Tanetha C&I Culture in Teaching

TERI Task Group: Family and Community (May 19, 2009)

Attendance: Tanetha Grosland, Vanessa Abanu, Audrey Appelsies, Gloria Kumagai, Keith Lester, Ada Alden, Ruth Thomas, Megan Morrissey, Heather Cline, Susan Walker

Question: What would you see as being the foundational knowledge, skills, competencies of all first-year teachers in this area of families and communities?

Tanetha: Teachers need to be interculturally competent, and not be afraid to seek out knowledge from community. Teachers need to be flexible and not be scared to learn from their mistakes. Teachers need intercultural communication; listening skills (which takes practice); ability to collaborate cross-culturally. Not be afraid of the community or to learn from their mistakes. Put teachers in the community, secondary – international experiences or local, cross- cultural emersion experiences. Teachers should understand their own position in relation to the community. Teachers should be able to learn from cross-cultural criticism and put feelings aside. Teachers should learn how to use power and privilege to better serve the community.

Audrey: Full- service community Parent & family education Taught class at Hamline at the undergraduate level called Families, Schools, and Communities. Great class that made it clear this was important. Students need to understand and believe that all families matter. Teachers need to be self-reflective when serving community representatives (students) What is community? Community: Churches, organizations, NGO’s, corporations: need to be encouraged to help (service learning) “Means for accessing assets” And all families act differently. Be able to be self-reflective and to asses how they come off in the world when they are serving communities that may be different. Instill moral and pedagogical commitments. Need to be based in history and philosophy. Teacher is someone who serves. Teachers need to understand the history of public education in this country. Flexibility and confidence and great listening skills. Principles: Youth development and intergenerational Ethical standards – Minnesota Council on Family Relations Need to focus more on what learning is. What it is about learning, What does learning mean? Learning happens in a variety of circumstances all the time. Conceptions of learning that are divergent. The neighborhood meetings in the past: They were very energizing. One idea was to have cohorts of social work students and teachers and administrators together in a group. In a class or in some way. Want to talk through, how can teachers learn to advocate. Teacher need to be explicit. Not an easy role to play. Change expectation for teachers role.

Megan: Thinking about what a new teacher should know and be able to do, as a person entering the classroom and the school for the first time. Must have a fundamental belief that the community has assets. Those can be in the service of the school and vise versa. From that there have to be some means of accessing knowledge of the community. If there are assets how do you learn what those are. Key Questions: Who are the allies and the experts of the community? What groups are represented in the community? What are the dimensions of the community? What is defined as the community? What problems effect the community? The various dimensions of the problem?

Teachers may not know the community upon entering but they need to know how to get the information about the community. Need to know and appreciate the assets and resources with the community and how to access them – how to recognize these assets. Need beginning language to know how to talk about the family in ways that demonstrate appreciation for inclusiveness of a broad spectrum of family forms. Need Intercultural and intergenerational communication skills. Some of it comes with concrete skills that becomes more open with experience. Beginning language about how to speak about families that demonstrate appreciation of families. Family is sometimes a source of support and sometimes not and yet they are still family. Need basic language. Need skills to know how to engage family members when problems emerge. How to make that phone call and what do you say when they pick up the phone. This gives them confidence to build on. They need to be able find resources and assets within families.

Vanessa: Understand youth development. Principles and needs of students. Context of the families. Know the community. Communicate with other teachers and mentors. Need time. Connect with social workers and other professionals within schools. Collaborate with other professionals in the schools. Experiences/histories/relationships of those families & communities Feedback, mentor, opportunity for collegial relationship (inter/intra disciplinary) Knowledge of social work and other direct interface with families; teachers could partner with social workers.

