September 2019

To build authentic relationships with families in the context of mathematics teaching and learning, it is important to not assume that parents or caretakers are aware of teaching methods that are aligned with standards-based mathematics pedagogy. We should consider sharing ways that our pedagogies enable their children to attach meaning to mathematical concepts and ideas. This can be done by creating opportunities for caregivers and parents to share in the mathematical experiences that their children are receiving in our classrooms. There are several ways we can do this:

• Create a welcoming and opening environment in which all caregivers and parents feel comfortable. Invite them to your classroom during the school day as well as create opportunities outside of regular school hours.
• Co-create mathematizing spaces with the community so that students and community members can engage with each other and make mathematical connections.
• Co-create opportunities for caregivers and parents to support their child’s mathematics experiences within and beyond school.
• Create ways to communicate mathematics teaching and learning to caregivers and parents. This may mean writing a newsletter, maintaining a website, or holding a mathematics night at the school and then bridging the mathematics that caregivers and parents learn through these strategies to the ways their child might experience the mathematics.
• Reflect on the narratives you create about caregivers, parents, and communities to see whether they are structured from a position of strength.

Recently, I attended a beginning of the year session in which an administrator discussed authentic relationships with parents and caregivers as a key to a successful school year. There was talk of setting a positive tone by being proactive in reaching out to caregivers and parents early to learn about students’ dispositions and strengths. To do this, the administrator suggested that teachers ask the following questions of caregivers and parents:

• Tell me something amazing about your child.
• What are the best ways I can help your child learn?
• What are the best ways I can help you?
• What questions do you have for me?

I found the queries to be a good first step toward showing parents and caregivers that there is an interest in making sure that their children’s best interests are at the forefront of developing a relationship. The administrator also emphasized multiple points of contact, whether by phone, email, the district’s portal system, or home visits. The idea of multiple points of contact seems to suggest accessibility and openness. As I reflected on this discussion, I wondered whether the posed questions and various points of contact gave the impression that these are all that is necessary for building authentic relationships.

Relationships with caregivers and parents take time and effort. They require an understanding of the community, including its history and context, that schools serve. Learning the history and context can provide a lens on how caregivers and parents see their schools function within the broader context of the community. Further, if teachers are outsiders to the community that a school serves, knowledge of context is a valuable resource toward building authentic relationships. This may require visits to community centers, businesses, and events. Additionally, community elders and leaders are resources that can support relationship building.

When we consider the power dynamics at play, caregivers and parents entrust a tremendous amount of authority and power to schools and teachers to claim a position of power over their children. For many parents, there is tremendous consideration given to whether schools and teachers deserve their trust and loyalty. Understandably, caregivers and parents want to be in a position to negotiate the power dynamics of their relationships with schools and teachers, and they may be reluctant to give their trust and loyalty freely. Rebekah Berlin’s reflection on her experiences as a teacher captures the essence I see in the power dynamics at play:

Parents did not owe me anything. They did not have to trust me; they did not have to like me. I was in a tremendous position of power, often with their child for more hours in the day than they were. This was a gift. My students’ parents had every right to feel alarmed when they saw me . . . Compounding this was the fact that the schools in the neighborhood I worked in had been failing the community for so long, many of the parents I worked with entered the year with negative associations with schools and teachers. Further, I taught mathematics very differently than most of the parents I worked with had learned it. Given all of this, what is surprising is not that parents were openly nervous that I was their child’s teacher; it was that I somehow hoped they would not be (Berlin and Berry 2018, p. 18).

This reflection raises ideas about the ways schools and teachers can work to build authentic relationships. Rebekah acknowledged that she needs to provide, “a substantial amount of evidence, sustained over a long period of time, before they began to feel like I was someone worthy of being with their child each day” (Berlin and Berry 2018, p. 18). This evidence has to be established on the basis of trust through transparency. Rebekah invited parents to come sit with their child in the classroom to see her approach to teaching mathematics; she called regularly to provide updates on their child’s progress in the classroom; she texted parents snapshots of their child’s work using pictures and video; and she visited the community in which she taught.

It is important that caregivers and parents are a significant part of the mathematics experiences of their children. Please share ways you build authentic relationships with parents and caregivers on MyNCTM.org or on Twitter.

Robert Q. Berry III
NCTM President
@robertqberry