Connecting Communities and the Curriculum

Connecting Communities and the Curriculum Parental involvement is crucial to the proper education of our children, especially in the public education system where the curriculum is created by the government mandated by NCLB. Parents need to know what their children are learning and how decisions are made concerning their child’s education. In recent news we have seen a college professor ask students to “Stomp” on Jesus written on a piece of paper. http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/top-stories/jesus-stomp-professor-put-on-leave.html. A Texas school is teaching that the Boston Tea Party Was an Act of Terrorism. http://houston.cbslocal.com/2012/11/23/texas-schools-teaching-boston-tea-party-as-terrorist-act/. Not to mention adding your political biased to the lesson http://foxnewsinsider.com/2013/04/12/school-crosswords-definition-of-conservatism-outrages-mom/. Things like these happen when there is a lack of involvement from parents and the community. Too many parents take for granted that what is being taught in the schools is in their child’s best interest, and they may believe teachers will remain neutral on subjects like religion and politics, but that does not always happen. We should not have to bribe parents to attend parent teacher meetings http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/31/chicago-schools-bribe-parents-gift-card_n_2049624.html or IEP meetings they should be mandatory and parents should want to come.

The question is how do we get more involvement from our parents, guardians and community? When schools, parents/guardians and communities work together to support education students tend to get higher grades. Involvement can simply mean parenting, communicating, volunteering, learning at home, decision making, and collaborating with the community. Living in a rural area getting involvement is difficult from every point, there are fewer businesses, conflicting parental schedules, some parents do not have transportation, and we have a great deal of students living with grandparents and in foster homes. I believe that the internet is the answer to getting the message out there about what is going on and what needs to be done to help promote education in our community. FaceBook is currently blocked from most school systems for many reasons but social networks can be beneficial to providing information about school to everyone involved. Setting up a school social network with links to individual classrooms and teachers would be a wonderful tool, if used properly. There have been so many times I have wanted to find out what is going on at the school but the school websites are rarely updated and I can never find the information. The Social Network could consist of students (middle and High school levels), parents, community leaders, business, school personnel, higher education institutions, and anyone else involved. A daily “Did you Know?” post from the principal could contain information on policies and procedures and events that are happening. Have a fund raising page, most fundraisers have links to online purchasing now, so they can post the links to all the fundraisers happening and include information on what the money is being used for so anyone and everyone can donate where they want. There are endless ideas for a exclusive school social network. The main thing we need to remember is to make sure parents and guardians know how important their role is in the education of their children. Teachers alone cannot provide a well-rounded plethora of knowledge, children need to learn from everyone in their lives, everyone has something to teach whether they know it or not.

More on Social Networks and Schools…http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2010/06/16/03networking.h03.html

I love TED Ideas worth spreading; this shows how children want to learn no matter what, especially when it is technology….. http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_build_a_school_in_the_cloud.html