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The too hard basket? Closing the gap between parents and teachers

Cathy Wylie
Abstract: 

Listening to parents and teachers and then working on ways to close the gap between their widely differing expectations.

Journal issue: 

The too hard basket?

CLOSING THE GAP BETWEEN PARENTS AND TEACHERS

Cathy Wylie

JUST after I finished writing the final report of a study following 32 children through their first three years of school, I was trying to tell a friend who had a six year old child, and another who had just passed out of the junior school, what we had found. It seemed to the teachers, I said, that where as they saw a spiral or zig-zag process of learning in the classroom most parents had a linear, arrow-like view of progress.

‘Okay’, she said. ‘But I’ve just found out that Lucy can’t read! And not because the school told me. I had to find out myself. Yet she’s had all these glowing reports about how well she’s doing, what a joy she is to have in the class. I mean - what’s the point of that if she can’t read? If she’s behind others the same age?’

I outlined some of the research findings on how learning can be undermined by summative assessment, streaming, and continual grading of children relative to each other. ‘You’re probably right’, she said, ‘but that’s not what counts.’ In the workaday world, where only one person can get the job, comparative ranking seemed much more important.

Then we talked about what action she had taken. Every day during the school holidays she worked on her child’s letter and word recognition. She spoke to the teacher, who promised that her child could do the Reading Recovery programme. The tag ‘recovery’ was unwelcome, but she felt some intensive effort was necessary at this vital stage of her child’s learning. She was further upset when she learnt (from parents) of several other bright, assertive children who had also ‘ended up’ in Reading Recovery. Yet she was careful in her communication with the teacher, and unwilling to complain to the principal. She did not want her children to suffer any resentment which a complaint might cause.

I was saddened by her tale. I wondered if she would have been so sceptical about diagnostic approaches to learning and assessment if there had been closer, more informative communication from teacher to home. She needed specific information on the child’s progress, but also about the classroom programme, and the signs of growing understanding and skill, especially those which parents can see (and help build).

And the power of the teacher this story reveals! When teachers discussed what helped, or hindered children’s progress they kept coming up with a picture of the well-meaning but undermining parent. What a contrast!

Why is it that parents and teachers can have such different perceptions of the teacher’s role, and of what is important or useful in children’s learning? We have some useful insights to offer from interviews with the 62 teachers and 32 parents of the study children during their first three years of school. From this study came some ways in which the differences in perceptions could be bridged, for the benefit of child, teacher, and parent.

From the Research

Parents’ understanding of what their children are doing at school, and the meaning of those activities, comes mainly from:

• what comes home with the child (talk, homework, reports);

• parents’ experience of the child’s classroom and teacher (mainly meet-the-teacher sessions and informal contact at the classroom door);

• comparison with other children - in other schools, or older siblings - or the parent’s own memories of schooling;

• mass media descriptions and evaluations of curriculum, assessment, and standards.

How reliable and useful is this information? Media treatment of education would need another article on its own! It can be helpful; it can also be piecemeal, imbued with editors’ and reporters’ own lack of expertise, or coloured with preconceptions and the need for a ‘good story’.

Children themselves are frustrating sources of information about the school day! We should not be too surprised. For they are actors in it, not observers. Parents learn of the unusual rather than usual, and about play (friendships) more than about work. They hear about ‘ability groups’ when children move in or out of them.

You’ve got to really prompt him to find out what he did during the day. Unless there’s something that really sticks in his mind - like the fire engine came today.

If I make a wrong assumption about a group he’ll correct me, whether his best friend is in it, say. It’s background information for him.

Often she can’t tell you what you want to know. She talks about what the teacher says, exciting things, new subjects, themes, when she recognized that numbers were following a pattern, books she’s read, songs they’re singing.

