Self Reflection On Columbus

The information provided within this paper will reflect my experience within a sixth-grade only school on the north side of Columbus and the community around. My mentor teacher has worked within the district for 27 years and at this building for 2 years. He described the student population of that school as an even split it low SES and middle SES students. The school is settled within a plethora of single family homes valued on average $150k or more. The students that walk to school come from these homes. Majority of the bussed students come from local apartments or other multi-family dwellings. When discussing the racial demographics, my mentor believed about 75% of the school was black, about 10% Latino/Hispanic, 10% white and 5% other. When

H has discussed a correlation between student success and familial involvement. Based on his students and experience, the students whose parents were visible, active in the school community and assisted the students academically at home performed at higher levels than the students who didn’t have the same support. Additionally, he believed the students with the most support performed with less anxiety and more resilience. Of the four parents I spoke with, three of which admitted to not fully supporting their students’ academic life. They didn’t do it purposefully, however. They discussed the difficulties they experience when attempting to assist their student with work in which they don’t understand or remember from their own schooling. The parents also mentioned how difficult it was to attend every PTA meeting, concert, teacher conference and any other school event because they may have other children to care for or interfering work schedules. These are frequent issues this community faces which properly correlates with the normal occurrences of an economically disadvantaged population. This is an example of how a family characteristic, lack of familial assistance with academics outside the classroom is detrimental to student’s success in the current school model. A parent’s ability or inability to help the student at home, something that isn’t within the students control, can influence their academic success and

One issue Mr. H and the parents’ individual discussed was familial involvement, so the most fitting intervention will involve ‘bridging the gap’ between families and the teacher through other vehicles, other than physical interaction. When multiple people feel engaged in the student’s academics, hold the student accountable and embrace the academic lifestyle outside the classroom, students will develop higher levels of motivation for their own academic performance. One way the school could involve families more is by inviting parents, who are available, to join the after-school tutoring sessions. They may be able to tutor other students or receive guidance about the current topics from their students’ teachers so they can better help their student at home and serve as a component of the learning process. Another way to remedy the disconnection of the school and families who can’t physically support or struggle to support their students academically is by emailing, mailing or somehow providing adult-friendly lessons/reviews on a weekly, interim, quarterly or yearly basis dependent upon the teachers pre-planning. The review could just contain material, in a family friendly way, where the community has at most a high school or associate degree level education, could understand the material their student was covering. This is one way to continue transcend the academic conversation