Professional Development Topics
By Robert Evans, Ed.D.
Changing Families Changing Schools
Educators everywhere are more and more concerned about students and their families. Across the country they report that more students come to school less ready to learn—not less intelligent, less ready to be students. They are harder to reach and teach, their developmental profiles are more uneven, their attention and motivation are harder to sustain, their language and behavior are more provocative. And educators complain that parents are more anxious about their children’s success, yet less available to support and guide them, and are more demanding and critical of the school.
These changes present new challenges, not just because of their complexity, but because they hit schools in a vulnerable place. Dealing with parents, especially difficult parents, has never been high on any educator’s list of favorite activities. Most teachers who make a career in the classroom are most confident when they’re with students, not parents. As episodes of “boundary-breaking” behavior by both students and parents increase, more and more teachers and administrators find themselves pressed and challenged in ways they don’t welcome.
In this program, drawing on his book, Family Matters: How Schools Can Cope with The Crisis in Childrearing, Rob outlines key dilemmas facing educators and schools and outlines ways to cope. These involve a fundamental redefinition of the home-school partnership. This begins at the institutional level with a firm assertion of the school’s “purpose and conduct”—not a typical mission statement, but a clarification of the “minimum non-negotiables” for all members of the school community. At the individual level, it calls for renewing teachers’ skills at managing difficult conversations, defusing conflict—and holding parents themselves accountable for their part in the partnership. The steps involved are simple—not easy, but simple. Rob helps teachers learn how to adapt to parents the skill sets they employ with students.
The program is offered as a full-day or a half-day workshop and as a keynote. Both workshop formats include a mixture of presentation, large group Q & A, discussions in pairs and small groups. The full-day permits more sharing, discussion, and role-playing and practicing. Rob always likes to tailor programs to meet the specific needs and interests of a school or a district and is glad to discuss this.