2. Agenda and Parking Lot
Parking Lot-
-Parent letters when English is not the first
language
-How can we include these parents in the
classroom?
“Snitch Line”. What does it mean and how are
teachers impacted
Overview of 11 and 12
Parking lot
Parent Inclusion in the classroom
“Implications”
Schwab’s Four commonplaces
Relating Back to Dewey
Blanket Exercise
2
3. Parents are extensions of our
students.
• The power of three ... “Education is a triangle with three legs: parents,
child, school and if any of the legs fall, the triangle falls as well.” (Harris
& Goodall, 2007, p. 2)
4. https://www.education-leadership-
ontario.ca/application/files/2914/9876/0410/Parent_Engagement-
_Working_with_Families_Supporting_Student_Learning.pdf
∙ Open, reflective and empathetic listening is essential to building
relationships with parents. At the same time, we need to listen reflectively,
to hear and question our own voice. We need to be aware of, and
recognize, how we are positioned in the conversation, how we listen, what
we say or don’t say, and what we choose to do or not do. This all holds the
potential to influence perceptions, attitudes and ultimately our
relationships with families – to build the foundations for an authentic
partnership on behalf of student learning.
Communicating with Parents
Pg. 3
5. https://www.education-leadership-
ontario.ca/application/files/2914/9876/0410/Parent_Engagement-
_Working_with_Families_Supporting_Student_Learning.pdf
∙ School teams who are making plans to strengthen their learning partnerships with parents
may wish to engage in a professional inquiry based on such reflective questions as:
∙ • Are we sensitive to the differentiated characteristics of the students and families we serve?
∙ • Do we demonstrate a flexible “outreach” mindset?
∙ • Are we developing an awareness of our own potential biases, stereotypes and assumptions
that may impact or even serve as a barrier to parent engagement?
∙ • Are we patient and persistent enough to make meaningful connections one family at a time?
∙ • Are we looking at ways to connect with parents who face barriers to traditional approaches
to parent engagement?
A Professional Inquiry Pg. 2
6. https://www.education-leadership-
ontario.ca/application/files/2914/9876/0410/Parent_Engagement-
_Working_with_Families_Supporting_Student_Learning.pdf
∙ In shifting the focus from getting more parents into the school to working collaboratively
with them to support their children’s learning and well-being, it is more important than ever
before to become familiar with one another’s “worlds”:
• How can we effectively open doors to each other’s world so that we foster close and
common understanding?
• What role might both students and parents play?
• How might we interact and co-learn with families?
• How can we build from a position of asset and acceptance?
• In what ways can we build on the strengths, interests and talents of students and their
families?
6
Pg. 2
In small groups, brainstorm answers to these questions:
7. A Professional Inquiry
∙ It may be helpful to reflect as a school team on how you are helping parents recognize that their
efforts to support learning at home, regardless of how big or small, are important to the success of
their child and to the school as a whole. Sample reflective questions:
∙ • Do our existing parent and community partnerships reflect the diversity of our families both in the
school and wider community?
∙ • Are we offering a range of support strategies (e.g., workshops, tip sheets, translation of materials)
to enable parents to contribute to their child’s learning in the home environment?
∙ • Are we encouraging school council members and other parents to share ideas for improving
student learning and achievement? Are these ideas part of our school improvement planning?
∙ • Are we monitoring school climate both to help identify barriers and to address them?
7
Pg. 5
8. The Power of Positive Beliefs
∙ It may be stating the obvious, but when engaging families we need to maintain
positive beliefs in ourselves and, in turn, inspire positive beliefs in students and in
parents. Inspiration and belief often grow through action, as does the building of
relationships, connecting through the work that is accomplished together.
Therefore, we need to:
∙ •Move from empathy to action.
∙ •Start small – be patient and persistent.
∙ •Accept that it may be messy, it may not be perfect.
