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
63
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."
According to Mapp, educators and parents should work in a______ partnership to help the kids.
选项
答案
shared, mutual
解析
此处需填入形容词性成分,修饰partnership。该句提到的partnership是在教育者和家长之间,题干表达与此一致,原文修饰该词的是shared,mutual,可知答案正是shared,mutual。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/Z0N7777K
0
大学英语四级
相关试题推荐
A、ToanItalianrestaurantacrossthestreet.B、ToaFrenchrestaurantonRainbowAvenue.C、ToaMexicanrestaurantaroundthec
"Igetbywithalittlehelpfromfriends"isapopularsayingwithage-oldwisdombehindit.Thatpeopleneedhelpissomething
A、Intheafternoon.B、Intheevening.C、Atmidnight.D、Inthemorning.D
Americansocietyisnotnap-friendly.Infact,there’sevena【B1】______againstadmittingweneedsleep.Nobodywantstobecaugh
Forthispart,youareallowed30minutestowriteanessayentitledCreditCards.Youshouldwriteatleast120wordsfollowing
Itisobviousthattheinfluenceoffamily,friends,religionandschoolisdecisivein____________(年轻人形成道德观).
A、Theweatherismildcomparedtothepastyears.B、Theyarehavingthecoldestwinterever.C、Theweatherwillsoongetwarmer.
A、She’sinameeting.B、She’soutoftheoffice.C、She’stalkingwithanothercustomer.D、She’sspendingherholiday.B
Forthispart,youareallowed30minutestowriteacompositiononthetitleDrugAbuseAmongTeenagers.Youshouldwriteatle
Theironlyrequestisthat______(这个争端尽快解决掉).
随机试题
下列记账凭证中,可以不附原始凭证的是()。
“蝉噪林愈静,鸟鸣山更幽”体现了矛盾的()
检测沙眼病人标本时,一般采用做预处理的抗生素是
糖尿病表现为
IV型高脂蛋白血症是指空腹血浆
A.执业药师的执业义务B.执业药师的执业权力C.执业药师的执业责任D.执业药师的执业权利E.执业药师的执业行为规范以维护病患者和公众的健康利益为最高行为准则是()
证券交易所、国务院批准的其他全国性证券交易场所的设立、变更和解散由()决定。
(2012年江苏.B类.材料三)根据下列资料,回答下列问题。与2010年12月相比,2011年5月江苏用电量增速最快的是()。
为人民服务是社会主义道德要求的集中体现。为人民服务有不同层次的要求,全心全意为人民服务是高层次要求。下列选项中,也体现了为人民服务要求的是
To:richardson_1108@hotmail.comFrom:jasmine211@yahoo.comDate:December10,2009DearMr.Richardson,Iamwritingtocompla
最新回复
(
0
)