My experience teaching in state schools certainly seemed to support the contention at the micro level of individual experience. However I have also seen situations in which there can be too much involvement from parents. This might involve the 'helicopter parent' behaviour in which children are not allowed the room to be themselves, to make their own mistakes, and take the consequences of inappropriate choices. It might also include that situation in which parents involve themselves overly in their children's' learning, completing work for them when it should be the children's work.
A recent work experience showed that the ubiquitous characteristic of e-learning tools seems to facilitate this behavior even more than before, or alternatively makes the same behaviour more obvious or transparent. After all haven't there always been parents who have to some degree 'done' the project or homework for their children? This specific experience involved a parent making direct edits of a student's work on Googledocs. Thank goodness for the 'See revision history' function.
So it seems that it is possible to have both too little and too much parent engagement.
It simply struck me that there must therefore be an 'optimal zone' in which you want this support to operate.
How would we measure it? No idea, but it's an interesting concept, and one that should engage us as professionals working in education. I do believe that it is a function of:
- school culture
- the degree of approachability of all professional members of the school community,
- the ways in which we report to the parent community (the frequency, the tone, the quality of commentary, the 'accessibility' of the language, and the layout of reports
- the friendliness, the sense of welcome at parent interview evenings
- the degree to which parents are made welcome at school functions
- The welcome that new members of the school community (students and parents) receive when they first approach or join the community
I think the list is much longer, but that will do for now.
