The connection between home and school is one that we have discussed many times (often heatedly!) in class, so I thought it was helpful to read articles directly looking at the relationship between home and school literacy practices.
I found Orellana, Monkman, and MacGillivray’s article fascinating. It was really interesting, and really informative, to see the ways parents and teachers described literary success. I thought it was ironic that the article pointed out that its studies disproved the claim that most immigrant families live in a present-minded context (6). Certainly, immigrant families like the ones participating in the study have to focus a lot of attention to the present. So much of their lives revolves around when/where they can work, how long they have to work, and when/how/if they and their children will eat. Those things are certainly worries of the present, but like the article says, immigrant families didn’t really focus on those kind of problems when they talked about their children. Instead, they hoped that their children would take advantage of greater economic, social, and educational opportunities while still retaining their humanity in the future. Immigrant families seemed to want their children to become well-rounded, responsible citizens, which I think is very similar to what white, middle class parents expect of their children.
I also thought it was interesting how the teachers viewed the immigrant children in contrast to what the parents believed. Although the teachers were very compassionate and didn’t use deficit language, I don’t think they gave their students the benefit of the doubt. I’m possibly being a little hard on the teachers here, but I think they focused so much on the challenges the students faced instead of how those challenges could be beneficial to both their social and educational experiences. Instead of taking advantage of the different experiences the students brought, the teachers seemed to overgeneralize their struggles and just feel bad for them. I think that the teachers were content with their sympathetic assumptions about how their immigrant students lived and how their parents viewed educational success without making the effort (like this study did) to actually talk to the parents in order to understand their lives and their expectations.
As for the Duke and Purcell-Gates article, I thought the most informative part was at the very end, where they gave examples of how teachers incorporated home literacy genres into their school literacy teachings. I especially liked the play centers (I think two classrooms used them) that allowed children to play act situations that they would encounter in their home life, like playing house, going to the store/restaurant, or going to the doctor. Those learning centers made sure to incorporate literacy materials, like blank paper, calendars, telephone books, magazines, recipes, etc that allowed the children to play but also forced them to use literacy in their playing. I that incorporating everyday, real-life situations like grocery shopping or cooking dinner into school learning is really beneficial in many ways. Not only are the children making connections between home literacy and school literacy, but they are learning other valuable lessons like math (measurements in recipes, budgets for shopping, etc), how to use useful items like phone books and calendars, and how to be responsible adults in the future. Maybe those teachers who were so worried about the challenges that their immigrant students faced would benefit from making these real-life connections between home and school. If the teachers took the time to get some information from the parents, then they could incorporate it into their schooling, which would teach the children how to take advantage of the literacy experiences they have in life.
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April 20th, 2009 at 10:38 am
I agree that school’s need to inform parent’s for their value in their child’s education. If parent’s know that what happens at home benefits the home…then there would so much collaboration between home and school. I think we as a society need to realize that we need to work together to educate our children. Learning isn’t something that only happens at school.