Parent Teacher Communication
The Program
The Parent Teacher Communication Program provides hands-on, intensive training for student teachers as well as teachers in the field.
High-pressure situations are simulated to give team members different perspectives.
Schwartz(2018) identifies five difficult types of parents that teachers often encounter during their career:
The Over-involved Parent
The Absent Parent
The Demanding Parent
The Defensive Parent
The Uncooperative Parent
Using The Compathy Method (TCM), the course prepares participants to deal with the inevitable dilemmas and stressful situations they will face at school with parents.
All data is collated as part our ongoing research work into the impact of simulations in Education.
The need
It is universally accepted that developing relationships and communicating with parents and caregivers are key requirements of the teaching profession (Gartmeier, Gebhardt, & Dotger, 2016; Izzo, Weissberg, Kasprow, & Fendrich, 1999; Keyes, 2000; Lasky, 2000; Minke, Sheridan, Moorman, Hoon Ryoo, & Koziol, 2014). As Ponsford (2015) noted, “Being a teacher is not only about teaching; schools actively engage parents, carers and families. Part of your journey to becoming a great teacher is working out how you will manage different parts of the job, and parental engagement is a big part of this” (para. 3). In the court of public opinion, society views collaboration with parents as essential for students to success. A TIME Magazine (2010) survey asked 1000 American adults the question, “What do you think would improve student achievement the most?”, and 52 % responded with “More involved parents”. This ranked higher than “More effective teachers (24%), “Student rewards” (6%), “A longer school day (6%), and “More time on test prep” (6%). Perhaps this is why policies that promote productive teacher-to-parent communication can also be very cost effective (Kraft & Rogers 2016).
Academic Background
Given the importance of parent-teacher relations, it is disheartening to note that these relationships are often filled with “underlying tensions” due to inabilities to collaborate (Ellis, Lock, & Lummis, 2015, p.160). Unfortunately, Gartmeier, Gebhardt, and Dotger (2016) posit that parents often receive very little communication from children’s teachers. Kraft and Rogers (2016) take it even further, stating, “Schools are failing to fully engage parents and provide them with information about what their children are learning and how they are performing in school” (Kraft & Rogers, 2016. p. 49).
Sometimes, this failure is due to the fact that parents and teachers fail to connect. Crozier and Davies (2007) argue that while sometimes parents can be 'hard to reach because they are viewed as 'difficult', 'obstructive', or 'indifferent', schools also can be places that themselves that ‘inhibit accessibility’ for some parents (pp. 295-296). Additionally, parents and teachers often contact each other at very different moments during their child’s school year (Minke, Moorman Kim, Hoon Ryoo, & Koziol, 2014). For example, they state that parents are often likely to contact their child’s teacher when things appear to be going well, while teachers contact parents when concerns with a child takes place. Lasky (2000) shares some reasons why communication between teacher and parent sometimes fails from both perspectives.
Those of us who have been teachers or parents of school-aged children know that interactions between parents and teachers can be emotionally loaded. As parents, we have discussed the frustration of being demeaned by teachers, or the relief and joy in knowing that a teacher is working to bring out the best in our child. As teachers, we have discussed the crazy parent who yells unreasonable demands, the uncaring parent who does not take time to provide a child breakfast before school, or the supportive parent who volunteers regularly in our classroom. (p.843)
Vincent (1996) identified four possible roles which parental involvement might take: “the parent as supporter/learner; the parent as consumer; the parent as independent, and the parent as participant” (p. 57). Of the four types, Vincent (1996) argues that the independent parent is the most common, either due to deliberate choice or circumstances. The least common type that teachers encounter is the participating parent (Vincent, 1996). Vincent’s typology has been used by others to describe the types of parents often found in schools (Crozier & Davies, 2007). For example, a correlation can be made between Vincent’s (1996) typology of parent and Schwartz (2018) recent identification of the five difficult types of parents that teachers often encounter during their career:
The Over-involved Parent
The Absent Parent
The Demanding Parent
The Defensive Parent
The Uncooperative Parent
No matter the typology of parent that teachers encounter it appears that the answer is not simply to develop policies that increase the quantity of interaction opportunities for teachers and parents to connect. In fact, this knee-jerk reaction may in fact be counterproductive. Izzo, Weissberg, Kasprow, and Fendrich (1999) found that quantity of parent-teacher interactions was actually predicted that a child’s before would “worsen” over time. They claim that the quantity of interactions was based on the likelihood that teachers were initiating these contacts, these contacts were “primarily associated with a child's existing behavior problems” (p.835). Still, Izzo, Weissberg, Kasprow, and Fendrich (1999) also concluded that there was a strong positive parent-teacher interactions when the perceived quality of the interactions was high.
