Book club discussions

In our book club, I thought the book we are reading is based on a very important subject in our nation especially in today's society. The book we are reading is called "Organizing schools for improvement: Lessons from Chicago."  I felt as though I could strongly relate to this book, because of the research and findings they express in the book are base off of urban communities, which I can relate to, considering I came from an Urban community as well. 

One thing that deeply interested me in the part we read in the book was that test scores may possibly go up due to parent involvement. This is where all my attention went through our discussion. Parent involvement is something I strongly agree with and many do not realize the impact is on not just a child, but the school as a whole. 

Many of these schools are filled with children who come from low income housing, as well as children that come from homes of an absent parents. On average children like this are more likely to fail, and their parents don't quite know what is going on in their school life.   

When I was growing up, something I noticed a lot, was that the students whose parents didn't come to back to school night had the lowest grades, and the parents who were constantly involved in their children's lives were the students who got the best grades.  This begins to create a stigma.  Sometimes there are cases where the parent isn't involved because of their job, but sadly, that isn't what leaves another person's mind. 

What a lot of people do not get is yes, you send a child to school to learn, however, what they experience at home has a lot to do with their school work as well.  Children look up to their parents, and if they see something going one way at home, they'll overall think its ok to do the same thing.  

Parents are supposed to be our first teachers. If you're at home and not teaching your child right from wrong then they'll go to school and express that.  At these schools in the book, studies showed that once parents started to show more involvement, the test scores automatically started to go up. It has also been shown that children show more of an enjoyment in class when they know their child is involved. 



As a personal experience, I can remember growing up I was always so excited for my parents to come to back to school night. For some reason it always made me want to work harder and do better in school because I knew it would make my mother proud. There is something special about that involvement that makes things a little more enjoyable about doing your work for school. It wasn't even for me getting an award. Children like being reassured or told that they are doing good in classes, and knowing their parents are proud of them . 

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