Title: Introduction: The Teacher as Everyday Advocate
Headings: Introduction: The Teacher as Everyday Advocate
Everyday Engagement
Introduction: The Teacher as Everyday Advocate
Finding a New Solution to a Familiar Challenge
Meaningful Engagement
Being the Difference, Being the Advocate
Requesting Permission

Content: Encouraging parent partnership doesn't mean tallying the number of hours parents are in the school building each week or teaching parents how to teach reading. What it means is cultivating a welcoming atmosphere for parents, just as we create a welcoming atmosphere for our students. It means giving parents comfortable and significant ways to participate in the schooling process in the same way we aim to give our students meaningful and appropriate work to help them master academic goals and other classroom challenges. Meaningful Engagement
One of the most valuable lessons I've learned as a teacher is that all students need to feel seen and known. Before they will fully engage their minds in the classroom, they need to believe that their teacher has an understanding of who they are. Involving parents in and out of the classroom provides a way for teachers to complete the full picture of who students are by capturing the personal details that can fall through the sieve of students' school records, anecdotes from previous teachers, and the face students present in the classroom. For me, the real breakthrough came when I realized that parents, too, need to be seen and known. The same five elements that are essential to engaging students in the educational process are critical to engaging their parents: Laying the groundwork for engagement: Recognizing that each student and each parent is a unique individual and finding a way for every person to contribute to a positive learning environment.