Collaborating with Parents and Families

Collaborating with Parents and Families

Learners with special needs are usually abled differently, requiring teachers to collaborate with parents and families to pat on those talents. Heward acknowledges that while working in most local, culturally linguistically diverse communities, such as Hawaii, teachers usually face challenges in understanding the needs of special needs students from such backgrounds (84). As such, teamwork becomes essential to facilitate the easy transmission of knowledge. Teachers should, therefore, embrace these cultural differences. This paper analyzes how teachers working in culturally and linguistically diverse societies can collaborate with parents and families to facilitate easy learning.

What the Chapter Covered

Chapter three of the book Exceptional Children: An Introduction to Special Education aims to raise awareness of the importance of communication when teaching students with special needs. As such, the author addresses strategies teachers working with diverse communities could employ to facilitate successful learning. According to Heward, embracing the local language of communication helps build rapport between teachers and locals (85). As such, when teachers engage in collaborative communication with parents and families of students with disabilities, they can understand their situation and needs, hence employing the best approaches to meet their educational needs—and therefore, the goal of family involvement is to enhance their children’s educational outcomes. For example, Heward acknowledges the role played by parents in advocating for change. Special needs students should be given equal opportunities to explore their skills and talents, and when teachers and parents collaborate, it helps to improve students’ academic achievements (86). In summary, the chapter advocates the need for teamwork in special education between teachers, parents, and families.

Ideas/Concepts Learned from the Reading

1. Parents act as advocates for change.
2. Embracing the local language of communication is essential for successful special needs education.
3. The only way to collaborate with parents and families is by establishing proper communication channels.
4. Respecting cultural differences helps to develop long-term relationships
5. The collaboration aims to seek greater effectiveness in special education
6. Educators should better their understanding of families of children with special needs
7. Many special needs learners have unique skills and abilities
8. The collaboration aims to provide counseling opportunities for learners with special needs
9. Educators should maintain professional partnerships with families and parents of children with disabilities
10. Successful partnerships are those that desire to break down barriers to parent-teacher collaboration

Works Cited

Heward, William L., Exceptional children: An introduction to special education. Pearson Education/Merrill/Prentice Hall, 2006.

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Read Chapter 3: Collaborating with Parents and Families in a Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Society. After reading Chapter 3, you will need to write a paragraph (8-10 sentences) for the chapter generally describing what the chapter covered and then list 10 ideas/concepts that you learned while reading. Please number the items you learned so that it is easy to see that you have met the requirements.
The book is named Exceptional Children: An Introduction to Special Education. 10th Edition. Heward, W.L. (2012)