Family involvement in education

Why your child's most important teacher is you + helpful teaching strategies for parents and caregivers.

Author’s note: As a K12 teacher in many diverse learning environments, my teacher colleagues and I were often dissuaded from communicating directly with parents - and counseled to direct our questions and concerns to the school principal. In an extreme case, a close friend of mine was fired from a local elementary school because she allowed parents to observe her class (even though this was against school policy). Running a school is an extremely challenging job. I can see the sound reasons that school principals institute these policies that discourage parent involvement (streamlining communication, saving time for already very overburdened teachers, etc). However, I feel this mentality is wrong at its core.

Families should play a central role in their child’s education, and not a supporting role. Parents and caregivers have faced decades of judgement and disempowerment. Parents are judged more than almost any other group. Rolling eyes on the playground reinforce the idea that they’re job is at once unimportant - and that they’re not doing it well.

The message has been consistently reinforced that they’re not qualified to teach, or raise their own kids. Few question this assumption, despite the significant research (and common sense) that reveals the vital role of parent involvement in education and historical precedent for homeschooling (compulsory schooling is relatively new). In this post, we discuss the critical important of family involvement in education, re-affirm parents as teachers and provide some teaching strategies for families and caregivers that can be used as a supplement or replacement to traditional school.” -Manisha Snoyer (founder of Modulo)

You’re qualified to teach your kids

When most parents think about homeschooling, their first thought is that they don’t have the time or don’t have the qualifications to teach their children well.

At Modulo, we’ve written extensively about the pivotal role of family involvement in education. In this guide, we’ll discuss the “unfair advantages” parents have over even the best classroom teachers, some of the research around parent involvement in education, and a few best practices and pitfalls for parent-guided learning.

We’ll also share our favorite books to kick-start parents on this path (whether you’re planning to homeschool or better support your child’s learning outside of school). While we use the term “parent,” these techniques apply to any guardian, relative, mentor, friend, or sibling who cares deeply about a child’s learning and success in life.

This post will help any family interested in taking a more active role in their child’s education, whether it’s helping with homework or full-on homeschooling. 

Parents don’t need to teach six hours a day to help their children learn well - and in fact, it is inadvisable. With effective 1-1 mastery learning, kids can learn more in 1-2 hours a day of focused, 1-1 parent or caregiver-led instruction than they can in a day of group instruction. 

The unfair advantages parents have over classroom teachers