down in the classroom... I always tell them that if they find anything strange, when for example they open an exercise book and something is not clear to them or if they want to see how I explain it in the school, or simply for any other reason, so let them come to the school. I can tell you that nobody has ever come yet.“ A employee in another school put it as follows : „The cooperation with parents is not very good, even though they said they like the school because it has an extended programme and we are trying to do many things for the children here in the school. Only a few parents are ready to participate in it.“ But the teachers often take the parents’ lack of interest in an involvement as a given fact. A woman teacher at a nursery school in the country says for example: „We carry out the educative preparation for the children with postponed beginning of the school attendance together with the parents only because it has been ordered by the inspection authorities. In the past we did it with the children only so that it may not burden the parents.“ The complaints about the parents’ passivity concentrate especially on the subject “parent organizations”. The headmistress of the school with special classes states: „We have several times initiated discussions on the issue of a school board, it must be done by some of the parents. It always ended up in failure because of lack of interest.“ It must be said that the

11 headmasters/headmistresses themselves often do not mind the absence of parent organizations at the school, they have not an exact idea in what manner they would actually be helpful to them. One of the headmistresses says: „I say, when problems come up here then I would certainly be glad if there would be the school board established here. But as the problems, thank God, have not arisen so I do not see any reason for it.“ This remark reflects very well the opinion of many other teachers and headmasters/headmistresses and probably also the real behaviour of the parents. An intensified communication with the environment is needed when some problems arise. If a child has an educational problem, the parents communicate more with the school. If something happens to the school as a whole and it threatens the parents’ certainties, the parents become active (at one school the teachers for instance described an increased activity of the parent association at the time when the school was to be consolidated with another school). If the school life goes by without any unexpected events both parents and headmasters/headmistresses and teachers have a feeling that they do not particularly need a close cooperation. Typical arguments against an intensive opening of the school are then time and money. The opening consists to a large extent in creating of structured opportunities for the parents and the public to come into the school. Preparation of this kind of activities means an extra work. Teachers at the community school put it as follows as follows: „It makes higher demands on all employees in the school.“ „Great psychological pressure, it’s time- consuming, lack of time for one‘s own family.“ Also the question of financial means is important. Most schools do not carry out additional activities, apart from other reasons, just because of tightness of money. In schools where such activities are realized the money still remains a topical problem. An employee of the community school says: „The minimum expenses with which we tried to organize a “burning of witches” party for about 200 children with their parents, amounted to app. 1200 -1300 Czech crowns. The voluntary entrance money that we collected amounted to 400 Czech crowns... Definitely, the greatest problem is the finances.“ Other reasons given against entering into a closer cooperation with the environment – namely with the parents – are then the fears of an unjustified external pressure and of a loss of the teachers’ autonomy at the school. During the group interviews the teachers commented on it for instance as follows: „Some parents may get an impression that they can dare anything in relation to the school. For instance, at an informal get-together of teachers, parents and pupils it may happen that they start using their Christian names. The parties concerned have a feeling of friendship and on the basis of it the teacher for example begins to

12 ignore some of the pupil’s offences, failure to fulfil his/her assignments. The pupil has a feeling that he gets away with many things. The parent has a feeling that a possible misconduct of his/her offspring will be hushed up somehow.“ „There should not come to parents’ excessive interventions in the teacher’s educational methods – what and in what manner he/she shall teach in order that their child may like it.“ An interesting chapter is then the headmasters’/headmistresses’ and teachers’ references to the size of the community in which they are working. Teachers in the cities complain that in the anonymous environment it is not possible to cultivate communication and cooperation with the community. Teachers in the country, on the other hand , point out that in the country it is necessary to keep people at an arm’s length because of distortion of information and gossip. All things considered it can be said that at the general level the openness of the school – especially to the parents – is seen as desirable and beneficial. The arguments in favour of the openness are usually pedagogical ones and teachers from various schools in principle agree on them although to some of them the arguments are just abstract proclamations and to others the arguments are the experience gathered in their own practice. But the real behaviour of people at many schools is not in accordance with this positive view. Reasons against opening of schools are, in contrast to the reasons for it, practical and very heterogenous: from the lack of money and want of time to the behaviour of people in the country or in the cities. The parents‘ passivity is reflected in the passivity of schools: the parents do not become involved and the headmasters/ headmistresses (with the exception of two really open schools in the sample) have no idea of what use the parents’ involvement could be to them and that’s why they do not encourage it very much. An exception represent those cases where some problems arise. Then a mutual cooperation proves desirable.

School as a place of lifelong learning At the time of our research courses intended for lifelong learning were taking place in only one school in our set, in an other school the people were seriously considering the possibility of opening an educational course for parents. At the former school the organizing of the courses was motivated by the vision of a community school and by the endeavour to activate the civic society in a housing estate, at the latter it was motivated by the specific requirements of an alternative educational programme implemented at the school. At the other schools – with the exception of sporadic lectures or discussions - the education for adults was not realized.

