No blame

Valerie Strauss, a Washington Post blogger, recently posted an excerpt from Paul C. Gorski's book ,“Reaching and Teaching Students in Poverty: Strategies for Erasing the Opportunity Gap,” about the 5 stereotypes about poor families and education. In chapter 8 of the text, Bode discusses the importance of family for student success.
In this excerpt, Gorski mentions, "There exist several common stereotypes about poor people in the U.S. that suggest that they are inattentive and, as a result, ineffective parents. Low-income parents or guardians who do not attend parent-teacher conferences can become targets of stereotyping—or worse, targets of blame—by those educators." Contrary to the stereotypes, Bode mentions many students in the chapter who come from a low-income family whose parents are neither ineffective nor inattentive, yet these parents may not show their support in conventional ways. As Bode mentions in the book on page 313, "Although relationships with their parents and other family members were obviously prominent in the academic success of these students, their families were not always involved in the school according to the traditional definition of parent involvement. Most of the students' families did not go to school unless called, did not attend meetings or volunteer in school activities, and were not members of parent organizations." This also coincides with Gorski's first stereotype, "Poor People Do Not Value Education". It really isn't that they do not value education, it's that the don't show it in the conventional way. Teachers need to understand that their are so many ways families show they value education. They also need to show support to all families, not just blame. I know personally I could find it very easy to simply blame the parents for not caring, but it isn't that simple. It is our responsibility to show our students that we care, but also communicate, to the best of our ability, to the parents and get on the same page in terms of showing their student we both value their education. We teachers need to remember to not only be aware of our stereotypes our students must overcome, but also the stereotypes their parents must overcome in their education experience. We must not blame, but assist to up our students success.