Despite the challenges by both sides, teachers and parents both assert that “firm, mutually beneficial partnerships (or collaboration) between them are essential to children's learning, healthy development, and success in school” (Lawson, 2003, p. 77). Therefore, the barriers to meeting the ideal type of relationships between the adult stakeholders need to be removed so that students at the centre of it all can succeed. One thing is certain; It is apparent that teachers would greatly benefit from significant training in order to successfully collaborate with parents (Ellis, Lock, & Lummis, 2015). There is a great need for the QUALITY of teacher parent interactions to improve. We assert that The Compathy Method, developed by Dr. Yifat Davidoff, holds the potential to greatly improve the quality of interactions between teacher and parents, ultimately providing students with the best opportunities for school success.
References
Crozier, G., and Davies, J. (2007). Hard to reach parents or hard to reach schools? A discussion of home-school relations with particular reference to Bangladeshi and Pakistani parents. British Educational Research Journal, 33(3), 295-313.
Ellis, M., Lock, G., and Lummis, G. (2015). Parent-teacher interactions: Engaging with parents and carers. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 40(5), 160-174. Retrieved July 8, 2018 from http://ro.ecu.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2426&context=ajte
Gartmeier, M., Gebhardt A, & Dotger, B. (2016). How do teachers evaluate their parent communication competence? Latent profiles and relationships to workplace behaviors Teaching and Teacher Education (55), 207-216. Retrieved July 7, 2018 from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2016.01.009
Kraft, M., and Rogers, T. (2016). The underutilized potential of teacher-to-parent communication: Evidence from a field experiment Economics of Education Review, 47, 49-63.
Lasky, S. (2000). The cultural and emotional politics of teacher–parent interactions. Teaching and Teacher Education 16(8), 843-860. Retrieved July 8, 2018 from https://ac.els-cdn.com/S0742051X00000305/1-s2.0-S0742051X00000305-main.pdf?_tid=a1f1a14c-3d27-4cfe-b833-bf938f74a984&acdnat=1531318512_20cc4329986f08df043d3ca44e152e83
Lawson, M. (2003). School-family relations in context: Parent and teacher perceptions of parent involvement. Urban Education, 38(1), 77-133. Retrieved July 8. 2018 from http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0042085902238687
Minke, K., Sheridan, S., Moorman Kim, E., Hoon Ryoo, J., & Koziol, N. (2014). Congruence in parent-teacher relationships: The role of shared perceptions. The Elementary School Journal 144(4), 527-546. Retrieved July 8, 2018 from https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/675637
Ponsford, N. (2015). How to handle parents: a survival guide for new teachers. The Guardian.Retrieved July 10, 2018 from https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/2015/aug/25/how-to-handle-parents-a-survival-guide-for-new-teachers
Schwartz, N. (2018). How Teachers Can Work With 5 Difficult Types of Parents. Retrieved July 8, 2018 from http://teaching.monster.com/benefits/articles/9762-how-teachers-can-work-with-5-difficult-types-of-parents
TIME Magazine (no author) (2010). TIME Poll Results: Americans' Views on Teacher Tenure, Merit Pay and Other Education Reforms. Retrieved July 9, 2018 from http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2016994,00.html
Vincent, C. (1996). Parents and Teachers: Power and Participation. The Falmer Press, London.