Last year I had the alternate pleasure and pain of being involved in a parent participation school. Pleasure because I loved to interact with the children and the parents and we had lovely, lovely teachers. Pain because I had to coordinate a large renovation of said preschool, and large renovations are never fun.
We’re going to a parent participation school two mornings a week this school year. My daughter will be doing this part time when I work. Combined with an ample dose of homelearning and a nature co-op that we’re running, this will be our fall. I’m looking forward to it now, and it’s feeling a little more manageable.
As children get older, the opportunities to be involved in their education in certain ways drops. Of course our local school wants parent volunteers. However, many of the teachers there are not overly keen to have parents in the classroom. Parents can volunteer to shelve books in the library or organize school lunches. While these are worthy tasks, in some classrooms the opportunity for parents to share their skills and work with the students is just not there.
In our parent participation preschool and school, parents are welcomed into the classroom. They help with the kids, they share their skills, and a community forms. It’s not just a community of children and teachers, it’s a community of families. Everyone gets to share and learn together.
It takes a great teacher to invite parents into the classroom in this way. As someone who teaches, I understand that it can be intimidating to see a lot of adults in the classroom, because it can feel like they’re judging you. Maybe they are, and maybe they aren’t. Most likely, they’re admiring your skills and glad of the opportunity to be involved in their children’s lives.
I wish that all education were like this. If it was, our family would feel so much more comfortable being part of a school system, because it wouldn’t be a school system any more. It would be a family system that embraces children and the adults who support them. It would be a part of the community that welcomes and asks for parents’ meaningful involvement in their children’s learning. That’s what we’re looking for in any kind of learning experience, whether it’s homelearning or schooling.