When reading the article "The Daily Grind" I found the statement, "The school attendance of children is such a common experience in our society that those of us who watch them go hardly pause to consider what happens to them when they get there." Parents are interested in how well their child does there and the conversations that are brought up when a child is asked how their days was at school are focused around the grades that they made or who the new kid in class was. How, as teachers, can we pull the attention away from that to where a child wants to tell their parents about the more important things that they did that day like completing their math worksheets and beginning to read a new book? So much more goes on in the classroom that gets overlooked and it is time this came to an end.

I tended to tell my parents the same thing as mentioned above. However, I also included anything fun I did at school. This included painting a still-life in art class, starting "Great Expectations" in English, or playing in a basketball tournment in P.E. My parents are not teachers, but one of my grandmothers was a 4th grade teacher for 33 years. I can remember her asking specifics on what I was learning in high school because she said so much had changed since she started teaching. It is also up to us to get the parents and guardians of our students involved in our school through newsletters about the class, a teacher webpage, or anything else that allows the parents and guardians an inside look at the material we are teaching to their children.

The way to get students to tell their parents about what they are doing in class is to make classes more exciting and interesting. I believe that doing things beyond the norm is the way to get students to become more engaged in their academic careers. If we can get students to become more engaged, then they will be more apt to talk to their parents about what is going on in the classroom. I have several ideas of this. For example, dividing up the class into two groups over a topic of great importance. For example, I am a history major. I would use this method to set up a seminar where one side of the class was a proponent for secession of the Southern states from 1860-1865. Then, I would have the other side of the class be a proponent for perserving the Union. In this way, each student would become more engaged in the activity and thus would report it back to their parents. Newsletters, webpages, etc. are good ideas for the future, but it puts more pressures on a teacher and would be extremely difficult to achieve in the first year of teaching.

After reading that article I found myself asking the same question to myself. After thinking about it, I feel as though we can get kids to talk more about school by engaging them in activities that were not of the "norm" and were truly a great learning experince for them. Instead of just reading a book to a 1st grade class and asking them what they thought about it, we need to make that book truly meaningful to them by asking them to reenact the book or something of that sort. Otherwise, don't read the book at all. The kids really need to connect with something so that they will still remember it after the hours passed and it is time to go home.

I strongly agree with the above responses. With both of my parents being educators growing up, I was daily asked how my day at school was and what had I learned; as a child, just to avoid a drawn-out conversation, like other children, I would respond "nothing", but as educators my parents knew better and would pry me to talk about my day. I think it is of great importance that parents are involved in their child's education and unfortunately our society is seeing less of that these days. I agree, that doing activites that the child will relate to or find exciting is one of the ways that we can encourage children to talk to thier parents about their education. For example, I was always nervous to tell my parents about the grades that I made, but it was the projects or field trips that I remember and would be excited to go home and discuss with my parents. Another good idea that I have seen teachers do, is to create a 'class newspaper' (especially in the elementary classrooms) that is given at the beginning of the week, which gives parents an idea of what their child will be discovering/learning throughout the week. I totally agree that a parent can never become too involved in their child's education!

I think that it is extremely important for parents to know what their child is doing in school. Even though when I got to more complex things in high school, like Pre-Calculus, my parents didn't know what I was talking about when I would tell them what I had learned, they still supported me and encouraged me to do my best.

I don't think it's a matter of the parents knowing the material that the children are learning. I think it's a matter of whether or not the parents are involved enough in their children's lives as to encourage them to succeed.

I agree with Paula. It is not likely that everyone of our students will have parents that can help them with their work or understand what they are doing. As long as those parents suppport their children and show interest in their accomplishments at school, their is success.