From the age of 7, I was raised by my aunt and uncle. Other family and relatives with whom I had interaction included my younger brother, my grandfather, another aunt and uncle and their son, my cousin. My mother and father were divorced and lived literally on opposite sides of the country &endash; my mother in Florida and my father in California. I grew up in Maryland with legal guardians rather than my birth parents. In the twenty-two years I lived with my aunt and uncle, I saw my father maybe five times and my mother, maybe fifteen. My aunt checked my homework, attended PTA meetings, parent conferences, and worked at fund raisers. My uncle frequently assisted me with Science Fair projects and the construction of dioramas for books I had read. My aunt and uncle were involved in my education.
I mention these things because I am trying to decide whether this assignment should address "parent involvement" or "family involvement". In my case, the former would have been impossible. Since so many children do not live with both parents (or either) but instead, are raised by persons other than their parents, it seems that the latter might be preferable. In many cultures extended families are common and expected to be involved in child rearing. A recent book (Henderson & Berla, 1994) goes into detail with over 150 studies of the effects of parental involvement in their children's education.
Traditionally, parent involvement in education has included home-based activities (helping with homework, encouraging children to read, promoting school attendance) and school-based activities (attending PTA meetings, parent-teacher conferences, school events, fund raisers, volunteering at school during the day). How do these activities differ from what is expected with "community involvement?" The Center for the Study of Alternative Futures offers some thoughts and answers.
The current technology environment, however threatening it might seem, nevertheless has real possibilities for bringing community, parents, and their children together in new ways. One of the most exciting is the World Wide Web. Time/Warner and Disney have both recently established online parenting sites that offer recipes, health care, educational advice, and feature articles with titles like, "Is Kindergarten Getting Too Hard?", and, "The Magic of Reading. Other electronically offered opportunities for parents to be involved are chat rooms (including foster, and single parent chat), news groups, and email. Some believe that "community" is what many adults are looking for, and finding, on the Web.
San Diego City Schools' 10th annual Parent Involvement Conference took place at Crawford High School on Saturday, November 15th (Hebert, J. 1997). 1500 people registered for the event this year, up from 1000 in 1995 and 750 in 1990. With over 80 workshops offered in eight different languages, the goal of the conference was to encourage parents to be more involved in their children's education. Two keynote speakers made presentations at the conference, Jonah Edelman, the executive director of Stand for Children, a national child advocacy organization and Dr. Samuel Ortiz, an assistant professor of counseling and school psychology at San Diego State University. The school district is trying to find ways for parents and their children to work together throughout the child's entire school experience not just once or twice a year.
Many of the attendees have volunteered at their child's school for as long as the child has been a student. Other parents work or have household demands that keep them from being involved in the schools. Of course, "being involved" can take many forms. Some parents are being trained to become Parent Technology Leaders. Some parents are working to develop and implement acceptable use policies (AUP). Other parents are are actually visiting all the schools in their districts and creating a report card of the school's effectiveness.
At the east campus of Gompers Secondary School, the parents take over the classrooms when their children go out for recess (Hebert, J. 1997). Monday thru Thursday the school offers English classes to the parents and on Fridays there are U.S. citizenship classes. The exciting thing about this program is the cooperation between the parents and the school. The parents take care of the children themselves by rotating out of the classes for 30 minutes at a time and then returning to class. To effect change, parents must find time to participate in their children's education while schools must provide the supports necessary for them to be involved.
Schools are now being targeted by multi-billion dollar cyberspace vendors, who want us believe that their marketing success qualifies them to run our schools. If educators and parents give up their authority to such vendors, it could bring educational "reform" that no one expected. Technological innovation is too important to be left to the technologists.
If you were at Comdex '97 in Las Vegas recently, you might have seen the booth for TECH CORPS. TECH CORPS is a non-profit organization whose members advise and assist schools in the integration of new technologies. Forty states presently have chapters and some of the organizations sponsors include: Digital Equipment Corporation, the MCI Foundation, and Computerworld, Inc. Volunteers conduct teacher training seminars, mentor students and staff, repair and install computers, participate on technology planning teams, and assist teachers with the integration of technology into the curriculum. School needs and volunteer expertise determine exactly what the volunteer will be doing. School districts need to petition to become registered sites but individuals can register here.
