Running Head: DECONSTRUCTING CURRICULUM

Deconstructing Curriculum
Looking at Parents Place in Schools

ECUR 812
February 11, 2015

Amber Kraus

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As a teacher in her sixth year of teaching, it is probably unwise of me to comment that I

have thought very little about curriculum up to this point in my career. The truth is, since my first
day in the College of Education, curriculum has been nothing more than a checklist for me. A set
of information I needed to get through before the last day in June. I had an understanding of what
I needed to teach, and having been in the same grade for the last few years, felt very little need to
consider it beyond that. It has only been recently that I am starting to realize and understand that
curriculum is so much more. I have always understood that curriculum can be the day to day
teaching I do that is not listed in official government documents, the one we describe as the
hidden curriculum, but I had not recognized that one of the paths I am journeying on at this point

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in my career is also a curriculum of sorts. One that may be more complicated to deconstruct than
the government documents I previously mentioned.
Parent engagement is slowly becoming a passion of mine, though the journey to get to
this point has been slow and at times rocky, given how short my career has been. When I think
back to my first few years of being a teacher, I can distinctly remember talking to my own family
members and stating that parents were the worst part of my job. I would tell them that if I could
have no parents for my students, my job would be almost perfect. I dreaded parents hanging
around my door and being called down to take a phone call put lumps in the bottom of my
stomach. Thoughts such as these are almost alien to me now, and I realize how incredibly
insensitive I was in my beliefs.
When I ask myself where these feelings came from, given that my childhood memories
of my parents being at school were all positive, they seem to have no foundation. However, I had
a shaping experience in my first year of teaching with an irate parent who had a knee jerk
reaction to something that ultimately proved to have nothing to do with me. That ten minute
encounter, which I now see was an anomaly and not the norm, taught me not to let my guard
down. It was better to put up a wall and maintain a safe distance than do anything that might
cause conflict, or worse, cause a parent to question me as a teacher. I would inform parents only
with the very basic information required of me. I was quick to judge when a parent behaved in a
way that I did not understand and would internalize a lot of frustration that I now see was wasted
energy. It was making me hate my job. What I have begun to realize now, is not only is there a
story behind every child you teach, but the same is true of the parents in our classroom and we as
teachers need to be understanding, compassionate and open to what comes through the classroom
door. We need to refrain from making judgments, especially judgments that are poorly informed.

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We need to be partners with parents in the education of children, and embrace this large part of
who our students are. The question is, how does one go about changing their thinking and
shifting beliefs that have been ingrained in many of us since we were students sitting in those
desks, and certainly as we began our lives as teachers?
My shift in thinking began after a year where I had a classroom of what I would call
tough parents. I spent many hours that year in meetings with my administration and various
parents who were unhappy with a variety of things, some far beyond my control. While
inherently I knew they were only being caring parents, I began to be resentful of these people
who seemed to not understand how much time and care I was putting into their child and that I
was doing everything I could do as a teacher with twenty two other students to consider. That I
spent hours outside of school thinking about their child and the concerns we both had. I began to
feel like nothing I did was ever good enough and that thinking began to be reflected in my school
life. My conversations with colleagues were often very negative, and of a nature that I would be
mortified if a parent had overheard, despite my resentfulness. That year I reluctantly allowed a
parent, who had asked, to volunteer in my classroom. I kept her busy doing menial tasks such as
marking spelling tests, and photocopying papers even though she herself was a certified teacher
and could have provided me with incredible support and knowledge. My contact with the other
parents was limited to trudging through fifteen minute conferences twice a year and phone calls
or emails when something negative had occurred with their child. Sometimes those emails I had
sent home would come out of nowhere and often were not followed up with indication of
positive change that had occurred with that student. I finished that school year once again
affirmed in my thinking that parents were the worst part of my job, and I began to realize
something had to change if I was to continue down this career path. There was no way I was ever

