Parent Involvement to Parent Engagement...

It is often a debatable topic that who has more influence, Parent or Teacher on children in becoming a better student and a good citizen of the country. To be honest I have no intention to start the same debate again. Infact I want to draw attention to something which has not been taken cognizance yet both by Schools and Parents. Before I tell what is that, let’s talk a little about 'Early childhood programs' and what schools talk a lot about parent involvement but what that means is often not clear. And one major involvement program is PTM (Parent Teacher Meeting). Well, I define PTM (Parent Teacher Meeting) as the minimum involvement program a school does with parents on monthly or quarterly basis to keep them informed of children progress. What is the real outcome of these meetings is well known to all of us, and again honestly I'm not critical of the outcome because that in itself is quite a progress made in last two decade or so.

However, the point of contention here is how we make further progress by moving from Parent Involvement to Parent Engagement.

First, one needs to understand the difference between “Parent Involvement” and “Parent Engagement”. Though there can be a positive result from both, I believe the most trust can be developed through engagement.

Simply put, parent involvement is often more of a "doing to," while engagement is a "doing with." With involvement, schools tend to lead with their mouth -- generally telling parents what they should be doing. Engagement, on the other hand, has schools leading with their ears. By listening to parents' ideas, and by eliciting from them what they have found works best with their children, we can develop a more genuine partnership that is helpful to young people.

For me this thought of parent engagement is coming from 3 major observations of my 12 years of teaching experience:

1. The students who need more help, the parents are not available to talk or they will not really listen.

2.  Low income, uneducated parents are less involved due to their lack of confidence and abilities than middle or high class, educated parents.

3. Parents who actively promote learning in the home, have direct and regular contact with school, have children who demonstrate positive engagement with their peers, adults, and learning.

I believe there lies a great opportunity for schools to move from Involvement model to engagement model. How it will be done? Who will do it? What to expect out of it? Are obvious questions but I think teachers, management, psychologists, Councillors and parents if sit together can certainly design and decide the scope of the new engagement program.

For me, we shouldn't "make" parents do anything they don't want to do. The notion that we should "make" or force someone to do something implies some hierarchy of power, where we are higher on the hierarchy and they, the parents, are lower than us. This premise will not result in a positive reaction from parents and only further obstructs any relationship we hope to foster and nurture with our parents. Parents are teaching partners and should be embraced as such. Teaching partners work in a symbiotic relationship based on mutual respect, trust, and consistent communication. When we as teaching professionals acknowledge and accept this relationship, we'll be better prepared to support all students and families in any learning capacity.

In this trusted environment, teachers and parents share information about the child’s development and what he/she is learning in the classroom and in the home. Assessment data is shared with parents and learning goals are set together. When parents are engaged, children are enjoyed and celebrated, they are not ignored, children see that their family values learning and are able to relax and learn knowing that their grown-ups will support them. Parents learn about their own strengths as parents, their power to influence their child’s school and advocate for their child, are more informed about community resources, and have more strategies for meeting their child’s needs.

About the Author:
The Author is Ms. Poorti Sharma, PGT Commerce, Meenakshi Public School
www.meenakshipublicschool.com