首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
To Help the Kids, Parents Go Back to School For a few years now, every parent of a newborn baby in the South Florida distric
To Help the Kids, Parents Go Back to School For a few years now, every parent of a newborn baby in the South Florida distric
admin
2010-07-24
65
问题
To Help the Kids, Parents Go Back to School
For a few years now, every parent of a newborn baby in the South Florida district has received a congratulations packet while still in the hospital that includes, among other things, a colorful animal picture book (in three languages) and a letter from something called the Parent Academy. "Keep in mind that you are, and will always be, your child’s first and most important teacher," the letter reads. "Miami-Dade County Public Schools has many resources and opportunities for you to make the most of that awesome responsibility." You have to admit, it’s a pretty genius interpretation of that old advertising saying "Get’em while they’re young."
While the concept of parent academies--in which towns or school districts offer what are essentially classes and workshops on parenting skills--has been around for more than a decade, several larger cities are starting or expanding such programs in an effort to engage parents who are otherwise uninvolved in their child’s education. Philadelphia has invested heavily in this year’s launch of a comprehensive and wide-ranging program for parents. Boston is restoring its Parent University following an earlier version’s shutdown due to budget cuts. And Miami’s Parent Academy, now in its fifth year, offers more than 100 workshops that range from Help Your Child Succeed in Math to Teaching Behavior Skills.
Parent academies are particularly helpful for urban communities full of mothers and fathers who for various reasons are disengaged from their children’s education. Many are single parents with second jobs that leave little time to help with schoolwork.Some are immigrants who don’t understand much English.Some are parents uncomfortable with schoolwork--a survey released by Intel found that more than 50% of parents would rather talk to their kids about drugs or drunk driving than about math or science. And then there’s the general confusion that often comes from dealing with a bureaucracy(官僚作风) as complicated as the typical American school district. "There are parents who are just not as well informed about the way schools work," says Karen Mapp, director of the Education Policy and Management Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. "The policies, the procedures, what state test scores mean--it’s not that they don’t care; they just don’t know how."
Picture yourself in the following supposed situations: you’re a parent who never graduated high school; you’re a parent whose only interactions with schools have been negative ones; you’re a parent who has zero recollection of how to divide fractions; you’re a parent who has no clue as to what the important dates are on the college- application calendar. Now picture yourself experiencing all of the supposed situations at once, and then imagine how your child would suffer from your knowledge deficiency. For as much as the current wave of education reformers like to maintain that quality teachers and schools can help overcome environmental factors, a child’s home life plays an undeniable role in how well they learn, says Mapp.
"I’ve been doing research on family engagement for about 16 years now," she says. "And there’s 40 years of research that indicates a pretty positive relationship between families being engaged in their children’s education and positive effects on students in terms of their academic achievement." Mapp is currently helping write a case study on Miami’s Parent Academy program, which is one of the nation’s most successful big-city attempts in this area. Privately funded by local philanthropists (慈善家) and businesses, the Parent Academy has seen more than 120,000 people participate in its workshops during the past half-decade. It has taught parents everything from how to reinforce reading lessons at home to how to deal with threat and the dangers of sexing.
The county has partly adjusted its approach to serve its large non-English-speaking community. "Many of our newly arrived immigrants don’t understand what they can do to support their child’s success,and they don’t understand the system--there’s no point in going to the school board when you’re concerned about your child’s homework," says Anne Thompson, director of the Miami-Dade program. Because of language issues, she often sees students having to do their parents’jobs in terms of navigating school bureaucracy.
In Philadelphia, superintendent Arlene Ackerman set up a Parent University this year after expressing concern over low literacy rates for parents and children, as well as a general lack of parental engagement among tow-income families, especially among African-American men. Tasked with cherry-picking the best elements from other programs around the country (and tossing the worst), Karren Dunkley, deputy of the Philadelphia School District’s Office of Parent, Family and Community Services, and her colleagues realized that they needed to ground the program within the context of adult continuing education. That is, if you’re trying to teach adults something, give them the respect of having it resemble a real class, which meets more than once, reinforces lessons and allows parents to form learning-centered relationships with instructors and fellow students--just as their kids do. "When we looked around the country, we found one-hit wonders, where parents would come into schools for daylong workshops," says Dunkley. "That really didn’t produce transformative results, nor did it sustain interest or truly give support to parents."
