On My Mind: My Parent Involvement Stinks!

Over the past two years, I have spent a lot of time studying parent engagement and researching ways to improve the home-school connection.  I can give you a bazillion reason from the TEACHER'S perspective as to why family involvement in a student's education is essential.

This fall, I became the PARENT of a student and gained a new perspective.  My daughter started taking weekly drawing classes.  Before the classes began, I received an email from the teacher listing the supplies my child would need.  Although the list was in English, I had no idea what some of the items were like a flare pen or an art portfolio.  Thankfully, the teacher purchased all of the supplies and I just had to write a check.  

After the first day of class, my five-year-old walked to the car with a grocery sack of supplies and a very large one of these:

This is an art portfolio!  Can you tell I never took drawing classes growing up?

The teacher had mentioned previously that there would be weekly sketch assignments so, on our way home, I asked my daughter about her homework.  She didn't remember hearing anything about homework.

And I believed her.  

I thought about emailing the teacher to ask but I had already asked about what to do with the supplies in the grocery bag and I didn't want to be one of "those parents" that constantly bug the teacher.

In subsequent weeks, my daughter remembered her homework assignments most of the time.  Every week, I reminded her to do her homework (typically the day/night before drawing class).  She would do the sketching in our living room or kitchen while I cooked dinner or worked on the computer.  I would praise her efforts but did not intervene because I really had no idea what she was learning in class.  At times, I thought about sitting down with her and drawing my own sketch alongside her but then decided against it.  After all, I'm not the teacher!  I figured it was better for her to do her own work and let the teacher see what she could really do on her own.

Every Monday, I helped her strap on her backpack with supplies and I carried that large, brown portfolio to the door of her class.  Not once did it occur to me to open that portfolio...

Yes, I'm a horrible parent!  I'm sure it would have occurred to you!  Well, sometime in mid-November, I grew curious about what might be in that large brown thing that spent the week propped against the wall in my laundry room.  I opened it up and discovered several sheets of paper.  One of those sheets of paper was a list of the weekly homework assignments FOR THE YEAR!  Yep, I'm pretty sure the teacher had put that there the first week of school.

My excuse?  Drawing classes are a new world to me.  I didn't know that the portfolio was really just a very large "Take Home Folder".

Do I want my child to be able to draw well?  Of course!  That is why I put her in those classes with an expert!

And this is where I start to appreciate in a new way the perspectives of the parents that do not seem involved in their child's education...