MVP#9 How would we (teachers) build a trust relationship with students, as well as their parents?

A related line of research has shown that when the race-and class-informed expectations, practices, and values of school align closely with those of home, parents are more likely to feel comfortable at school and with school people, and therefore to be more visibly involved in school life (Fabienne, 2011, pg. 2708).

Cultural mismatch is a crucial component of today’s melting-pot society, especially in this country. As the aspect of today’s education, diversity becomes one of the main themes in the school setting. Since the vast of immigrant students enroll in the public school system, teachers’ job is not just to teach the contents (i.e. English, Math, Science, etc.) for these students, but more importantly, teachers have to acknowledge how to navigate the interactions between each different background of student to satisfied both teachers’ aims and students’ learning goals. However, teachers seem not understand well about their students’ interests (such as outside-school performances/activities) because their job finished once students stepped out the classroom. Such careless recognitions might impact the increases in school activities, which lead to the lack of participation of students. If students do not engage in school community, why should their parents involve in school community? According to Fabienne (2011), children have the authority to preserve their individual rights in school, or in other words, the powers (pg. 2719). Sometimes, we can think such advantage might influence the communication between teachers and students (because teachers might be penalized if they said something that stimulates to students), it also might be an explanation of why these immigrant parents don’t pay too much attention to the school performances. In this paper, Haitian, or in general, immigrant parents believe ALL educators in America are well-educated so they don’t have to worry about their children’s education too much. Or maybe the school community is safe since the police officers possess a powerful weapon to protect the school community. But is that always true? What about the prejudices of their children in school? Besides that, Fabienne (2011) also pointed the peer interactions were limited by Haitian students’ parents based on the reasons of family background, cultural practices, or the privacy of citizenship status (i.e. undocumented) (pg. 2721). Again, this resulted in another disconnection between immigrant (Haitian) parents and school community. So, what are the possible tactics to increase both parents and students’ participation in school community (World together)? After reading this paper, I feel like such interrelationship will build based on the teachers. Teachers should communicate with their students deeply regardless of any aspects of learning. This way teachers and students could build a trust relationship which promotes another trust between teachers and parents once they feel the school cultures/activities are meaningful and relevant to them.