20 Strategies for Collaborative School Leaders by Lindle Jane Clark;

Author:Lindle, Jane Clark;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2015-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

The image of a blank page does not help teachers plan instruction adequately or create good learning experiences. The blank-page image implies that all the teacher has to do is leave her mark on each student. Yet, realistically, teachers recognize that a lot of other people have already written on each student's page. Those people range from parents and family members to strangers and previous teachers.

Somewhere in the back of their minds, teachers remember U.S. Census summaries about the number of children living with single parents, divorced parents, or in poverty. Despite that recognition, teachers do not necessarily attach that information to their own students until there is some kind of event that requires parent contact. Until that critical incident, teachers may harbor a picture of childhood and parenthood that owes more to the fantasy of children as a blank page or the misrepresentation of real family life on television and in other popular cultural media than to the realities revealed by U.S. demographics.

Teachers need to acquire a realistic understanding of what their students bring to class before incidents arise. Collaborative school leaders help teachers find the regional data for their students and families from sources like the U.S. Census, Kids Count (from the Annie E. Casey Foundation), and other reports on childhood and family configurations. A school leader may need to remind teachers of the general facts about their students’ lives and home environments in the school communities.

From such sources, the U.S. picture of childhood is more realistically attached to pupils in public schools. About 22% of families depend on the father's income only, or fit the popular description of a nuclear family. In fact, U.S. households are relatively small, including only slightly more than three people. While 50% of first marriages end in divorce, 60% of remarriages also end in divorce, and 54% of divorced women remarry. Seventy-five percent of white children live in two-parent homes, and 5% of white children live with a parent who never married. Among Hispanic families, 64% of children live with both parents, and 36% of African-American children live with both parents. About 29% of two-parent homes include college graduates. Among children younger than 18 years, 27% live in poverty, and 7% live in extreme poverty. About 60% of children live in families designated as working poor. Although many regions of the country no longer are predominantly white, the U.S. Census shows that 76% of the population is white, with 13% of African-American and 13% of Hispanic ethnicity. While these statistics have implications for all institutions in the United States, schools and teachers should heed the following numbers: 52% of households have no internet connection, 7% have no car, and 3% have no phone. When school leaders go over these numbers with teachers, they need to illustrate how these statistics can and will affect teaching and learning.

One way to help teachers work through the implications of national and local demographics is to associate the numbers to the way that they work. Instead of

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