Sunday, December 6, 2009

Challenges that I may face with parents

If i were the teacher of this classroom some of the challenges that i may encounter would be that some of the parents may not speak English. According to info works twenty-four percent of the students are bilingual, which means that is a possibility that the parents aren't able to speak English. In Goldenberg's article he says that eighty percent of parents were born outside of the united states. Some of the problems I may encounter is not being able to communicate with some of my students parents. Seeing as Goldenberg states that the majority of EllS are Spanish speakers. I could learn Spanish as a second language in order to be able to communicate with certain parents. I'm interested in learning a second language because I think it will benefit the child if the parent is able to contribute to his or her education. Not only will it get the parents involved, but I will be more successful in teaching ElS students, because learning a skill in their first language helps them learn a skill in their second language. Another challenge that i will encounter is that fact that some parents don't take interest in their child's education. I need to be able to figure out a way that i could get these parents involved. Some way that I could get the parents is involved is by sending notes home. If that doesn't work I could call the parent and request that he or she comes in to discuss their child's progress in the class. During my experience as a tutor, I spoke the the classroom teacher about a child's behavior. He was usually always misbehaving, but one day he was excellent. I was so happy with his behavior that I told his teacher how good he was. After I had told her this she said "well he better be behaving after the stunt he pulled yesterday." She went on to tell me what had happened. The student walked out of the building without permission and walked home before school had ended. The fact that the school allowed this to happen was awful, but once they noticed that he was gone they immediately called the mother. The mother was not at all upset with the school. Her response was oh hes already home. She didn't seem to care that her five yr old walked home in Providence by himself. I was shocked that she wasn't upset with the school. I think her reaction showed that she didn't show much interest in her sons well being. When I asked the teacher why she thought the mother reacted that way her response was half the time she doesn't show up to pick up her son. After hearing this from the teacher I realized that the student probably doesn't try hard in school because hes not getting the support from his mom at home, which is why I think it is so important to try to get the parents involved. I think that by sending notes home to the parent or by calling every month or so would be a great way to demonstrate any concerns that the parents may have. I will try to make an effort to call parents if their child is having a hard time in school, or just to inform the parent how well their child is doing. I think that by involving the parents in whats going on with their child will make a huge impact of the child's learning experience in a positive way.