8
Pg. 5
9. Going Forward…
As schools and boards reflect on their parent engagement strategies for the months and years ahead,
four guiding principles may be helpful to consider:
1. Foster and sustain a positive, welcoming school climate in which all parent perspectives are
encouraged, valued and heard.
2. Identify and remove barriers to parent engagement that may prevent some parents from fully
participating in their children’s learning.
3. Support parents with the knowledge, skills and tools they need to support at home and at school.
4. Review and expand communication and outreach strategies such as local workshops, presentations,
tools, and resources, to share information and strategies related to supporting learning at home and
parent engagement in schools.
10. A Ministry Document in 45 Minutes
∙ Based on Tribes’ ‘Novel in an Hour’ activity, we’re going to break down a
large task into smaller, more manageable bits to share with one another.
You can use this strategy as a creative ‘Minds on’ activity to summarize a
novel before reading it with your class as a way to generate interest,
introduce students to characters and the plot and engage learners with the
story.
10
11. A Ministry Document in 45 Minutes
∙ http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/parents/involvement/pe_policy2010.pdf
∙ In 3 groups, you will explore, summarize and represent the main ideas in each of
the 3 sections of this document. You will have 20 minutes to divvy up and review
the material, plan how to best present it, and then we will have 3,
∙ 5-minute presentations to share what you’ve learned.
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12. A Ministry Document in 45 Minutes
∙ Presentations:
∙ 1. Parent Engagement and Partnership
∙ 2. Fulfilling the Vision of Parent Engagement
∙ 3. Parent Engagement Action Plan
12
14. Please stand, facing one another, in concentric circles to
discuss the following passages from Dewey’s
Pedagogic Creed.
After each question, the people who are on the inside
circle will move two spots to their left to discuss the
next question.
Dewey’s Pedagogic Creed
15. “ I believe that the only true education comes
through the stimulation of the child’s powers by
the demands of the social situations in which he
finds himself. Through these demands he is
stimulated to act as a member of a unity, to
emerge from his original narrowness of action
and feeling, and to conceive of himself from the
standpoint of the welfare of the group to which he
belongs. Through the responses which others
make to his own activities he comes to know what
these mean in social terms. The value which they
have is reflected back into them. ”
Pg. 115
16. “Without insight into the psychological structure and
activities of the individual, the educative process
will, therefore, be haphazard and arbitrary. If it
chances to coincide with the child’s activity it will get
a leverage; if it does not, it will result in friction, or
disintegration, or arrest of the child nature.”
Pg. 1
16
17. “With the advent of democracy and modern industrial conditions, it is impossible to foretell
definitely just what civilization will be twenty years from now. Hence it is impossible to
prepare the child for any precise set of conditions. To prepare him for the future life means to
give him command of himself; it means so to train him that he will have the full and ready use
of all his capacities; that his eye and ear and hand may be tools ready to command, that his
judgment may be capable of grasping the conditions under which it has to work, and the
executive forces be trained to act economically and efficiently. It is impossible to reach this
sort of adjustment save as constant regard is had to the individual’s own powers, tastes, and
interests-say, that is, as education is continually converted into psychological terms.”
Pg.2
17
18. I believe that education, therefore, is a process of
living and not a preparation for future living.
I believe that the school must represent present
life-life as real and vital to the child as that
which he carries on in the home, in the
neighborhood, or on the playground.
I believe that education which does not occur
through forms of life, or that are worth living for
their own sake, is always a poor substitute for
the genuine reality and tends to cramp and to
deaden.
Pg.2 18
19. I believe that the teacher’s place and work in the school is to be interpreted from this same
basis. The teacher is not in the school to impose certain ideas or to form certain habits in the
child, but is there as a member of the community to select the influences which shall affect
the child and to assist him in properly responding to these influences.
Pg. 3
I believe that all questions of the grading of the child and his promotion should be determined by
reference to the same standard. Examinations are of use only so far as they test the child’s
fitness for social life and reveal the place in which he can be of the most service and where
he can receive the most help.