13 The idea expressed by the deputy headmaster of the community school: „It is a school, so let people study in it - anybody,“ was shared by the headmasters/headmistresses and teachers at the other schools only with strong reservations. At several places we found a direct refusal of lifelong learning in the school. A woman teacher at a nursery school in a housing estate says for instance: „I think that it is not even a task of the school“. A typical feature was the emphasis laid on the actual work with children as the primary task of the school. The refusal of lifelong learning then originated mainly from the fears of great demands put on the employees of the school: it would cost them their time and they are not prepared for it. Women teachers at a basic school in the city stated for instance that they would have to requalify and they do not feel like doing it. Considering their present knowledge and skills they cannot imagine themselves as instructors in adult education. In most cases the teachers failed to name the ways in which the school could profit from the lifelong learning. On the other hand the ideas of the benefits for the school were very concrete at the community school: „It can be a benefit to the teachers that they can teach in some of the courses and actually to improve their financial situation that is problematic. On the other hand it will make them to take further steps to their further self-improvement. Since to teach children and to teach adults are two different things. The other possibility for the teachers is to attend the courses of adult education in the school.“ The most typical attitude could then be formulated as follows: „lifelong learning - yes, but without me“. The teachers could imagine a utilization of the school building – as the case may be also in connection with the local community – but without themselves participating in it. A headmistress of a nursery school in the country says: „There are vacant rooms in the school building, I tried to secure a programme from the leisure centres for the rooms. They did not come to an agreement with the lady mayor. The older children here at Kníničky have nothing to do in the afternoon, there could be a club for children here but we would have to create a special job position for this purpose.“ The school building is indeed often let out for afternoon courses but otherwise the schools have nothing to do with these activities. The headmistress of the school with special classes for learning disabilities says: „We let out the school rooms – yogis, multiple sclerosis, dancers, slimming course... The teachers do not take part in the afternoon activities in the school.“ At the same time, paradoxically, the same headmistress said that some of her women teachers – in this case it means specialized experts – are engaged in counselling or re-educational activities outside the school, but the school shows no tendency to coordinate their activities in some way.

14 The attitude of the investigated schools to the lifelong learning can be, with some exceptions, termed as evasive. The schools do not know what it would mean, and do not show a tendency to become involved in this respect. It is obviously caused by the fact that the idea of lifelong learning taking place in the schools is new in the Czech Republic and probably is not promoted enough. People at schools have a feeling that the entrance of adults into the school would burden them and would keep them out of the actual work with children.

The school and support of a good functioning of the family While in the quantitative part the support of the family seemed to be a quite acceptable part of the openness of the school, the results of the qualitative survey cast doubt on this assumption. For it happened relatively often when we asked the question whether the school can in any way support the good functioning of a family we met with a direct refusal. This refusal was most often explained by pointing out to the autonomy of a family that must be respected by the school. The women teachers at a big school in the city put it as follows: „The entire legal responsibility for the functioning of a family rests with the parents. The school is not entitled to intervene in the internal affairs of a family.“ Also their colleagues at a school in the country put it in a similar way: „The family is sacrosanct, we cannot interfere in its affairs.“ Further arguments against it were the following: „Who would be supposed to do it, for how much money and when?“ „I is not our job, we have our own families, who will help us?“ Especially women teachers at nursery schools admitted that they obtain a lot of information from the children about their families. One of the teachers put it as follows: Since you are together with the child from the early morning the child will tell you a lot of things. They are little children and they take the teacher as a second mum and if there are some problems at home, the child ventilates it and tells the teacher what troubles him/her.“ At the same time the women teachers stated that they only used the information for their own work with the child, they do not try to intervene in the family: „Of course I cannot go and try to find out what’s going on, but I have then a different approach to the child. When I have known the child for example for six months and all of a sudden he/she behaves in a completely different way, then I know that he/she probably has some troubles. I rather try to help the child. I may, for example, give the parents a hint tactfully, but I cannot come up to the daddy and tell him: „You have to finish with that woman.“ He might tell me, it’s none of my business.“

