This paper aims to suggest some effective parents‘ activities in the infant educational institutes such as kindergartens by researching the current situation in which the parents take part and the recognition about it of the kindergarten teachers.
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This paper aims to suggest some effective parents‘ activities in the infant educational institutes such as kindergartens by researching the current situation in which the parents take part and the recognition about it of the kindergarten teachers.
The issues for the target are as follows.
The research questions are posed as below:
1. What is the current situation where the parents involvement in the infant educational institutes?
2. How do the kindergarten teachers recognize the importance of the parent involvement?
3. What is the current situation of the method of communication between the parents and the teachers?
4. How do the teachers recognize the parents' volunteering activities?
5. How do the teachers recognize the roles that the parents should play at home?
6. How do the teachers recognize the parent's involvement of decision-making?
7. How do the teachers recognize how difficult it is to perform the patent involvement programs?
For this paper the questionnaires were used which had been done for 277 kindergarten teachers working for the infant educational institutes from June 19 to July 20, 2007. For the analysis of the cases unexplored through the questionnaires, ten among the teachers who had answered them were interviewed for one month, from September 22 to October 22. In this paper, the questionnaire of Kyeng wha Lee(1992) was used after some correction and supplementation in order to get to know the current situation in which the parent involvement and the teachers' recognition about it.
In this study I used SPSS Win 12.0 statistic program and got the frequency and the percentage to find out the current situation in which the parent involvement, and the even and the standard deviation to understand the teachers' recognition about it. I also used the teachers' interviews recorded and transcribed with their consent and did the quality analysis of them. The results of the analysis are as follows.
The results of this study are as follows: First, it turned out that most of the teachers made use of the formal home letters and interviews for the participation of the parent involvement in the infant educational institutes. Second, in the questionnaire of the teachers' recognition about the parent involvement, most of the teachers answered that the parent involvement was important for the good educational environment and that the programs such as the training for teachers were necessary in order to perform the more effective program of parent involvement.
Third, in the way of communication between teachers and parents, the notes and letters for parents, the conversation by phone, the formal home letters and informal facial interviews with parents were frequently used in order. On the contrary, it turned out that the teachers' formal and individual meetings with the parents were seldom done. Still, I found out that the teachers and parents communicated each other in various ways. Recently in particular they communicated freely using e-mails, text messages by mobile phones. However, the teachers did not communicate with two-paycheck couples or grandparents to the desirable extent.
Fourth, in the questionnaires of the teachers' recognition of the parent involvement, the teachers answered that the parents could do more effectively in the area of the parent involvement, class activities, and then excursions or some other events. But it was not proper for the parents to lead a class for the certain period of time in the massive class. Through the interviews, I found out that the parents were participating in helping the teachers' chores only. However, it was proved that some institutes did not want the parent involvement because their frequent interruptions might do harm for the class.
Fifth, in the questionnaires of the teachers' recognition of the parents' role at home, they answered that it was important for the parents to share with their children what they had learned at the kindergarten, but not to help them prepare for what they were going to learn at the elementary school.
Sixth, in the questionnaires of the teachers' recognition of the parent involvement in decision making, they answered that they thought the parents' opinions about the general management in the infant educational institutes could be reflected, but that they disapproved that the parents should participate in doing class management and deciding the curriculum because it could make them confused in selecting the contents of education. The teachers suggested that the institutes should help the parents express their views freely through e-mail, opinion boxes, etc. in order to collect their thoughts and views.
Seventh, in the questionnaires of the teachers' recognition of how difficult it was to perform the patent involvement programs, they answered that it was difficult to take the time to plan and perform the parent involvement activities. In the questionnaire, the fewest answered that it was difficult to do the activities because the parents had negative thinking about them. I have got the same result from the interviews. The teachers who had received the teachers' training for the parent involvement could take advantage of the information pretty well; on the contrary, the teachers who hadn't said that they had a hard time leading classes because of the lack of information. In addition, they indicated that they had felt difficulty in performing the parent involvement activities because of the high academic background and anticipation for their child education of the parents, and because of the lack of system of caring for the parents' deserted younger children on their participation, the participation of grandparents and fathers in single parent family, or the non-participation of husbands and wives working together.