Collaborating with parents can enrich the dialogue around educational challenges and seed ideas that can lead to innovation. Yet engaging with parents to learn their values, perspectives, and experiences (Practices M1, C1, and C2) can also be challenging—for multiple reasons. This article on Understood.org identifies six common barriers that can make it difficult for parents to be active collaborators and lays out potential solutions for navigating around those barriers.
Toolkit Library/
How to break down communication barriers between teachers and families
Making connections:
Principled Innovation asks us to work with others and recognize the limits of our own knowledge so that we can better understand and tackle the complex issues our communities face.
K-5 Card Deck Activity: Perspective taking
Tool
30 minutes
By: Principled Innovation® (PI)
Just thinking about cooperation can make you less prejudiced
Article
10 minutes
By: Greater Good Science Center, Jill Suttie
5 barriers to critical thinking
Article
10 minutes
By: Chistopher Dwyer, Psychology Today
Perspective taking
Video
2 minutes
By: RISE
Values
Video
2 minutes
By: Center for Leadership and Ethics, UT Austin