This article is a reflective piece. It asks questions to support discussions in staffrooms and team meetings about what a 'new normal' could look like in schools. The author advocates a better partnership between teachers, students and parents in which they adopt a more equitable relationship built on mutual respect and trust - a partnership where…

In a 2011 article in this journal, Hornby and Lafaele provided a comprehensive model to understand barriers that may adversely impact effectiveness of parental involvement (PI) in education. The proposed explanatory model provides researchers with a new comprehensive and systematic perspective of the phenomenon in question with references from an…

As an early childhood professional, this author spent the first 17 years of her career as an advocate for children and their families. With an advanced degree in early childhood special education, she learned about the pitfalls and triumphs of special education. After leaving the classroom and entering the world of academia in teacher education,…

This article presents an interview with five teachers in an alternative certification program at a university in New York. All of the teachers were from the New York City Teaching Fellows (NYCTF) program, which is an alternative certification program in New York designed to quickly place teachers in high need schools throughout the city. The…

Aboriginal literacy is a difficult area of education with no neat answer; rather, a multifaceted approach to improving Aboriginal students' outcomes is needed. This article focuses on bringing Aboriginal perspectives and voices into the classroom; using the tools of multiliteracies and scaffolding literacy techniques; and being able to accommodate…

This article examines what we know about the experience of parents in the special education system--in particular, parents of children with learning disabilities since the passage of PL-94-142. Toward this end, I offer a review of special education literature about parent and professional collaboration, a rationale for relying upon a plurality of…

An African American mother and teacher educator uses examples from her own childhood to describe how she hopes her child will be treated by teachers, and what she fears. In her letter to her son, the African American mom expresses how she want teachers to know her son's journey to school--metaphorically and physically. She wants them to know that…

People are busy, we all know that. Getting their attention is harder and harder all the time. That's especially true for member organizations and advocacy groups. The National PTA is both and has adapted some social media practices to reach out and maintain contact with more than 5 million volunteers in 25,000 local units. James Martinez, senior…

What standardized tests can not do--indeed, what almost no test can do--is capture a child's essence. Tests don't speak to the internal factors that play a major role in life success: curiosity, effort, resilience, and compassion. Howard Gardner and Daniel Goleman have each noted that success stems largely from interpersonal skills. Educators know…

Raffo and Gunter (20087) argue that there is insufficient research which has "systematically examined, categorised and synthesised the types of leadership in schools that might assist social inclusion" (p. 397). In this paper I argue that Wenger's concept of a "community of practice", when applied to the parent-teacher relationship, provides a…

While every child has individual needs, living in poverty further compounds the issues many students bring to school. This reality was brought home to the author in a way that compelled her to take a hard look at her approach to teaching. What started her reflection was a professional development experience on understanding poverty. The principal…

In 1965, Memmi introduced the concept of a protectorate. "Whenever the colonizer states, in his language, that the colonized is a weakling, he suggests thereby that this deficiency requires protection. From this comes the concept of a protectorate" (pp. 147-8). While this concept is 45 years old, it is an apt metaphor for thinking about…

This article discusses how U.S. teachers can pick up on cultural cues from parents with roots in other countries and help smooth their children's transition to U.S. classrooms. In this article, the author presents a scenario where a U.S. teacher welcomed parents with roots form other countries into her classroom. Here, she discusses the importance…

Outlines some principles which seem to be important both to bridging the gap between parent and teachers' expectations and enabling the whole area of parent-teacher relations to operate more effectively. (MP)

This book is a tell-all guide to the euphoric highs and unimaginable lows of teaching. Mahoney and Purr present the naked truth of their own blunder-laden first few years in order to help new teachers, those who think they might want to become teachers, and those in the business of training and hiring new teachers, see the realities that cannot be…