Pg. 4
19
20. I believe once more that history is of educative value in so far as it presents phases of social life
and growth. It must be controlled by reference to social life. When taken simply as history it is
thrown into the distant past and becomes dead and inert. Taken as the record of man’s social
life and progress it becomes full of meaning. I believe, however, that it cannot be so taken
excepting as the child is also introduced directly into social life.
I believe accordingly that the primary basis of education is in the child’s powers at work along
the same general constructive lines as those which have brought civilization into being.
I believe that the only way to make the child conscious of his social heritage is to enable him to
perform those fundamental types of activity which make civilization what it is.
Pg. 4
20
21. I believe that one of the greatest difficulties in the present teaching
of science is that the material is presented in purely objective
form, or is treated as a new peculiar kind of experience which
the child can add to that which he has already had. In reality,
science is of value because it gives the ability to interpret and
control the experience already had. It should be introduced, not
as so much new subject-matter, but as showing the factors
already involved in previous experience and as furnishing tools
by which that experience can be more easily and effectively
regulated.
Pg. 5
21
22. I believe the following statements are of supreme importance as determining the spirit in which
education is carried on:
1. I believe that the active side precedes the passive in the development of the child nature; that
expression comes before conscious impression; that the muscular development precedes the
sensory; that movements come before conscious sensations; I believe that consciousness is
essentially motor or impulsive; that conscious states tend to project themselves in action.
I believe that the neglect of this principle is the cause of a large part of the waste of time and
strength in school work. The child is thrown into a passive, receptive, or absorbing attitude.
The conditions are such that he is not permitted to follow the law of his nature; the result is
friction and waste.
Pg. 6
22
23. I believe that interests are the signs and symptoms of growing power. I believe that they
represent dawning capacities. Accordingly the constant and careful observation of
interests is of the utmost importance for the educator.
I believe that these interests are to be observed as showing the state of development
which the child has reached.
I believe that they prophesy the stage upon which he is about to enter.
I believe that only through the continual and sympathetic observation of childhood’s
interests can the adult enter into the child’s life and see what it is ready for, and upon
what material it could work most readily and fruitfully.
Pg. 6
23
24. I believe that it is the business of every one interested in education to insist upon the
school as the primary and most effective interest of social progress and reform in
order that society may be awakened to realize what the school stands for, and aroused
to the necessity of endowing the educator with sufficient equipment properly to
perform his task.
I believe that education thus conceived marks the most perfect and intimate union of
science and art conceivable in human experience.
I believe that the art of thus giving shape to human powers and adapting them to social
service, is the supreme art; one calling into its service the best of artists; that no
insight, sympathy, tact, executive power, is too great for such service.
Pg. 8
24
25. I believe that when science and art thus join hands the most
commanding motive for human action will be reached; the most
genuine springs of human conduct aroused and the best service
that human nature is capable of guaranteed.
I believe, finally, that the teacher is engaged, not simply in the
training of individuals, but in the formation of the proper social
life.
I believe that every teacher should realize the dignity of his calling;
that he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of
proper social order and the securing of the right social growth.
Pg. 8
25
26. What was one idea from Dewey’s Pedagogic Creed that resonated with you?
Please take a moment to reflect on and share, orally, what you believe education
should be, in this day and age.
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31. Blanket Exercise
∙ Please turn your cell phones to silent.
∙ Land acknowledgement –
∙ Brock University - We [I] would like to
begin by acknowledging that the land on
which we gather is the traditional territory
of Anishinaabeg and Haudenosaunee
Peoples.
∙ First, a little history:
∙ 500 Years in Two Minutes – Wab Kinew
∙ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7LY
-fXzhZI
∙ Justice for Aboriginal Peoples – It’s Time
∙ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5Dr
XZUIinU
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32. Community Circle
∙ As always, you have the right to
pass.
∙ Please take a moment to share
your impressions of this exercise.
∙ I felt…
∙ I learned…
∙ What positive steps could we take to
help cultivate kindness through
understanding with respect to Aboriginal
history?
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