15 Real intervention in the family is applied in practice at only one school in the set – at the school with special classes for learning disabilities, where a number of underprivileged parents are concentrated. But the school intervene in the family (e.g. in case of suspicion of negligence, truancy) through the mediation of the social welfare division at which the school initiates an investigation of the situation. The school then tries to receive a feedback report from the social workers. The other cases of interventions in families that we found during our field research are accidental and they rather result from the dispositions of the concrete persons involved than from a systematic efforts of the school to exercise influence on the families. A headmaster of a basic school in the city mentioned for example his discussion with a father who used to be drunk when he walked his child to school; a teacher at a nursery school said that she tries to draw the parents’ attention to the fact that they should devote more time to their children and should not put their jobs above the child care. At two of the investigated schools the people intend to support the functioning of families in such a way that they will organize educational courses for parents on the subject upbringing and education. This intention is based on the assumption that it is necessary to help the parents so that they may perform their parental role to the best of their abilities for the benefit of the child. At one of the schools they put it as follows: „As regards the parents of today I believe that they are quite responsible, but on the other hand they are awfully unprepared. That means, if I look at it from the statistical point of view, how many of those people had lived in a complete family? So quite a number of them sincerely wish to be good parents but on the other hand they have no experience of what is the right function of a father or a mother in a complete family. But a number of them long for it and so one of the series that I would like to organize is a preparation of parents for it how to guide the child through the basic school.“ But generally speaking the teachers and headmasters/headmistresses in our set admitted the support of a family preferably through a mediation, namely through the child. Women teachers at a basic school in the city stated that the support of the good functioning of the family is included in the contents of some subjects: „The principle of a support in this way consist in that a child with certain attitudes to certain issues goes from the school to his/her family. The school can influence the child and consequently influence the family.“ A headmistress of a nursery school in the country said in a similar context that they talk with the children about various things for example about smoking and the children get the information over.

16 The majority attitude to intervening in families is a considerable reserve. If they should intervene then only in cases where the parents themselves want it and only in case of problems that concern the child alone. Teachers are ready to diagnosticate learning disabilities, to instruct the parents how to work with the child at home, to give the parents of problem children contact data of counselling centres. They do not feel qualified to interfere in the absolutely private family affairs, such as relations between parents and children or between husband and wives, and they even do not feel like doing it. The support of the good functioning of the family is perceived by the schools as a problematic matter and if it is to be applied in practice then rather indirectly and without a disturbance of the family’s privacy.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS The aim of this paper was to investigate what is the attitude of Czech headmasters/ mistresses and teachers to the issue of the openness of schools. The chosen methodology made it possible to form a more comprehensive picture put together from both the findings of a questionnaire survey and qualitative interviews. A comparison of the data acquired from the two sources has given many interesting results. At the level of general statements the openness is accepted very well at the Czech schools. This finding has been given by quantitative analysis of the questionnaire data. The headmasters/headmistresses count openness among the priorities of their management activities. They focus particularly on the relation to the parents which they consider important mainly at the lower grades of schools, and on the relation to the local community emphasized mainly by the schools in the country. The emphasis laid on the image of the school – i.e. the self-presentation in the general public area – stands a bit aside. Equally accommodating are the declared attitudes of the headmasters/headmistresses to the three investigated dimensions of the openness. They give the most affirmative answers to the openness of the school to the public in general, they were rather slow to say “yes” to the support of the family and the lifelong learning in the school. In none of the items the respondents’ answers were in the negative part of the attitude scale. But we can complete this unambiguously positive picture with the results of the qualitative survey that turned out to be remarkably different. The thing is that by means of interviews we found out a lot of doubts and barriers at the schools that - in spite of the declared positive attitudes - obstruct the actual realization of the openness. In the interviews the headmasters/headmistresses and teachers said “yes” to the openness in general,

17 but saying that they meant particularly the openness to the parents. The arguments they stated were general pedagogical arguments and de facto copied the current expert discussion on the importance of the family to the school life of a child. The arguments against the openness were, on the contrary based on the real life at schools: the teachers and headmasters/headmistresses stated a number of obstacles that do not make it possible for them to implement the idea of openness. And so the true meaning of their statements actually was: the idea is correct but we cannot implement it consistently due to the external circumstances. In the sphere of lifelong learning we did not even find even a support of the conception itself during our field research. The schools are not interested to know the possibilities of realizing lifelong learning, do not consider it as their task and would see it as an excessive disproportionate burden. Even more reserved was then the attitude to the support of the good functioning of families that was explicitly refused in many schools, they pointed out to the untouchable autonomy of a family. Again, like in the case of the openness in general and the lifelong learning, counterarguments such as time, money and qualification occurred also here. At the present time the Czech schools are probably in a period when they try to deal with the concept of openness of schools. The concept comes to them through the professional education and therefore it is more accepted by the headmasters/headmistresses than by ordinary teachers. The influence of this educational discursus is noticeable in the generally expressed attitudes and statements that say “yes” to the openness concept. But the new propagated ideas have not yet become deeply rooted in the everyday life in our schools. The teachers and headmasters/headmistresses still see too many circumstances standing in the way for them to be able to follow these new concepts. The opinion that the declared attitudes originate from the pedagogical education can be backed up by the fact that the schools show the most helpful approach to the relations to parents and these relations are also the most frequently discussed subject in the professional discussion on the openness. On the other hand, the lifelong learning in the schools and support of a good functioning of families still stand a bit aside they are not in the centre of the attention of the Czech pedagogical thought. This can be an explanation of the fact that we met with considerable hesitating and embarrassment when discussing these subject during our field research. In general, the opinion background of the openness (or closeness) of Czech schools can be described as a conflict of ideas and reality. But it is not necessary to see this conflict

18 as something negative. We believe that it is a natural component part of the process of penetration of new tendencies into the life of the - still rather conservative - Czech schools.

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