The National Parent Teacher Association is a great way to continue learning how to integrate parents into their child's education. As they state on their website, "Academic achievement has always been paramount. But, in today’s changing economy the need for advanced skills and technical knowledge is growing. Showing our children that we value learning and education is important and will pay off in the long run as they mature. When parents are involved in their children's educations, student achievement improves.
Student academic achievement starts with you helping your child succeed by providing a home that encourages learning and supports your child’s physical, mental, and emotional development. Use these parent resources to help your child achieve success in school."
This is a great organization to join to learn how parents are feeling, how to communicate more effectively with parents, and how to get parents involved in their child's education. I encourage you to continue to try to develop meaningful parent communication and involvement inside and out of the classroom.
On a side note, the PTA website gives you a lot of different fundraising ideas, ideas for giving thanks to others teachers (you could also use these ideas for thanking your parent volunteers) and websites and ideas for lessons and uses at home.
Teachers, do you use Facebook and/or MySpace on a weekly basis? Like many teachers, I'm sure your profile is set to private (kudos to you if you aren't; you're braver than me!) But, unlike many teachers, I'm sure you may know how important social networking is in your life now, and probably will play a key role in the future, as well. Keeping this in mind, have you ever thought about setting up a professional Facebook or MySpace page? Kids would LOVE to be "friends" with you on Facebook. I'm sure you'd have a huge following! BONUS: After a couple of years you might have more than 1,000 friends! (How many people can boast that?)
But, on a more important note, Facebook and MySpace are becoming prominent means of communication in your students parents' lives, as well. I witnessed just last week a post by a parent who wrote on the wall of her child's 3rd grade teacher, "If possible could you let Meghan sit closer to the front. She says she is have trouble seeing things far away. We are going to make her an appointment with the eye doctor. Please feel free to contact me for any reason. Thanks." You might be thinking, wow, couldn't she have sent that on email? Yes, probably, but she felt comfortable letting her know on Facebook, so now Meghan sits closer to the front because of one simple communication.
Facebook and MySpace can be used for a variety of different objectives. For example, on Facebook you can create a Mrs. Jones Parent Group, where your child's parents sign up and you can message out to them about special things going on in class, field trips they can volunteer for, and other miscellaneous things such as when supplies are getting low. You can also create a Fan Page for your class, as well. You can post student work on both Facebook and MySpace, and you can "tag" the parents in the work so that they can brag to their friends. I'd bet you'd have a lot more parent involvement!