What comes home

Parents’ most regular source of knowledge about their child’s progress is what comes home in the schoolbag. It was rare for the children in our study to bring home anything but reading books in the first year. These were joined by phonics or spelling words in the second year; one teacher who thought spelling homework made no difference to the children’s advance sent it, simply to satisfy parents’ faith in homework. Some sums and project work came home in the third year.

The emphasis on reading in children’s homework in the initial school years reflects its prominence in the junior school curriculum. But it also reflects the activity-based approach to mathematics in the widespread (NZ) Beginning School Mathematics material, which means that there is not a lot of maths written down in the first years.

Teachers were often ambivalent about sending writing work home, until it had been ‘published’, that is, polished and perhaps printed out. Their emphasis on process writing does not meet some parents’ expectations that correct spelling should come before the writing of narrative; this explains some of the ambivalence. They also wanted to have previous work of the children available at school as a resource against which to assess progress and diagnose continuing needs.

But the underlying reason for so little homework in the junior schools was that teachers felt that children should not be worked too hard - or in ways which might undermine the learning process in their classrooms.

I discourage teaching at home. They’re only six and seven, and we work very hard. If they are really slipping - and none of them are, apart from a little girl in maths - I wouldn’t necessarily get back to the parents because it is an added pressure and worry on the children, and could end up in a real mess.

What I’m aiming for is that they love reading. If they don’t get it all right, it doesn’t matter. But some parents think it’s cheating if they tell the word from the picture, and they cover up the picture. You have to educate parents. Too many children get put off from that - it can be dangerous if they’re told they’re no good.

Homework

Homework crosses the two worlds that each child lives in: home, and school. It blurs the boundaries. But by the same token it is also an important part of informing parents of their child’s progress, and of the kind of work which is done in the classroom.

It’s a bit early to say yet how he’s doing. He’s progressing in the books he reads, but I’m not sure about maths, because it’s done at school.

We can see how she’s going by the ticks in her book.

Reports

What about school reports? Parents did not often mention these as sources of information or say much about them (other than that they received them). In one sense, they were taken for granted. However, the main themes amongst those who commented were that end-of-year reports were frustrating - since it was too late to act on any information they contained, or to contact the child’s teacher (usually changing next year as well) - and that it was helpful to have information on the child’s social behaviour. Only one of our ten study schools sent reports home mid-year to parents of second year children, and only three to parents of third year children.

All the school reports bar one (in the third year of school) reported children’s progress individually, in relation to curriculum tasks or goals. Some were more specific than others. Two parents, harking back to their own school days, desired a more comparative form of reporting.

Given the amount of time teachers spend on school reports, and the black cloud that working on reports wraps around the end of the school year, their low profile with parents raises some questions about their usefulness. Perhaps other channels are needed to encourage parents’ attention to, and support for, their children’s learning.

Parents at school

Most of the parents had been into their child’s classroom at some time in all three years of school, though not on a regular basis, particularly as the child grew older, and often not for very long. Those who had were usually appreciative of the changes since their own school days.

I was brought up under ‘you do this right, if you don’t, you’re naughty’. Whereas they’re being brought up in ‘You do this. If you can’t, you do the best you can’. It’s a completely different style, which I think is lovely. I didn’t have any trouble in the old system, but I saw kids having trouble - one of my best friends, and she and I were probably on a par intellectually.

But most parents did not know how children were assessed, and some of those we spoke to were quite mistaken in their understanding of what happened at their child’s school. There was a prevailing, though not universal, trust that work was assessed, progress monitored - and that parents would be told if there was any difficulty.

I have often wondered what they base progress on. I suppose they give them tests and things, but I’m sure if there’s any problem, if he wasn’t keeping up, the teachers would tell me.

Interviews

Parents often mentioned the parent-teacher interview as a useful source, or reassurance, of their child’s progress at school.

The first term parent-teacher interview was good. They said he had been picking up things. He misses out some of his words, and uses others in the wrong place, and I correct him.

