Para-plethora

          Up to this point in my educational career, as a student and then as teacher, the number of paraeducators with whom I have interacted has been few and far between.  Thinking back to the times I have interacted with paraeducators as a student and later as a parent, I can only clearly remember the name of one of them.  She was my daughter's kindergarten teacher's assistant.  She was memorable because her role was well choreographed as an essential member of the instructional team.  My daughter mentioned her as often as she did the teacher and considered her "one of my teachers."  I remember how much I appreciated the positive environment the teacher and teacher assistant created and projected in their interactions.
          In contrast, the teacher's assistants from "back-in-the-day" when I was an elementary student, were like shadows.  I vaguely recall once watching a teacher's assistant cut out templates for our art class; and a time when our class rejoiced over her returning from making mimeograph copies (we liked the smell of the fresh copies) to distribute to students as the teacher gave instructions.  I don't remember her name and I think my only direct interaction with her was to get a band-aid when I skinned my knee on the playground.
          Our readings and focus on paraeducators has really enlightened my understanding of the examples I observed throughout my life.  I had not realized how NCLB had affected the qualifications required for paraeducators.  Friend & Cook (2010) presented a complex picture of what appears to be an evolving element of education in their explanation for teachers' understanding the role paraeducators play in education.  Their explanation of the benefits in having paraeducators' assistance in schools certainly seem to offset the additional responsibilities for teacher's to supervise and direct paraeducator duties. However, one of the reasons for the increasing use of paraeducators was disturbing, though logical, to me.  "In some instances paraeducators are employed to supplement the services of special educators as an understandable but sometimes questionable means of saving money, that is, the cost of employing a paraeducator is significantly less than the cost of employing an additional special education teacher (US Department of Labor, 2007).  I wondered if the number of paraeducators could become overwhelming for licensed teachers who must supervise and direct their work if school administrators are having to stretch their budgets to provide critical support for students with special needs.

No "buts"

During our role play for using contrasting statements, I was surprised at how difficult it was for me to formulate "good" statements.  It seemed that every phrase that I could think of to follow "I don't want you to think" was inflammatory or just insulting. For example "I don't want you to think that I consider you a slob...." would not be well received as a preemptive statement.  My realization of my difficulty with thinking about how to use contrastive statements "on-the-fly" triggered a deep reflection about how I have communicated in the past, and what I need to change for future communications.

With my new awareness at hand, I revisited our readings in Crucial Conversations about contrasting statements.  I began to better understand the results of my personal survey and how I could apply: 

Commit to seek Mutual Purpose
Recognize the purpose behind the strategy
Invent a Mutual Purpose
Brainstorm new strategies

AND

Share your facts
Tell your story
Ask for others' paths
Talk tentatively
Encourage Testing

These acronyms will be great tools for what I need to think about first, plan for using my crucial conversation strategies, and decide what wording would best convey what I don't want, followed by what I do want.

Through this focus, I have experienced some better conversations (one truly successful "breakthrough" conversation with my usually-silent teenage daughter), as well as some discourse I consider tutorial for further growth and development.

ESSENTIAL Insight

In my reading of Lawrence-Lightfoot's the Essential conversation,  three trains of thought carried my mind to various points to ponder for future application.  

First, I was intrigued by chapter 1, "Ghosts in the Classroom" and the doorknob phenomenon.  The idea of autobiographical stories potentially affecting the subconscious reasoning of parents and teachers was particularly poignant to me as I traveled back in my own memories.  I have found it beneficial to recognize the obvious powerful moments in my own formative education that shaped my philosophies and attitudes as a parent and a teacher, but the most valuable realization was that many of our autobiographical "meta-messages remain hidden, inaudible and unarticulated. They are raw, unvarnished subtext to the ritualized, polite, public text of the conversation.  They are the unconscious, diffuse backdrop to the precise words that fill the foreground dialogue" (Lawrence-Lightfoot, 2003, p.5).  I will need to be watchful for when something "pops" out of my subconscious or for when a parent may act or react in an unexpected way. "If teachers are to learn to respond to the ghosts that parents bring to the classroom, they too have to learn to recognize the autobiographical and ancestral roots that run through their own school lives" (p.7).  Further, the larger cultural and historical legacies are running background influences of how parent-teacher encounters are shaped.  The warning that "there is a tricky balance here between foreground and background....a perilous equilibrium that must be struck between the ghosts of the past and the realities of the present, between adult retrospectives and child perspectives"(p.40) is imperative for teachers to heed and to examine in regards to their own process of dialogue.

After the weightiness of the "ghosts" warning, the second chapter's suggestions and advice for offsetting the "natural enemies" status of parents and teachers were refreshing.  I really appreciated the examples of teachers who were able to help  parents of their students feel comfortable and yet have boundaries that created a space for open parent-teacher dialogue.  I recognized many of the strategies from Crucial Conversations being used in the parent-teacher conference scenarios described.  Great care was taken by the teachers in the scenarios to start with heart and speak difficult truths to parents using tentative methods to soften the impact and to show care for parents and students.  When a line was crossed, the teacher reflected upon what happened in order to better understand how to communicate more effectively in the future with the parent in question. 

The third ponder-able destination was in chapter 3, "Truths the Hand Can Touch." The examples of evidences collected by teachers in the form of specific-to-the-child's-nature anecdotes, tangible pieces of work as well as students' self-evaluations (which, in one teacher's class, were delivered to the parent by the child himself at a conference) were convincing and effective proofs to convey that the teachers were "in touch" with their students.  
This chapter closed  with three skills that allow good "evidence" to be collected for better communication and trust between parents and teachers.

• Art of Observation--become a student of human behavior, body language, and nonverbal cues.
• Record Keeping Skills and Documentation--daily note taking and journal writing
• Learn to Listen--really hear-- the voices and perspectives of the parents.