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going to avoid parents completely and this current degree of interaction with them was no longer
working for me. I felt like I was fighting a losing battle.
The following year an opportunity was presented to me at my school. Four Pillars of
Excellence were formed based around teacher interest; Math, Reading, Writing and Community.
These pillars intended to seek out ways to improve teacher practice within our school. Feeling
tired of parent negativity and questioning, I made the decision to join the community pillar,
which was somewhat taboo among my peers, in hopes that I could find some middle ground.
The school I teach in may be considered an ideal school in an ideal community. Many
students come from middle to upper middle class families. They are given opportunities for
activities both in and outside of school. There is very little racial diversity in the community and
school. Many families have two working parents, but there are also many fortunate enough to
have a stay at home mom situation. In terms of parent involvement there are plenty of
opportunities. Parents helped with hot lunch days, volunteered to come along on field trips and
would send treats on student birthdays. However as I reflect now, in these opportunities, I
realize, as Pushor (2012) states:
Focus is placed on what parents can do to help the school realize its intended outcomes
for the children, not on what parents hopes, dreams, or intentions for their children may
be or on what the school can do to help parents realize their personal or family agendas
(p. 467).
When I think about my ideas of parent involvement, and whether or not I acknowledged a parent
as engaged, depended mainly on if they showed up for parent- teacher interviews. Aside from
that, I had no interest in having them in my classroom or engaging in further interaction. As far

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as I was concerned it was safer to keep parents at a distance. In the larger view of our school,
teachers viewed and still view, parents as involved if they come along on field trips, show up for
fundraising events and signed and returned report cards, among other things. According to the
Four Versions of Partnership in Beyond the Bake Sale (Henderson, Mapp, Johnson & Davies,
2007), our school would fall under the category of a Come-if-We-Call School (p. 17). Parents
were a part of the school but they were only included when the teacher called and invited them to
partake in a predetermined agenda. Along with that, teachers were also very selective in which of
those parents were called. It was often a topic of laughter when we declared names would be
drawn from a hat, when ultimately the teacher would select those parents who were viewed as
better than the next, or more desirable to spend a day with than others. It was and is still quite
normal to hear conversations between teachers where they are complaining because some parent
is outside their door before the bell rings or walks their child right to the classroom. I will admit,
until last year, I was one of those teachers. While joining my schools community pillar began a
shift in my thinking, many of the activities we planned to do were another version of parent
involvement. We were telling parents where they would best be included and how we wanted
them involved. We planned add-ons to our three way conferences, such as pizza dinners and
thought we were engaging the parents. The only activity that came close to engagement that year
was a challenge among the staff to send out at least one positive contact to parents for each
student in that teachers class. Even with bribes of a prize for the highest participating grade each
month, the chart remained largely empty and it was clear most teachers could not be bothered to
make the time. They were content in plugging along as they always had. However, for me, I saw
the benefit of positive emails and decided that I would make it a priority in the coming year and
would find ways to create a positive relationship between myself and the parents of my

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classroom. It felt better to have a handful of positive relationships than it did to have even one
negative relationship.
Making the Change
The first change in my actual classroom practice came in August. Like every year, I typed
up letters addressed to each of my students with plans to mail them out before the start of the
year. This is something I have done since my first year as a teacher, and I am one of only a few
that follow this practice is my large school. However, this year I decided to include a parent note.
It was nothing fancy. Some basic information about me and my life and some of the things they
would be seeing in the coming year, such as my class website that is used for the majority of
communication. While I have never asked if this letter was appreciated, before school had even
started I had multiple visits to my webpage that were tracked, so some parents had placed
enough value in the information provided to take time out of their summer to look into it.
Another part of my practice the last couple of years has been to ask for ten photos of each child
in the letter I sent to them over the summer. I called it their first day of school homework. My
rationale behind this at the time was possibly more artistic than anything, but what I am coming
to realize now is that the photo wall I create in our classroom, with those pictures, brings the
students home lives into school. I am allowing them to represent who they are through the photos
they bring. They get to share parts of their lives and history that I previously would not have
been able to see. It helps to create a sense of family. The biggest change in my thinking however,
came from a colleague of mine who had experienced a complete turnaround in how he viewed
parents in the school setting. Over the summer he had taken a class on parent engagement and
returned in fall with a passion to change how he viewed the parents in his classroom. Given the
path I was already meandering down, this caught my attention and seemed like something I