We don’t have a clear conception of where she should be, especially in maths. We did ask specifically about that at the parent interview, and accepted the teacher’s judgement that she was doing fine.

Some gained knowledge to help them help their own child.

The teacher pointed out to me letters that Shane was doing wrong, and I could do them with him, show him how to do them… I’m really quite happy with his schooling and the progress he’s making. He can read quite well now.

“…Parents expect that correct spelling should come before writing stories.”

Assessment beyond the school

A quarter of the parents in our study worked out for themselves where their child was in relation to older children in the family, friends who went to different schools, or their own schooling.

My daughter was far more advanced at reading than Oliver is but I don’t know that her comprehension was always as good.

We’re not sure what sort of progress she should have made. It’s hard to have a benchmark. She seems to be doing perfectly well, to be competent…I’ve noticed one child in particular who she sees from time to time who seemed to be further ahead in terms of her writing ability than Emma was, writing stories herself. And the parents of the child made comments on it. I think there are children who are progressing more quickly than Emma - but all the ones we can compare with are going to read perfectly well and reach a particular level. Whether one will reach a level six months ahead of the others, who knows. They’re all going to be perfectly competent.

Uneven progress

The last quotation brings us to a central issue for contemporary teachers: what kind of evidence of progress is most appropriate and useful. Progress, in the eyes of the teachers in our study, was a spiral, rather than linear process - or sometimes a process with sudden, unpredictable leaps followed by plateaux, or very gentle rises. Examples were given to us of children whose rapid speed of skill acquisition in the first few years of schooling was followed by levelling, or some decline, so that they could be surpassed by others whose initial school progress had been less marked.

Teachers now also generally accept that children learn at different rates, sometimes through different routes. The research evidence which says that internal motivation is very important to children’s learning is also accepted. Though most classes did their reading and mathematics work in ability groups, only one school used the colour codes of reading book levels to name their groups. Stickers and stamps were given out in many classrooms, but they were given to encourage as well as reward; and some teachers kept close records of who had received what, to ensure an even spread. Assessment was mainly through individual running records and curriculum checkpoints rather than class tests of the same items.

New Zealand junior school classrooms are remarkably free of the standardising format of American classrooms with their strong emphasis on tests and grades (even to the extent of putting the results up on classroom walls). Nonetheless, some practices (such as ability grouping) which allow comparison and suggest there are reliable standards to measure individual children against, are still present, and they were indeed used by the parents in our study to satisfy themselves (or not) about their children’s progress.

The shift in teaching to diagnostic rather than summary assessment means that ‘results’ often need knowledge of the curriculum to be fully understood or appreciated. They need more translation for parents, especially for those raised themselves on fixed ‘standards’.

How can the classroom teacher ride at the same time the two horses of (1) encouraging internal motivation and (2) providing evidence of progress in summary form for parents and others beyond the classroom process? It is not a dilemma that is about to go away: on the contrary. There is increasing emphasis at the national level on accountability and standards, and these set frameworks which classroom teachers cannot ignore. New South Wales, for example, introduced compulsory basic skills testing in literacy and numeracy in the third and sixth grades in 1989. The new New Zealand assessment framework is designed to provide information on levels of achievement at school entrance, and at Form 1 (Year 7) and Form 4 (Year 10). The New Zealand national assessment is likely to have an item-bank format, allowing teacher choice. If this format is accepted, it will provide more flexibility than the New South Wales system. Nonetheless, in New Zealand, concerns have been expressed that use of the ‘framework’ could foster inter-child and inter-school comparison. Also the framework of levels makes it easy to slide (back) into thinking all children must meet a set standard at a certain stage or age, despite the very real difficulties in deciding or defining that standard.

Parents undermine teachers?