Gloria: Before they can convey the value, they need to broaden their own conception of what a family is or what a community is. How do you develop and build relationships? They have limited knowledge of students and families who are different from themselves. How they can use themselves to build relationships. There are research-based practices but new teachers do not come out having a good grasp on this. Who/What are families and communities? How to work with caregivers who are different from them? Don’t give extra credit to students whose parents come to conferences. How to develop and build verbal and non-verbal relationships – maintain, affirm Power and privilege – conscious’ use of self (self-awareness) Research based practices for family involvement that increases student achievement

Ada: How to promote skills to ensure parent-teacher conferences are effective. We need to decrease the sense of fear on both sides. Need to understand the characteristics of adult learners (parents). If teachers are not parents themselves, they may not understand parents. Teachers need ethical guidelines for working with families. They need to pay attention to boundaries. Heather Weiss’ work and Geoffrey Canada. Ellen Galinsky – Changing Roles of Parents Joyce Epstein’s 6 levels of parent involvement Help teachers remind parents of their role. Focus on parents and children. Have to have principles and superintendents that “get it.” The administration has to be involved. Teachers have no idea how powerful they are.

Ruth: Understanding of child and adolescent development and its implications for learning. Understanding that children’s attachment and emotional connection in their early life is highly correlated with their learning (reading, social development, etc.) and the implications of this for their work as a teacher. Extensive research that shows when children’s emotional needs are met, their learning is better, achievement is higher. Those needs largely are met in there homes, families, and communities. If teachers don’t have that understanding this is a problem. Help teachers get the picture that what happens in the home, influences how the child functions in the school. Teachers know about how family background connects with achievement. Easy to ignore or dismiss students. As a teacher it is not ethical to ignore or disregard students based on family-of-origin. Self-awareness is very important. Understanding the impact of the learning students do outside of school influences how they do in school. Connect community, home, and school knowledge. Respecting what they already know. Teachers often view parents as “they” rather than “we” Course: Families, Schools, & Communities

Keith: Know about learning – how people learn Tired of hearing can’t close gap because kids are broken or not enough time Collaborative effort in school and outside within the community. Educating children is a team effort – families, communities, outside agencies (private & public), other staff etc. Classrooms are isolated How to listen to what parents and families say – said and unsaid. If you understand the cultural differences you might better understand what isn’t being said. Student-lead conferences Power of the teacher to hurt with their language Knowing how people learn Understanding of cultural differences and how they apply to teachers, social workers, counselors, custodians, administrators, etc. Barriers to learning – what are they and how do we reduce/eliminate them? Emotional needs met or not met? What are vehicles to connect with families and community. How do you use them to go deeper than PTA, music concerts and conferences. Work ethic and initiative. Can’t wait for parents/families to come to you. (Mutual Respect) Holistic White world

Susan: Understand and know how to use technology to communicate with parents. Understand the role that the family has in children’s learning from day one and throughout childhood. Teachers need to understand how families understand the school. For some families, that teacher is their mentor Teachers need to embrace adults as continuous learners Teachers need to know how to help parents feel welcome at school at all times; help them feel that their needs are important. Teachers need to know how to communicate and coordinate expectations for academic achievement. Teachers need to create a supportive environment to talk with parents about children’s school success. Teachers need to understand how education is viewed across cultures – including parent involvement in education (e.g., attendance at conferences, PTA) Teachers current orientation is around the problem kids so there needs to be a bigger focus on all students. Strength-based approach.

Heather Cline:

All teachers should understand where parents are coming from and parents perspective on family involvement. Teachers should be aware of the various barriers that keep parents away and uninvolved, the benefits of parent involvement in children’s school and life success, and the ways in which they can better engage and interact with parents. Teachers should learn about and develop skills in engaging with parents, promoting parent involvement, and integrating parent involvement into assignments and projects required of students. Teachers should be aware of how to respond to parents based on adult learning theories and adult development and culture. Teachers need to develop self-awareness.

Organizations and people mentioned by many:

Organizations: CYFC MCFR

People: Geoffrey Canada Ellen Galinsky’s six stages of parenthood Heather Weiss Joyce Epstein – Family, School, and Community Partnerships