In October of this year, I had the opportunity to connect with educators who were doing a district-wide book study on Learner-Centered Innovation. When I was planning to come to meet with the educators who were reading the book, Effey the instructional coach who organized it all, asked if I’d be willing to meet with some parents. I think I surprised her with how emphatically I screamed, yes!

Here’s why: I’m a mom so I spend a lot of time in the neighborhood, on the sidelines of sporting events, hanging out with my other mom friends during our “book club” (which ironically, we haven’t discussed a book in over a year) talking to my friends about our kids- our hopes, dreams, frustrations.

I hear other parents when they are frustrated trying to keep up with it all talk about the stupid homework or how late they stayed up doing the 4th grade mission project with/ for their kid, getting tutors because their kid is different and didn’t learn to read through osmosis or the math doesn’t make sense, but most of all worrying/ hoping/ wondering if our kids are alright? Are they happy? Are they developing the skills they need to be successful or are they going to live in my house forever? For real though, my number one goal is that Abby and Zack are happy, self-sufficient, and good people but if I am honest, the path there isn’t always crystal clear.

As many of you know I’m also an educator (and so is my husband) so I hear teachers and administrators talk about parents and say things like if they were only more involved, or sometimes less involved, or I have to because “they” expect homework, only care about reading levels, or good grades etc. you know how it goes….

So back to Effey’s question about working with parents and my very excited, YES!I couldn’t wait to talk with educators and then parents, who are working so hard and giving so much and illuminate what I had been hearing in these siloed conversations so we can better work together instead of the pointing fingers and feeling like we have to maintain the status quo because of what “they” want. It’s worth pointing out that although I’m mostly focusing on families and educators here but teachers and administrators do the same thing to each other- I’ll save that for another blog post. 

Here’s how it went:

Workshop 1: Teachers & Admin

In the morning I talked with teachers and admin who asked great questions shared awesome examples and inspired some new thinking for us all. Of course, we also dove into challenges: time, curriculum, resources, and finally they shared: the parents expect us to send homework, they only care about reading levels and how their child does on the test. I wrote all there concerns down and told them I was going to talk with parents after our meeting a would share these challenges and find out of these things were in fact true. They also wanted parents to know that doing their kids homework wasn’t helpful, it’s ok to make mistakes, and they would rather see kids work hard and grow from challenges not expect perfection.

Workshop 2: Families

When the families came in we started by discussing their hopes and dreams for their kids. Guess what?? They shared things that I have heard from many other parents. They want their kids to be kind, resourceful, problem solvers, critical thinkers, hard workers, not live in the basement forever, happy, etc.I then shared what the teachers felt that parents wanted/ expected: test scores, homework, good grades… Through a variety of activities, we unpacked the disconnect between our hopes and dreams and our words and actions. There were tears, there were moments of clarity and there were a lot more questions.When the families looked at what they wanted compared to their comments and questions showed they valued, the realization was this: our aspirations for our children are inhibited by our own beliefs and experiences. We want them to be able to chart their path forward but we are still living by the norms from our past.

Meeting 3: Teachers and Administrators

When I met with the teachers in the afternoon, I asked them to write down their hopes and dreams for their students. Not surprisingly, the list was the same as the families. I highlighted the shared goals and the growing disconnect in our assumptions about what others think we should be doing it expect of us. At the end of our workshop, the families made posters for the teachers telling them how they trusted and supported them… Yup, more tears. 

The Path Forward

I share this experience because I find it happens more and more and I believe that the path forward is coming together as families, educators, and industry as communities to share our collective hopes and dreams for our students and work together to create a system and experiences that will get us there.There are many great things that happen in our schools every day that should be celebrated and shared and there are many things that we do because we have always done them.My fear is that we will continue to operate based on our past experiences of what schools should be and what success is, and fail to come together to have difficult conversations about what it could be. If we continue making decisions based on assumptions of what others expect instead what is the most effective for our kids today, this disconnect will keep us from achieving our hopes and dreams.