Our interviews found teachers worrying about parents undermining their best efforts with old fashioned attitudes or discouraging teaching techniques. Parents’ approach to reading, writing, and mathematics may differ from those used today in the classroom. Old school techniques such as rote learning and copying have been overtaken. It is often hard for teachers to see the ‘help’ parents give their children at home as positive if it comes in these forms. Yet, like the teachers’ own balancing act (with the distribution of stickers and stamps, and the names they give ability groups so that they do not order the children into a frozen hierarchy of ability and expectation) perhaps it is the total context of learning which matters most rather than individual practices. Recent research material on home reading certainly suggests that different approaches to reading and texts can complement rather than compete with the school approach (with its emphasis on fictional ‘stories’) and this even when there are different cultures in the home.

“…Our interviews found teachers worrying about parents undermining their best efforts with old-fashioned attitudes.”

Teachers’ concern about parental practices at home is also an expression of the ambiguity they feel in their joint responsibility, with parents, for children. How can they ensure that parents are indeed supportive?

The teachers in the study thought it was important for parents to support their children. As far as school work was concerned, they wanted parents to hear their child read at home, check or help with their spelling (if they were doing some writing or spelling at home), and show interest in their work and progress. Parents were seen as interested if they came to collect their child after school, stayed to look at the classroom and their child’s work, signed the reading books sent home (and actually listened to the child), turned up to parent-teacher interviews, and contacted the teacher to let her know of any concerns, or changes in the home.

Parents put pressure on children to do extra things, they always expect them to be on top form….one parent does multiplication tables with his child, yet the child has no concepts for anything. Parents want to know if their child will go onto Standard 1 (Year 2), as though that was the point to aim for as quickly as possible. They won’t accept differences in children, and be supportive and say, ‘Well done’. If one child they know reads twice as fast or twice as many books, they want their child to do the same.

They worry about the spelling, but not the flow of stories in writing.

Earlier in the year we had parents dashing in at 3 o’clock, opening the child’s tote bag, searching through all their books to see what they’ve done during the day and saying ‘Where’s your reading book?’ The kids are just shaking. And we try to say to them, ‘Look, the children have been at school 5 hours, they’ve had enough, they want to go home and have a break.’

Teachers try to protect children’s confidence, motivation and free time. But in the process they - and the children they care for - may miss out on the benefits of closer work with parents. Well-informed parents are more likely to be supportive of both teacher and child. This becomes increasingly important in devolved school systems (such as New Zealand’s has become, and as some states are heading toward in Australia) for two reasons. First, parents, as trustees, are now responsible for school policy and employment. Second, there is an increasing emphasis (or reliance) on local resources. This means that there are growing gaps between schools in different communities. The human, financial and cultural resources available to a child at home also make a difference in children’s learning, often favouring children of middle class (and assertive) parents. Improving the resources parents can provide, or making better use of those resources, is therefore increasingly vital to the success of teaching, particularly in low income areas.

The value of parental support and understanding may seem obvious to many classroom teachers, and to others simply another item to add to the list of good-things-to-be-done, but-where-will-I-find-the-time? Many have tried innovative sessions for parents only to find that those who turned up were ‘not the ones who needed to’. But the issue will not go away, and every school and teacher would benefit from devising a kit of various strategies for working with parents, ranging from ‘preparing the ground’, through, keeping information flowing both ways, to, dealing with potentially awkward situations when they arise.

Certainly there are questions of time to be resolved. Often teaching is seen as consisting of one teacher with a class, face to face with children. But planning is part of good teaching, as are other activities which teachers undertake outside the classroom. Perhaps it is less important than we think for children to spend the whole of their day with a single teacher.

Effective occasions with parents

In our study there were few occasions on which teachers had made an effort to reach parents to explain their approach to the curriculum. These occasions were in fact all a great success.

They had a lovely night in the middle term when they got parents down and they went through a typical writing session and how they model and get ideas and they got parents writing and parents found it really hard!

By watching Suzanne for about half an hour one morning writing I have a much better idea of what writing is about, and the importance of the flow of writing rather than getting everything correct. I don’t want more bits of paper.

