Assignment task:
Part I: Read the following Quotes from the Hundred Languages of Children: The Reggio Experience in Transformation.
The first examples of participation were the "school-city" committees, which were specifically formed to administer schools for young children democratically and involved both the people who were connected with the school and those peripheral to it. These organizations were created with the specific purpose of "inventing" a school that would involve parents, teachers, citizens, and neighborhood groups-not only in the running of the school but also in defending the rights of children....
We believe in the idea of children as individuals who bring their rights, their abilities, and their competencies with them into the educational process. But it's not only children who have these things inside them. It is also parents who bring abilities, ideas, knowledge, and competencies. We've always considered the family to be an essential element of the educational process. Many, many schools work without making parents the protagonists and the central figures in the education of their children. Sometimes they even blame the parents, who then feel guilty and inadequate because they aren't able to enter into the educational process. When parents don't participate, I believe it is the responsibility of the school to build itself up in such a way and use all the strategies possible to make itself something that the parents can experience with their children. If the parents are not participating, the first responsibility lies within the school
...First of all, because discussion and decision making are done collectively within each school, parents are highly involved. In addition, widening the field of participation, the educators who participate in community-based management include all types of adults working in the schools-teachers, cooks, aides-all of whom must share the responsibility that stems from being part of a community of educators. The ideas and skills that the families bring to the school and, even more important, the exchange of ideas between parents and teachers favor the construction of a new way of educating and help teachers to view the participation of families not as a threat but as an intrinsic element of collegiality and the integration of different wisdoms.
The Hundred Languages of Children: The Reggio Emilia Experience in Transformation, 3rd Edition: The Reggio Emilia Experience in Transformation (p. 119-123). ABC-CLIO. Kindle Edition.
Part 2:
Answer the following questions.
A. What is the role of the parent in the education of their child?
B. What do you think of the discussion that teachers sometimes blame parents?
C. How does blaming parents impact the abilities of parents to be agents of change in their children's education?
D. Define family participation in your own words.
E. What is the benefit of having parents act as protagonists in the development and education of their child(ren)?
F. What else would you add from this reading?