I just replied to a tweet from Amanda DeCardy about her school’s Parent-Teacher-Student Portal. This is something that comes hot on the heels of posts from Kim Cofino and Silvia Tolisano about the coffee mornings that they are hosting at their schools for parents to come and discuss what is going on with the collaborative projects etc in their respective schools.

I have been doing a lot of thinking and discussing with people lately about how the students and the parents are starting to gain momentum for cutting schools out when they begin to lose relevance. Naturally we see more of this in the US and Europe with the growth in the home schooling movement but something similar is happening in Asian schools were kids rush out of the school and head to an after school class.

Whilst, in many cases these after school classes are “cram classes” which are based around rote learning and couldn’t be further from 21st C Learning, there are more and more offering “creative learning“. Parents are starting to pick up on the fact that their children need more than the basic skills to be effective.

In the lead up to the Hong Kong 21st C Conference, I have been having a lot of discussions with regional educators about whether their schools have any funds to send them to conferences. I am always surprised by many well-equipped schools that do not spend funds on PD. Here is a discussion I had with David Carpenter from Taiwan last week:

I think you have a great idea going straight to the parents and putting the students out as the “sales people” sharing sharing their desires to be in Learning 2.0 schools. We spoke a little about this on the last SOS podcast with Andy Torris. Though we were not as direct in pointing this idea out, we do find ourselves saying that the students at some point are going to bypass the regular school program and make their own. Part of going to the parents is having them describe the skills they look for in employees and in citizens. I think the list most parents would agree upon are the 21st century skills we are trying to incorporate into our schools.

When we explain that just doing well on standardized testing mainly incorporates low level Bloom’s Taxonomy thinking skills, parents will demand that the higher order skills be a larger part of the program. Then the students can educate the parents as to what shifted instructional and assessment strategies get them to analyze, synthesize and create.

Remembering back to the SOS podcast with you, I think we now have an answer for the schools that don’t have the administrative leadership to shift their schools. One works with shifted teachers and interested students to design parent meetings and coffees to discuss what the parents want for learning outcomes with students as they share their insights and examples of constructivist and collaborative learning projects. The newly educated parents are then empowered to demand changes in the school.

David is commenting about some comments I made about schools where the leadership is not really wanting to shift mainly due to the fact that they think that the parents are not supportive of teaching that is not traditional and specifically geared towards maximising points on a standardised test at all costs.

I aware that parent involvement is not all smooth sailing. There is an excellent series of 4 articles on this topic in Public School Insights. The whole 4 are worth reading for perspective but they are a little more focussed on a discussion of urban and rural US schools and under performance of groups than about 21st C learning.

How Much Parent Involvement Do Educators Really Want?

Parent Involvement or Parent Engagement? This article in particular outlines a model for building relationships with parents and not just feeding them information in a one-way mode.

Education is Becoming More Consumer-Driven Which gives teachers the imperative in terms of the option of parents choosing other options if we decided not to engage them.

Building Community Trust in Urban Schools is Hard Work

These articles do a great job of pointing out that, like everything, we cannot just “say we want parent involvement” and then run a few information evenings and check the box. We need to build in regular, ongoing opportunities for parents to learn about the new models of learning for a new century and ensure that everyone is on the same page when it comes to maximising authentic learning opportunities for students.

What about your school? Do you think that the parents might “get it” more than some of the management? Do you have opportunities for parents to come in and discuss the direction that learning is taking in the school?