Statement of Philosophy for Working with Families and Communities

Introduction

In the society, families, community members, children and the staff have the right to learn, belong, and develop ultimate skills in the safe, supportive nurturing and a respectful environment. Working with families and communities requires collaboration and partnership with various community members, as well as other agencies. In most cases, families and children are individuals and they have the right to participate in various societal activities. In many different societies, developing strong families that act as the foundation of the community is essential. Additionally, enhancing parenting, relationships, child development, as well as community institutions that provide family well-being is equally important. In the societies, families are an integral part of who we are. There is always a positive, welcoming, caring and safe environment where the family is valued. Human often acknowledges the distinctiveness as well as the diversity that every family brings to the service. Encouraging open communication between communities and families through different mediums and also valuing all interactions is an essential part of human existence. We often tend to provide support for our families both during happy and difficult times with the understanding that wellbeing is critical for everyone especially when it comes to the relationship among the people in the community. All families and children usually come with prior experiences and knowledge for everyone to build on. In the free world, every family and child has the right to be shown respect and value for what and who they are; they have the right to feel safe and also to belong. Families often thrive where they are able to take the risk, feel secure, explore and exercise their curiosity. All children, as well as families, should have the opportunity to develop their relationship with the community and the people they associate with. The paper involves the discussion on three areas of engagements including integrating family diversity into the classroom, establishing and maintaining two-way communication, and focusing on family engagement rather than parent involvement.

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Establishing and Maintaining Two-Way Communication

As a teacher, I normally believe that children and their families are special or unique individuals in the community who require a caring, secure and stimulating environment where to grow and mature intellectually, emotionally, socially and physically. My main desire as a teacher or educator is to enable children or students together with their families to reach their fullest potentials in the above areas. The above case is only possible through the provision of a safer environment. Additionally, the environment should be able to encourage sharing of ideas and risk-taking. There exist three major elements that I believe are essential in the establishment of such environment or communities. In the communities where there are diversities promoting respect for all people and all things in the community is important, the teacher should be available and they should act as a guide to the children and families, lastly, children's natural curiosity should direct their learning process. In many cases, children, although essential to the families, are considered members of the communities to which the family belongs. They are often regarded as the future of the community. Knowledge and life experiences, therefore, exist within the society of community where everyone resides. Therefore, the teacher's roles are to provide guidance and access to the information. We as teachers should not act as the primary source of information. As a teacher working with families and communities, I believe that student's search for knowledge is usually facilitated when they learn to find answers to their varied questions.

As a teacher, it is important to engage with the families and communities to ensure that students adapt to the societal norms. Parents, communities and schools need to work together with the aim of promoting well-being, learning and health of the students. Therefore, engaging with the families and communities is essential since it fosters the relationship and interconnectedness with the aim of ensuring that children or students achieve the correct learning processes. When schools actively involve the community and engage parents, they are able to respond more effectively to different needs of the students. Family and community engagements foster partnership among the schools, communities and family groups. These partnerships, in the long run, result minimizing and sharing of resources. Additionally, they help the youths and children in developing healthy behaviors as well as promoting healthy families.

As a teacher, I believe that incorporating family and community knowledge promotes learning processes. Children or students usually tend to possess a lot of experiential wisdom on issues related to culture, identity, justice and history. Grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, friends, community leaders and neighbors usually have stories to share about their general perspectives and lives. In many cases, when engaging with the families and communities, teachers usually find an opportunity to understand the cultural perspectives of the communities and families where the students come from. Community and family wisdom can reveal a sociological and historical face of the social setups of different people. Family and community engagement among the teachers enables hearing from real individuals who have lived through different times of change or contributed to social justice movement; this can, therefore, provide inspiration and information for encouraging students. In most cases, students carry the knowledge of their communities and families inside them. Creating room to share this knowledge encourages the development of student identities. Family assignments must always be explained and envisioned in culturally sensitive ways. Apparently harmless activities such as developing a family tree can lead to the marginalization of the students whose biological relations are unknown. For students to construct knowledge in the course of learning, they often need the opportunity to develop practical skills and the opportunity of discovering different things by themselves. Engaging with the community provides the students with the opportunity to access hands-on activities and allows adequate space and time to apply materials that reinforce the topic being studied, as well as individual discovery and construction of knowledge.

Focusing on Family Engagement Rather Than Parent Involvement

As a teacher, I believe that understanding student's community and family wisdom support the anti-bias domains which include diversity and identity. Through listening and adapting stories of their families, students are able to deepen their sense of self and enhance personal connections with literary, sociological and historical materials. Hearing about different families and communities can facilitate the processes geared towards fostering new perspectives on personal experiences and expand their understanding of other communities or groups of people and cultures. Engagement with families and communities is important for me as a teacher as it provides the opportunity to stud things that are relevant and meaningful to the interest of the learners. Family and community engagement facilitates the development of a curriculum in line with the student's interest, a scenario which fosters the intrinsic motivation and also encourages the passion for learning among the students. One way to execute learning in a direction sign to the student interest is to invite the community and the families which usually formulate the social norms that guide the natural learning processes. When given perfect opportunity for input, students are capable of generating ideas and set goals that can facilitate the learning processes. When students have a grasp of the curriculum, they often become motivated to harder and summarize the skills essential for their goals. Getting involved with the families and the communities, in my perspective, enables teachers and the students to develop respect and deep love for themselves, others and the environments, a situation which occurs as a result of sharing of ideas and the judicious approach to discipline. When each student is given an opportunity to express themselves and to learn different ideas in relation to the community and their families, the environment evolves and they also feel comfortable in undertaking different tasks. Through community and family involvement, I believe that students are able to understand their teachers and to see them as professionals trying to promote the societal goods and values that are important for every individual in the society. I believe children possess greater respect for everybody in the society including their teachers and peers and when the learning processes are initiated, they feel sure and safe of what is expected of them. When teachers are engaged with the families and the community as a whole, setting fair and consistent rules becomes easier and manageable. As for me, teaching gives every person an opportunity for continuous learning and growth. One of my major hope as a teacher is to ensure the love of learning among my students as I try to share my own passion with them. Community and family engagement leads to a passionate dedicated and strong individual who is more concerned with working with children.

When I was working with the families and communities, I realized that as a teacher, the involvement with the communities and families is essential in enabling students to achieve their success. My accomplishment in helping children with their development depends mainly on collaboration with their community and families at large. For a teacher to understand the educational needs of the children, it is always necessary to invite families to share information and to communicate various issues. Families often bring their own knowledge into the learning environment that other people can also acquire including teachers or other educators. Teachers often understand the students better if they find an opportunity to share different issues from the family and societal perspectives. On the other hand, educators can provide families and other members of the community with opportunities to expand knowledge with their children and exercise sequential tasks that can lead to holistic development. With my experience working with different families and communities, I believe that communities and families are usually responsible for providing activities that will enable children to adopt positive values and become successful in later part of their lives. With the existence of the strong parent-community-educator relationship, children or students can continuously learn on positive resources and grow to become positive roles models not only within the family and community setup but also to the entire society. Teachers should, therefore, engage strongly with the community and families to ensure positive growth of the children both at school and at home.

Integrating Family Diversity into the Classroom

My perception of family and community engagement among the teachers is that children work best when they get to understand their environment and the positive relationship between their parent s and teachers. I strongly believe that children constitute concrete knowledge depending on the direct experiences that they obtain from their role models. When teachers come into collaboration with the parents and members of the community, they become role models through developing a common form of behaviours and attitud...