Critical Reflection Paper

Mary Spanos

October 3, 2016

 

Upon watching the movie “Waiting for “Superman”” I was deeply disturbed by the amount of children that the system failed.  I saw in examples that indicate that tenure educators are hindering the success of our education system.  Although I understand the unions’ beginnings, I feel that over time the system has become corrupt and has become the type of job that once attained, one no longer need to apply themselves.  Of course, this does not apply to the masses, however it is happening.   This film also had an underlying common denominator with all the parents and caregivers that were followed.  Parental involvement was the most impressive as each and every parent or guardian present gave everything they had to make sure their child succeeded. The sat and read, discussed or monitored homework contacted their child’s teachers for feedback. This posed a question in my head, how does Parental involvement affect students’ performance?   There were two examples in which one single mother was a college graduate and the other was a guardian of her grandson with little to no education.  The both had the same goals, drive and determination to help that child succeed and it was apparent by the child’s desire that they understood the reasoning of applying themselves and worked hard to achieve good grades.

 

Parental Involvement includes several forms of participation such as attending school functions, providing encouragement, arranging for appropriate time for homework and monitoring their progress and assessing their weakness (Cotton & Wilelund, 1989, pg 1, 2). They are the child’s advocate. Researchers have found that the more active forms of parent involvement produces greater achievement benefits than a more passive parental approach (Cotton& Wilelund, 1989, pg 4). 

 

You might argue that almost all of the individuals in movie “Waiting for Superman” were located in low-income neighborhoods with the exception of one.  Researchers have found that parent involvement supports students learning behavior and attitudes regardless of factors such as parents income, education level, and whether or not the parents are employed.  All parent involvement works regardless to the benefit of the child (Cotton & Wilelund 1989, pg.5). Researchers discovered that minority or low income parents are often misrepresented among the ranks of parent involved schools. There are multiple reasons, lack of time due to job responsibilities, energy, embarrassment about ones owns education, communication difficulties, lack of acceptance by teachers and the assumption of parents inability to help with children’s schooling (Cotton &Wilelund 1989, pg. 7). In the movie we saw a mother that appeared to only speak Spanish and that the father spoke English.  Had she been a single mother would the system fail her? Would she be able to assist her daughter with her school work? She would not be able to understand any of the literature or any of the parent conferences or the home work to provide adequate parent involvement, which would then put her child in a disadvantage.  It has been found that in low-income communities the parents were less familiar with the school curriculum, engaged less in teaching at home and attended less school events. They also have stated that they have been more concerned with meeting their child’s basic needs for clothing, emotional support, socializing manners and they deferred education to the teachers (Drummond & Stipek, 2004, Pg. 198). 

 

In the movie Geoffrey Canada mentioned “Baby School” and allowing parents to expose children to basic concepts from birth on in order to prepare those entering public schools.  Many children did not meet basic qualifications in order to keep up with some of the other students.  I had always heard of the “Head Start Program” and it wasn’t till this video that I looked into it further.  It was a program that was started in 1965 to promoter readiness of young children from low income families though agencies in their communities for children birth to 5 years old.  However, even though these wonderful programs exist, the skills they learned to help them keep up with other peers in other communities dissipate by the end of grade 1, leading us to believe that either parents, educators or both are failing the students (Ho, 2001, Pg 17).  Part of the reason why the Head Start program is so effective in bringing students up to speed is that the program is heavily focused on parental involvement (Ho, 2001, Pg. 18).  Another initiative was the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) which reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) to design and implement parental involvement programs.  However, they never had a uniform plan on how to implement this and each area was initiating their own programs that had no quantifiable results so that is still not producing the type of change that is needed  (Washington, 2011, pg 18).

 

The Movie kept discussing drop out factors and how many of them will never graduate and most of them will end up in jail, and the cost of jail is exponentially larger than investing in a good education from the beginning.  Although I do believe that a good foundation is important and that we do have to fund more programs in school, it has been found that parental involvement has a major role in adolescent truancy and delinquency (Hu, 2002).   

I would like to say that a parent is a child first teacher; I know this as my son was nonverbal till three.  I taught him sign language in order to have him be able to express himself.  There was no teacher around to help him learn this only me, when he approached school age I made sure I had the tools to make sure he was ready, the alphabet, his name, numbers shapes, I taught him all that. I sit with my children during homework to make sure they finish it and review it and if it is wrong I assist them.  I am fortunate I am home when I they get home but I know many other parents that do homework at 8 pm cause that is when they can help.  I know non-English speaking parents that barter services so their children can go to a friend’s house to do homework with a mother that understands English.  I know that our system is corrupt and there are a lot of teachers that need move on but I think we are missing the big picture.  I think the bigger picture is the community.  I have always lived by the motto “It takes a Village” and I feel that in the education system, the parents and teachers need to work closer together. More programs need to be in place to assist parents that don’t have the means to help their children, whether that is free voluntary after school programs that help parents make sure children understand and complete their homework in a more relaxed environment, or programs to help parents understand the material.  The other point that has not been discussed that in more affluent areas many parents hire tutors to ensure their children make “the grade” this definitely changes the ability for all children to be equal.  This can be seen as money replacing part of their parental involvement.

In conclusion I found this movie very insightful and have recommended it to some of my friends; it really gets you wanting to change the world for these kids, either by being a better teacher and wanting to work in these communities or be the one to implement community change.  It has offered a perspective that I would not be able to see as I am not in a low-income community.  I told my children how fortunate they are to have the schools they go to and all their wonderful teachers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References:

1.       Cotton, Kathleen, & Wikelund, Karen Reed, (1989) Parent Involvement in Education, 1-17,retrieved by Google Scholar http://www.nwrel.org/scpd/sirs/3/cu6.html

 

2.       Drummond, Kathryn V, & Stipek, Deborah (2004), Low-Income Parents’ Beliefs about Their Role in Children’s Academic Learning, The Elementary School Journal, Vol 104, No 3, 197-213

3.       Ho, Hsiang-Yeh (2011), Effects, Attributes, and Predictions of Parental Involvement During Early Transition: Does Race/Ethnicity Matter? Evidence from the faces 1997 Cohort (Doctoral dissertation), University of Pittsburgh, School of Education, 1-122 Retrieved from Google Scholar (UMI 3472017)

4.       Washington, Alandra, (2011),A National Study of Parental Involvement: Its Trends, Status and Effects on School Success (Doctoral Dissertation),Western Michigan University,1-206, Retrieved using Google Scholar

 

5.       Xu, Jiangmin, (2002), A Longitudinal Study of the Effects of the Parental Involvement on Adolescent Deviant Behavior (Doctoral dissertation), Brigham Young University,1-172, Retrieved by Google Scholar ( UMI 3077576)

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