A nationwide event, now in its third year and directed at community involvement, is NetDay. NetDay is a volunteer effort to wire schools and connect them to the Internet. Parents, teachers, students, and school employees provide the labor. Sponsors of the program provide technical and financial support. Event leaders claim more than 2,300 sponsors, 27,000 volunteers, and 4,700 organizers were involved in bringing technology to the students (Morgridge, 1997).
Not everyone agrees that this is a "classic American barn-raising" as the organizers call it. Robert F.Tinker, president of Concord Consortium, Inc., a Concord, MA-based not-for-profit research group studying the uses of technology in education, praises the school-wiring events for focusing attention on the role of technology in the schools but thinks the schools will not know what to do with it after that.
Established by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, the National Network of Partnership-2000 Schools brings together schools, districts, and states that are committed to developing and maintaining strong programs of school-family-community partnerships. Involving "hard-to-reach" families and finding money for parent involvement programs are issues addressed by the partnership. Additionally, your questions and successful ideas are actively solicited.
One, possibly obvious, way for parents to be involved with their children's use of technology at home is by controlling what the children are doing on the Internet. This can be accomplished in a number of ways (Carlson, M. 1996).
- Parents could begin by scouting the web and "bookmarking" sites for their children's use. The child might even be involved in the selection process.
- Use a commercially available "blocking software" such as CyberPatrol
- Replace the browser's home page with one you create and configure it with kid friendly sites
- Plan a "family night online" by picking a theme (planning a trip?) and exploring together
- Build your own home page
Protecting children from pornography and violence is important but there is another predator that does not seem as sinister. Advertising targeted at children uses manipulative techniques to prey on an unsuspecting and vulnerable market. The problem is not so much one of selling Anastasia related products but Absolute, not toys but tobacco.There is also the issue of privacy; collecting personal information from children without parental knowledge or permission. The Center for Media Education (CME) is working to inform the public about these areas of concern.
At some of these sites youth are drawn to the flashy "zine" layout offering information about music, movies, sports, and games. Alcohol brands like Miller™ beer are typical. To attract potential smokers, the Smoker's Home Page offers a rebuttal to CME's report (Absolute). When I visited SHP, I was told that I was visitor #60,803. That tells me I need to get involved.
The Center for Media Education recommends the following ways to get involved:
- Join CME's campaign to protect children from unfair and deceptive advertising on the Web.
- Write a letter or organize a letter-writing campaign to Chairman Robert Pitofsky,
asking the Federal Trade Commission to create safeguards.- Send email.
- Complain to companies that use deceptive practices to target children online.
Television is not a new technology but many people feel it has never lived up to its potential. In fact the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had to legislate that there be "at least" three (3) hours of educational and informational programming a week! The Children's Television Act (CTA), passed in 1990, was expected to change this but only a year later the required three hours was changed to 30 minutes! The evolution of the CTA shows how marketing and commercial interests are determining what our children see on TV. The FCC would love to get you involved and asks you to evaluate and offer feedback on television programming. You can even rate your local stations.
My first bicycling experiences occurred when I was about 7 years old. As I remember it, either training wheels were too expensive or hadn't been invented. Either way, I relied on my mother to balance the bicycle while I tried to reach the pedals and gather forward momentum. When I did get enough momentum for her to let go, she couldn't walk away or even just stand there. She had to run alongside, just in case she was needed again &endash; and she always was. Without my mother I couldn't have done it. Like my mother, I needed my aunt to "balance me" as I wobbled with homework. I needed my uncle to "run alongside me" at the local Science Fair. I needed my aunt and uncle to encourage me to attend college and show interest in my choice of a career.
Parental involvement is not something we can do without. It has been shown again and again to be the single most positive contribution to school success. There are many different forms and levels of involvement. Parents don't have to come to school to be involved. In fact, some parents may never enter the school and yet be very involved with their child's education Parent involvement means family involvement. Grandparents, aunts, uncles and even friends have taken over the role of parent. Parent involvement today means the involvement of every adult who has the responsibility for the well being of a child. If we asked Hillary Clinton who needed to be involved in a child's education, she would probably say, "It takes a village."
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Technology for School Decision Makers 
OttoMott@sprynet.com |
