Parental participation is very important to a child’s education. Teachers are required to collaborate with parents in the pursuit of academic achievements with their students. Through this collaboration, parents are able to create a favorable home learning environment hence offering support in reinforcing lessons learned in school. Unfortunately, most parents become disengaged the school matters and in some cases, they may appear disinterested in their child’s education. This paper discusses three barriers to a successful partnership between parents and teachers and a brief explanation on how to deal with these particular barriers.
The primary barrier to a successful partnership between parents and teachers is lack of time. It is important to note that this obstacle prevents parental involvement since they cannot engage in attending committees, appearing in meetings and also volunteering in school activities. The second barrier is language differences for parents whose primary language is not English, mostly immigrants. For those who English is their second language, they may not understand fliers and newsletters hence they may not know how local systems operate. This becomes a hindrance, not because of negligence, but rather lack of knowledge and understanding. Finally, the third obstacle is the lack of communication between teachers and parents. A difference in expectations and misunderstanding between these two parties may be very detrimental and as such, it may lead to an uncertain and unsubstantiated relationship.
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Since barriers prevent parents and teachers from sharing ideas or exchanging information concerning a particular child, there is a need to find strategies to overcome these barriers. Time barrier can be controlled by enabling the teacher to be flexible in scheduling meetings and events. Teachers can also create an occasional meeting potluck to meet working parents. In order to deal with the language barrier, teachers should request their schools to assist in providing interpreters at workshops and meetings so that foreign parents can understand the issues being conversed.
To deal with the communication barrier, teachers should contact students’ parents on a regular basis. This will make parents become more involved in their child’s education because they will understand that for their children to succeed they are required to participate in academic matters.