Supported primarily by federal funds, the Philadelphia Parent Academy’s "curriculum" runs the scope from a 10-week math-literacy course to a multipart social-etiquette(社交礼仪) class to a one-day session on attendance and truancy(逃课) that teaches parents about "compulsory education and attendance law." It’s all targeted toward families in need: parents of children at low-performing schools and residents of housing projects and emergency shelters. Of course, there’s no guarantee that the people who need these programs the most will actually take advantage of them--you can’t force parents to care, no matter how many free classes you offer.Still, says Harvard’s Mapp, you have to make progress where you can. "Family engagement is a shared, mutual partnership between educators and parents," she says. "It’s a two-way conversation between home and school."
Why do some students have to navigate school bureaucracy by themselves?
选项
A、No one else cares about that.
B、Their parents don’t know English.
C、Their parents have limited time.
D、Only students are allowed to do that.
答案
B
解析
该句表原因的Because of引出的原因是language issues,结合上文可知语言问题就是“不会说英语”。故选B。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/K0N7777K
0
大学英语四级
相关试题推荐
Notonly____________(他向我收费过高),butalsohedidn’tdoagoodrepairjobeither.
PreparingforTestsIdeallyitshouldbeloveoflearning,achievement,andself-improvementthatpromptsalllearning.But
Wecanseehowtheproductlifecycleworksbylookingattheintroductionofinstantcoffee.Whenitwasintroduced,mostpeopl
A、Sheworksveryhard.B、Shethinksthatdoinghouseworkistheirresponsibility.C、Sheistheownerofthehouse.D、Sheisnot
A、HefeelstheSmithshavedoneacleverthing.B、Hethinksthatitisunwisetoinvestalltheirmoneyinstocks.C、Hethinkst
Themajorcauseof"forgetting"isfailuretolearnthematerial【B1】______inthefirstplace.However,weforgetata【B2】______r
Consideredasacontinuousbodyoffluid,theatmosphereisanotherkindofocean.Yet,inviewofthetotalamountofrainand
AnewreportsaystheHimalayanmountainsarethreatenedbythewarmingoftheEarth’sclimate.Thereportsayshumanactivities
A、ParentBoard.B、DistrictCourt.C、Teachers’Union.D、SchoolCommittee.C综合推断题。文章提到,教师协会的发言人在新闻发布会上声称罢工会一直持续到学校委员会同意开听证会解决此争端为
A、Hedrivestoofast.B、Heplayshisguitartooloudly.C、Hisradiowakesherchildrenup.D、Hisfriendsaretoonoisy.C
随机试题
Itwasessentialthattheapplicationforms______backbeforethedeadline.
环境空气质量监测点位置的周边环境应符合相关环境监测技术规范的规定。监测点周围空间应开阔,采样口水平线与周围建筑物的高度夹角()。
在某市城市区域火灾风险评估指标体系中,火灾危险源评估单元分为客观因素和人为因素两类,下列属于客观因素的有()。
计算机中网络通信协议中“TCP”指的是()。
“生产成本”账户的期末借方余额表示( )。
黄河公司以其房屋作抵押,先后向甲银行借款100万元,乙银行借款300万元。丙银行借款500万元,并依次办理了抵押登记。后丙银行与甲银行商定交换各自抵押权的顺位,并办理了变更登记,但乙银行并不知情。因黄河公司无力偿还三家银行的到期债务,银行拍卖其房屋,仅得价
宋代产生了中国绘画中最好的山水画,画家从细小的一只鸟、一朵花开始,最后扩大成为对宇宙自然全面的观察研究。与宋代这一绘画风格密切相关的是()。
回归教育是一种教育理论,它认为人的一生应是学习和工作不断交替、相互结合的过程。接受义务教育或基础教育乃至高等教育后就业的成年人,应在需要时有机会返回学校去学习。下列教育类型属于回归教育的是()。
在微机中,微处理器的主要功能是()
FairwayKenwoodisaqualityPrivateHireCarServicecompany.Thecompanyhasalongandestablishedservicehistorywithover
最新回复
(
0
)