Sometimes I refer to the classroom as the black box.  Of course for a classroom teacher, that sounds silly.  Teachers spend all day in the classroom – they are acutely aware of what is happening there.

But for parents, the classroom is opaque.  We rarely see what happens in our kids’ classrooms.  If we are lucky, we hear about it secondhand from our children.  We can also monitor the outcomes of what happens in the classroom, to some extent, through online gradebooks or periodic test results.  We may even see the room on Back to School Night or at Open House.

Getting parents into classrooms during the school day is a much rarer feat, especially as students get older.

Last week, one of our schools hosted Parent Learning Walks, and I had the chance to attend.  The event itself is part of an ongoing grant collaboration between my home district, Santa Ana Unified, Anaheim Union High School District, and El Sol Academy, a local charter school.  The purpose of the collaboration is to share practices around parent engagement, and the Parent Learning Walks have figured predominately in that work.  Our walk last week was hosted by our very own Esqueda K8 School.

Basically, parents visit classrooms in small groups, accompanied by staff members who encourage parents to take note of the learning tasks and levels of student engagement.  After each classroom visit, the group spends time outside discussing what they saw and trying to make sense out of the teacher’s purpose and the corresponding learning experience of the students.  The dialogue is fascinating, and you can see parents piecing together the things they have previously only heard about at home.   

While the process might seem intimidating to some teachers, when facilitated well (as I have witnessed it), I think it actually makes parents more empathetic and supportive of what the teacher is trying to accomplish.  It equips parents with pedagogical vocabulary and familiarity that enhances their ability to reasonably advocate for improvement and innovation.

It’s one of the best strategies I’ve seen in action for encouraging authentic parent engagement in our schools.