About Home and School Relationships

The relationship between home and school is one that occupies my mind a lot. Parents and teachers, who represent the  partnership that will be the most influential in a child's upbringing, often establish relationships of competition instead of collaboration.

My method of observation is informal, but my universe is quite ample. Workshop attendees (parents and teachers!), school leaders, siblings, friends, and occasionally strangers. Argentina, Croatia, China, Emirates. Public and private schools.

Parents feel judged by teachers, and teachers feel judged by parents. Everybody seems to have different ideas about what job is whose, and very few seem to establish relationships of mutual support.

I do not intend to assign blame. That's philosophising backwards in time, and I don't see the point right now. However engaging that exploration might be, it would not be constructive.

While I am not pointing fingers at either "party", I do assign responsibility. Isn't it undeniable that there is only one side of this pair that comprises people who are professional educators? Isn't it part of the school's job to teach parents to consider the teacher as an essential partner in their child's education?

Schools seldom train their teachers in effective parent-teacher communication, and they are certainly deficient in providing education for the parents. How many schools have their teachers do lectures for parents? How many schools have an open-door policy? Are parents bringing their professional and personal strengths into school activities? Or are they only invited to watch performances that show little of what the children do day to day?

Are schools effectively communicating their mission, and the why they do things the way they do them? Wouldn't we all be better off if schools were working relentlessly to communicate their mission and realise it on a daily basis?

School is often the first experience of the world beyond the family circle, both for the children and their grown ups in their new role of parents. The effort to build a relationship of trust and mutual respect, and the agreement of acting always in the child's best interest should be a basic pact, and it is the school's responsibility to initiate it and create the community culture that will promote strong home-school ties.

So while I will "defend" teachers with might and main, here is something where  positive action is mainly in their hands. Go talk to parents about the illusions that make your eyes spark. Bring them on to your vision and make it happen!