Can You Understand Me?

Constructing Roles

This segment of my blog will start to examine the importance of parent involvement and how it contributes to their children’s’ success in school. The majority of scholarly data in this segment was pulled from the Peabody Journal of Education 76 no2 119-69 2001. Using the article Engaging Latino Families for Student Success: how Parent Education Can Reshape Parents’ Sense of Place in the Education of Their Children by Janet Chrispeels and Elvia Rivero. I explore how parent involvement helps their children’s success, no matter what the cultural or socioeconomic situations are. Chrispeels and Rivero say “The literature on parent involvement suggests that there are differences in how parents define their place in their children’s education based on cultural and socioeconomic status (Coleman et al., 1966; Lareau, 1989: Lightfoot, 1978; Van Galen, 1987)” (p. 2) and these places are important to understanding the relationship between the American teacher and Mexican parents.

Chrispeels and Rivero are quick to argue that “When roles are in transition or a new culture is entered, individuals’ past behaviors and patterns on interaction may not be appropriate and new behaviors and patterns need to be learned. This learning occurs through sent messages and repeated interactions with different players within the system.” (p. 1) After contemplating that quote my questions now become how do teachers and parents recognize old behaviors and transition to the new. Who are different players in the system and what to they bring to the table?

The evidence shows that the old behavior can be eased or put to rest by the teachers’ initial interaction with the parents. Teachers should initiate parent participation no matter what the cultural barriers consist of. Inviting Mexican parents to do the same activities that you would invite your American parent’s too. I am talking about attending committee meetings, observe in the classroom, attend PTA meetings, volunteer at school, conferences, telephone conversations, and face to face talking before and after school. Don’t allow language to be a barrier. This is where my second question comes in. Who are the different players?

Phase 1: Who’s Who and Why?
For the conversations between Spanish speaking Mexican parents’ and English speaking teachers’ the key players are people who can interpret. Make sure these players are relating both sides of the conversation completely. I remember when I was working as a nurse and we were telling an elderly Cambodian woman that the doctors would have to amputate her leg, due to years of diabetic abuse, which caused gangrene. The women’s grand daughter was translating and didn’t want to tell her grandma that her leg had to come off, so she told her she was having a procedure to drain the infection. Of course the women signed the consent forms; she couldn’t read or speak English. When she awoke from surgery, legless it became a lawyers dream. The hospital was negligent, because they allowed the grand daughter to translate.

So my first phase of my blog has focused on the roles of interpretation, and the importance of good translation. I hope some of my readers have some good stories to share on translation nightmares.