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should take note of. We were lucky enough to have the experience of taking a class together that
gave us an opportunity to put some of these ideas into practice within our classrooms.
Approaching this new way of thinking as a team made it seem like a much less daunting task.
Taking Small Steps
The first attempt my colleague and I made at parent engagement was in the form of an email sent out during our week of prep before the students returned to class. The email explained
our belief of partnership with parents and encouraged them to send us a brief note telling us
about their child. What their hopes and dreams were for this precious part of their life. The
results were incredibly positive with only a few parents not responding. The parents were so
thankful to see a teacher that was willing to ask them about their child, and the information they
shared allowed me as a teacher to further appreciate each individual that would be walking
through the classroom door and where they would be coming from. It set an overwhelmingly
positive tone to the start of the year, and I feel now that it was my first baby step toward making
parents part of my classroom curriculum. The second attempt my colleague and I made with
parent engagement was hosting a family night early in the year. Handwritten invitations were
sent home to each family inviting them to come and share their stories with other members of the
classroom family. We provided coffee, juice and treats and tried to make our classroom feel like
a casual friendly get together. We encouraged families to share what was important to them.
Again this gave me a brief glimpse into what they valued as a family. As the year has progressed
we have continued to try to find ways to engage the families of our students, including a family
potluck in December as well as ongoing emails. While I would argue that we both see the benefit
in these activities and relationships, and that many parents likely feel the same, I am beginning to

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question if we are truly on a path of including our parents in creating our curriculum or simply
accomplishing involvement that is packaged in a more aesthetically attractive way?
Engagement versus Involvement
When I look critically at the events my colleague and I planned in an attempt to engage
parents, I realize that while our intentions were good, we were likely just involving parents.
According to Pushor (2013), curriculum is where the four commonplaces truly take on equal
status. In this curriculum, the lives of the teacher, children, and the significant people in the
childs life are all central in, and inform, the teaching and learning (p.10). My colleague and I
have approached all of these engagement activities with the intention that it will meet our
predetermined outcomes, our teacher curriculum, with very little consideration taken into what
the parents want or value. It gave us insight, but rather than coming from the parents, it came
from our interpretations of what we saw. In order for something to truly be called parent
engagement, it must include parent voice and parent presence (McKenna & Millen, 2013, p. 11).
What then can we do to make this shift?
Challenging the Status Quo
While myself and a handful of my other colleagues are beginning to recognize the value
of parents being a part of our school curriculum, there are many others in my school who are
opposed to the idea of basic involvement, never mind truly engaging parents. In sharing our
excitement of the new way we are viewing parents, many teachers appeared to be interested and
recognize the benefits, yet the negative conversations still persist behind closed doors. And
sometimes not even that subtly. As someone who is experiencing a shifting view on parents in
the school, it can be very uncomfortable to be a part of these negative conversations and

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incredibly difficult to defend your position when you are still working through the process
yourself. Colleagues dont seem to understand why someone would put in more time and effort,
especially at a politically tense time given our current lack of contract. How can we help our
colleagues move to a viewpoint where parent voice and presence is viewed as valuable rather
than an inconvenience? For many it can seem like just another thing to do on an already
overwhelming list of requirements placed on us. Why would they want to give up time in their
evenings when it isnt mandated, and if we mandate such events, how do we avoid the inevitable
resentment that would surely follow? I feel our best hope at a shift in thinking is graduating
teachers who already value this part of the profession. According to Pushor (2013):
If we want beginning teachers to understand curriculum making as a process situated in
the lives of children, families, and community, and done in relationship with them, it
becomes critical that teacher educators reform current teacher education curricula with
these intentions in mind (p.16).
I had the privilege of mentoring an intern this year for the first time. As parent engagement was
one of my professional goals this year, she was brought along with me on the journey. In having
conversations with her early in the year, it was clear that parents were one of the most nerve
wracking parts of the job. Before even experiencing the career, she carried with her negative
views of parents. For many of us, the only time our parents were involved in our schooling was
for parent teacher interviews (where we were often left in the hallway, fearing what awful news
our teacher would deliver) or through phone calls and notes home when we had misbehaved. We
had already been preprogrammed to believe that parents involvement in school was only a
negative thing. My intern was terrified that first day of school knowing parents would be coming
in and talking to her. She worried that she would say the wrong thing or do something silly.

