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In the Classroom
When you’re a teacher—and a parent
This issue’s cover story addresses the impact of parental involvement on a child’s education and the importance of good communication between home and school. Many educators are parents themselves, and they fill both roles simultaneously.
Three ATPE members shared with us how this duality
has helped them swap perspectives and priorities to improve outcomes for their kids—both the ones at
home and the ones at school.
Discipline at home
Wayne Boring of Hearne ATPE is a former firefighter who came to the teaching profession after his kids were grown. Now that he’s in the classroom, he has gained a different perspective on his grandchildren’s behavior. “Sometimes you find out that the way your child acts at home is not the way he acts at school where he has an audience,” Boring says. “You have to ask
a lot of questions to get to the bottom of a problem situation.”
Advocating for your child
Like most parents, Susan Lockhart of Austin ATPE has had plenty of challenges with her children. But being a teacher made all the difference when it came to advocating for her youngest child, who was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) during her junior year of high school. Lockhart says that if she had not been a teacher, she wouldn’t have known the importance of getting detailed accommodations listed in her daughter’s Individualized Education Program (IEP). Seeing how much her daughter struggled with school before
her diagnosis has made Lockhart a diligent advocate for her students. “It’s
hard to sit down with parents and show them the checklist that indicates
their child has ADD,” Lockhart says. “But I let them know I’ve been there with my own kids, and that helps take some of the stigma out of it.”
Empathy in the classroom
All of the teachers interviewed for this article said that being parents has helped them be more understanding of their students. Gay Becker of Crandall ATPE learned a specific and long-lasting lesson about empathy from her son, who was one of her students. On the drive home from school one day, he pointed out to her that she had a tendency to go on too long when correcting a student’s behavior. He told her she should say something once and then
let it go. Becker remembers her son saying: “You go on and on and then forget about it and act like nothing ever happened. But he still remembers what you said, and it hurts his feelings.” Her son’s words stuck with her, and now she reminds herself to let things go. “I realized that when I say something once, I’m criticizing the behavior,” Becker says. “But if I keep at it, I’m criticizing the person, and that’s not right.”
Communicating with parents
Lockhart learned the importance of ongoing communication from her daughter’s teacher. “He called me at least once a week, every single week, with some bad news,” she remembers. “I hated those phone calls, but they made me realize that my daughter had more than a fleeting problem and that we needed to address it.” Making calls home to parents is admittedly not one of Lockhart’s favorite teaching responsibilities—but her experience as a mother taught her that more than one or two calls are needed when a serious problem exists.
Working with teachers
Diplomacy comes in handy when a
co-worker’s child causes disruptions in class. Boring says: “The advantage of having the parents right on campus is that you can invite them to stop by the classroom unannounced and see the behavior for themselves. That will usually solve the problem pretty quickly.” The flip side is that teachers can be harsh critics of the teaching strategies used by colleagues with their children. “Sometimes you have to remind yourself to be more modest,” Becker says. “Your way of doing things isn’t the only way.”
The balancing act
Every working parent has to juggle priorities, and it’s no different for educators. There will be many days
when the kids in your classroom will get more of your time and energy than the kids at home, and some days your family will trump the stack of papers that need grading. Lockhart’s advice to teachers who are new to being parents (or parents who are new to being teachers) is to give yourself permission to say “no” without feeling guilty.
Doggie do-gooders
Dogs are man’s best friend, as the saying goes, but to children with special needs, they can be even more than that. They can be assistants.
The concept of Seeing Eye dogs first came to the United States in the years following World War I after dog trainer Dorothy Harrison Eustis saw dogs assisting blind veterans in Switzerland. But it wasn’t until the 1970s that dogs began to be used as service animals by people with other types of physical disabilities. Recently, dogs have even been trained to assist people with conditions such as diabetes, epilepsy, migraines and social/emotional disorders.
Service dogs also assist children with autism. Dogs are trained to calm children with autism when they become overwhelmed and to keep them from wandering off. If the child strays, the dog will alert the child’s parents.
Educators are even bringing dogs into the regular classroom to improve reading skills. Children read aloud to their canine reading buddies, who are trained to listen and sit still. Frisco ISD recently implemented an after-school pilot program of this kind with encouraging results; students participating in Paws for Reading seem to be more confident and have a newfound eagerness to read aloud.
The types of service dogs mentioned here are trained specifically for their responsibilities. Bringing a dog into an educational setting comes with some potential drawbacks; allergy, safety and liability issues must be evaluated. School administrators must consider all students when deciding if it will be beneficial to allow a service animal on campus.
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