Parents also need to know how to best approach teachers to find out about their child’s school life and progress, or to express any unease they feel. One strategy schools and individual teachers could use is to launch the year with a session involving role-play and good humour (perhaps using training videos such as John Cleese has made?) to bring teachers and parents together. And avoid episodes like this:

I find it difficult to respond to somebody who comes to the door in class time with, ‘How’s he getting on?’. Because he’s there, and so’s everybody else. And that’s when you say, ‘fine, no problem’.

Sharing responses to situations like this is a useful focus for staff development. It’s also important to analyse existing home-school channels such as homework (or what goes home), teacher-parent interviews, and reports, to see whether they are meeting the needs of both teachers and parents, and whether they could be made more vital.

The development of teaching as a profession has continually pushed forward our understanding of the ingredients and processes of learning and what can be achieved. Perhaps working with parents, translating the work of the school into the terms of the home, and vice versa, is the next frontier to be crossed.

set would like to publish another item on the topic of school-parent communication – a ‘what works’ compilation of teachers’ own innovations and practices. So please write to us if you have useful ideas to pass on: set, P O Box 3237, Wellington, New Zealand.

Notes

CATHY WYLIE is a senior researcher at the New Zealand Council for Educational Research, P O Box 3237, Wellington, New Zealand.

This research can be read in more detail and context in Learning to Learn: Children’s Progress Through the First Three Years of School by Cathy Wylie and Lesley Smith, published by NZCER.

The research literature on the importance of children’s internal motivation is well covered in:

Crooks, Terence J (1989) The Impact of Classroom Evaluation Practices on Students Review of Educational Research Vol 58(4), pp 438-481.

and

Dweck, Carol S (1989) Motivation. In Lesgold, Alan and Glaser, Robert (eds) Foundations for a Psychology of Education. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

The research findings on how learning can be undermined by ranking and streaming can be found in:

Kamii, Constance (ed) (1990) Achievement Testing in the Early Grades: the Games Grown-ups Play. Washington DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children.

and

Kealey, Martin (1984) Meats and veges: an ethnographic study of two grammar school classes, set No. 2, 1984, item 10.

and

Raven, John (1991) The Tragic Illusion: Educational Testing. New York: Trillium Press.

Material on the growing gaps between schools in different communities can be found in

Gordon, Liz (1993) ‘Rich’ and ‘Poor’ Schools in Aotearoa. A paper presented at the Annual Conference of the New Zealand Association for Research in Education, Hamilton.

and

Wylie, Cathy (1992) The Impact of Tomorrow’s Schools in Primary Schools and Intermediates 1991 Survey Report. Wellington: NZCER.

Material on the difference home resources often make can be found in

Lareau, Annette (1989) Home Advantage: Social Class and Parental Intervention in Elementary Education. Lewes: Falmer Press.

and

Nash, Roy (1993) Succeeding Generations - Family Resources and Access to Education in New Zealand. Auckland: Oxford University Press.

Material suggesting that home approaches to reading and text which differ from those of school can complement rather than undermine school teaching is contained in

McNaughton, Stuart (1991) Emergent Literacies, Psychologies of Development, and Equity Research Unit for Maori Education/Te Tari Rangahau O Te Matauranga Maori, University of Auckland, Monograph No 2.

A useful description of teacher training in New Zealand, based on following students who started their training in 1989 through until they started teaching, is given in

Renwick, Margery, and June Vize (1993) A Window on Teacher Education. Wellington: NZCER.

Two useful resources for teachers wanting to work with parents are:

Ramsay, Peter et al (1990) ‘There’s No Going Back’ Collaborative Decision Making in Education, Final Report. Hamilton: University of Waikato.

and

Wickham, Leon, and Parents (undated) TeacherPak - a Book about Teacher-Professional Parent Partnership. Palmerston North: Kanuka Grove Teacher Centre, Palmerston North College of Education.