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While I would say that there is still some apprehension, I feel that my intern, now finishing her
final semester of school has a changed outlook on the place of parents in the classroom. She took
part in three way conferences with parents and students, hosted family nights with me and
welcomed parents at the door. To me this shows that our best hope in making positive changes to
this aspect of curriculum is to provide our new teachers with the proper education and the chance
to explore these ideas under the safety of a mentor. Perhaps the change needs to come from the
bottom up, rather than the top down.
Where Do We Go From Here
While I find myself at a place of better understanding, I am still incredibly overwhelmed
at the idea of including parents in the school process. That end of June checklist I mentioned
earlier looms over top of me, along with division mandated testing and all the other components
that go into a teachers job and their personal life. Some days I feel I can barely handle myself,
never mind including the parents of my students as well. Not only that, but as comfortable as I
have become in dealing with parents, it is still a challenge to engage with them on a deeper level.
However, I am mindful of the fact that it is still easier for me to reach out and make that
connection than it is for parents to do the same (Henderson et all, p.40). It is my belief that
acknowledging that something is missing is the first step toward change. Having a team who
shares those beliefs is also vital in order to provide support, encouragement and challenge the
previously accepted ways of thinking. As Mckenna and Millen (2013) state, engagement must
develop over time and be active and deliberate, culturally sensitive, and both communally and
personally based (p. 38), therefore I allow myself to not feel overwhelmed by the fact that I am
currently more in the involvement stage of things, rather than true engagement. I recognize that
any step in a positive direction is still a step and brings me to a place where I can begin

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questioning the way things have always been done. While I am not yet at the point where I
fully understand how to purposefully include parents as part of my curriculum, to give them a
voice, I am making progress simply in questioning what I have always done.
The curriculum of parents in schools is a challenging one. One that is not as simple as the
involvement we are used to offering to parents. It requires a deeper level of thinking, a way of
understanding and interweaving all these complex parts that make up each family in our room. It
means allowing ourselves to admit we are not the only experts that contribute to a childs
learning, and making space in our classrooms for those who can contribute information
previously left out of the school landscape. It means standing strong when our colleagues tell us
we are wasting our time, and most importantly it means acknowledging the fact that our students
come through our door with a lifetime of learning already shaping who they are. Allowing the
teachers of that knowledge a voice within our curriculum.

References
Henderson, A.T., Mapp, K.L., Johnson, V.R. & Davies, D. (2007). Beyond the bake sale: The
essential guide to family-school partnerships. New York: The New Press.
McKenna, M. K., & Millen, J. (2013). Look! listen! learn! parent narratives and grounded theory
models

of parent voice, presence, and engagement in K-12 education. School

Community Journal, 23(1), 9-48. Retrieved from

http://search.proquest.com/docview/1406196546?accountid=14739

Pushor, D. (2012) Tracing My Research on Parent Engagement: Working to

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Interrupt the Story of School as Protectorate, Action in Teacher Education, 34:5-6, 464479, DOI:
10.1080/01626620.2012.729474
Pushor, D. and the Parent Engagement Collaborative. (2013). Portals of promise: Transforming
beliefs and practices through a curriculum of parents. Rotterdam, NL: Sense Publishers.