Living in the Real World - Parent Partnerships: What They Don't Teach You Can Hurt

Article Link: http://www.exchangepress.com/article/living-in-the-real-world-parent-partnerships-what-they-dont-teach-you-can-hurt/5012478/

I get teachers fresh from college or voc-techs and they have no conception of what it is like to work with parents. Sometimes I think if they were taught anything at all, it was wrong, or maybe they just slept through it. - A very frustrated director

Parents are the hard part - compared to parents, kids are easy. We face so many issues and all sorts of people: some clueless, many wonderful, some arrogant, and a lot who need parent education. - Jenny, a 22 year old very, very frustrated child care teacher

It is a lot easier for people like me to conceptualize and write about full parent partnerships than to make them happen in real life, particularly when you are a teacher face to face daily with flesh-and-blood parents. Many teachers, particularly new teachers, are quick to express how parent relationships are the most difficult part of their job, interfering with the real work of making quality happen for children.

While it is unfair to tar the multitude of teacher training with a broad brush, the director and teacher sentiments expressed above are common. So what should we teach teachers to prepare them for the real world of child care and ...