Recognize that all parents are a significant force in their child’s education. Call on parents for advice, help, support, and critical evaluation.
Project for parents a realistic picture of what school, even the best school, can accomplish. School is not a super-institution; it has limited, achievable goals and objectives. Discuss these openly with parents.
Keep parents informed about what’s happening in school; provide an outline of the month’s or year’s work; write down your philosophy and goals as a teacher, the philosophy of the school. Put as much of this information as possible into readable written material for distribution to parents.
Offer a variety of school-parent programs and materials which aim to build home-school educational partnerships. Some will be mainly social; others will have a more direct teaching purpose. Find ways to reach parents who cannot come to school.
Show parents you care about their child. Make a phone call occasionally, or write a note home when the child is doing well, not just when a youngster is in trouble.
Tell parents how they can help their children at home. Provide clearly written home teaching activities that supplement the work of the school. Keep looking for a variety of ways to involve parents as educational partners.
Tap the resources of the home: the materials, ideas, expertise that all parents have in different areas. Send a questionnaire, make calls, set up a parent-teaching idea bank. In this way, you will be building up the self-esteem that parents themselves need in order to fulfill their role as home teachers.
Expect parents to question, to give advice, to look over your shoulder. Listen to parents at conferences. If necessary, encourage them to talk.
Hold school doors open to parents for visiting or personal conferences. Know your community and its resources well enough that you can refer parents to other social institutions when the help that is needed for the child and his family is not available in the school.
Trust yourself and your common sense. Show respect for your parents by being yourself, not some superhuman model of a teacher who knows all and never makes a mistake.
