On the list of things to ponder

As most of you know, I'm here in Abu Dhabi for a constellation of reasons, many of which revolve around teaching. Last June I left an intense urban charter school I helped found and to which I was passionately (but perhaps unhealthily) attached. I came to my current school to explore new ways of being a teacher in a completely different environment. The experience so far has not shaken my conviction that urban education and/or underserved student populations are my fundamental vocation as a teacher. At the same time, I've enjoyed teaching my current students tremendously and am learning a great deal about how privileged kids are educated from the perspective of a teacher.

The most obvious thing I already knew: much of the education of middle/upper class students does not happen at school. It happens at home, on trips, during extracurricular activities, and via family members, tutors or the Internet. Underserved kids learn a lot outside of school, too, but the information privileged kids pick up actually helps them in the classroom. That being the case, one of the things I'm thinking about now is how a dedicated teacher can influence a student's life outside of school and inspire kids without the helpful bulwarks of parental involvement and/or resources to pursue school-based education with as much confidence and comfort as their privileged peers. I learned at my previous school that the school itself cannot do it all in a way that's healthy to staff members or, some may argue, the kids themselves. But nor should teachers throw up their hands or schools assume they are powerless. The question is what is doable and which of the things on the doable list are most effective? Clearly, I have no answers to this, but I've been mulling it over this week. This trains of thought was inspired by my first round of parent-teacher conferences at my current school

The content of the conferences was identical to any set of conferences I've ever had: "Joe is a such an excellent student;" "I wish I had a classful of Marys;" "Johnny is so bright but he's not working up to his full potential;" "Susy needs to slow down and not rush through her work;" "Bobby should socialize at lunch and concentrate in class;" "Betty is easily distracted--is she like that at home?" "I'm concerned about Teddy's reading level/sentence structure/organization skills." The only difference was the parents. For one thing, they made appointments themselves, arrived on time and signed up in droves. My teaching buddy Ocanada and I talked non-stop from 12:30-4 p.m. on Wednesday and from 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Thursday (excluding a 45-minute lunch break on Thursday). At my former school, we called parents, made the appointments, called again to remind them and, if that didn't work, showed up unannounced at their doors to talk about their kids. This doesn't make those parents horrible people--there were countless valid reasons why they didn't show--but that lack of direct involvement did affect their children's education. Can a school enforce parent involvement? Should they? Does essentially forcing parents to show up do any good? Is there another way for the school to fill in this particular "involvement" piece if parents are unable to hear student-specific messages from the school and reinforce them at home? Does the school change to accommodate the parents if the parents are unable to accommodate the school? How does the school change? My former school is part of a nationwide movement that is killing itself (and I'm not being entirely figurative here) to be different in a way that serves all kids. But they did this by taking the regular model of school and piling on time, dedication and accountability (hence the knocking on doors when parents don't show). But do the radically different factors that affect parenting across social classes mean that schools serving these populations should look and feel just as radically different? And how should they look? Is that discrimination or the essence of true service? I have no idea whatsoever. I've just been thinking about it a lot this week.

Of course, I'm starting from the assumptions that all children deserve the highest quality education regardless of whether or not their parents show up--or have to be dragged--to parent-teacher conferences, even though we all know that students whose parents show up will do significantly better in school as we know it. If that is not your automatic assumption, you are reading the wrong blog.

The question is which part/parts of the act-of-parents-showing-up-for-conferences is the key to a student's subsequent success, and can this piece of the educational puzzle be isolated and replicated in some other way? Can something else just as effective take its place?

Let me know if you know...and if you haven't thanked your parents for showing up at all your conferences through the years, add it to your Thanksgiving list this week.

(Thank you, mom, for showing up to every conference and advocating for us at every turn. xo)