The staff at my school (and most of the staff at all schools in Chuuk) have one universal complaint. The parents aren’t involved enough. The community doesn’t care about education. Parents aren’t overly interested in their children’s education. This situation is slightly comical to me because I dealt with the exact opposite problem in America. I had to physically guard the school property from prying parents and overzealous guardians who couldn’t bear to have their kids out of their hands for a few hours. I had angry tutoring clients who were upset that I was only giving their children an hour of homework each night instead of two hours. In my short stint as a teacher/tutor in America, I had my hands full with doing my best fending off parents from meddling too much in their children’s education. In Chuuk, we practically beg the parents to give a hoot about their child’s education.
I have done two things to try to alleviate this issue. First, I started a parent/student farming project. This has been moderately successful so far and has perked the interest of many parents. Recently, I took on another task that I felt would integrate the parents into school and make them feel part of their children’s education. This year, I started the 1st Annual UFO Elementary School Open House.
Most schools in America have yearly get togethers called Open House and Back to School Night. Both of these events are essential for involving the parents. They let the parents understand what the kids do in school and catch a glimpse of the learning environment. In my opinion, having an open house was the perfect way to make parents and the community more involved in school activities.
None of the teachers, students, or parents had ever heard of anything called Open House. It was a novel idea to them. It was my responsibility to explain the rationale behind the event and plan the functioning of the shindig. I have been a part of a dozen open house’s in my school days, so I felt I had a pretty good idea about what should happen.
I laid down two main reasons for having an open house. One: involve parents in school. Two: let the kids show off what they’ve learned. These two ideas resonated well with the staff and students of my school, and before I knew it they were all on board and excited to try it out.
Actually they were more than excited, they were ecstatic and kind of got carried away. For the final two weeks of school, we basically did nothing except prepare for Open House. Normal class instruction was cast aside in favor of practicing plays, singing songs, and making presentations. The activities were all academically based, so it was far from a waste of time. I was still trying to prepare my kids for finals, but they were wholeheartedly focused on perfecting their Open House performances.
I knew how American schools pulled off an Open House, but this isnt America. I wanted it to be done with a Chuukese flare. Which implies a few things. It would be during daylight, the organization/schedule would be ambivalent, and lots of food would be involved. I was ok with these island additions, and pushed full steam ahead to make it happen.
Each grade prepared two activities. Plays, math competitions, spelling bees, science posters, social studies presentations, and short reviews of class material were the most popular ideas. Our classrooms are dark, shabby and nothing sticks to humid concrete walls; so we didn’t mess around with decorating our rooms. We decided we would do it outside and forgo the usual cliché’s of wall-art, macaroni picture frames, and colorful poster boards.
The majority of my efforts were focused on helping the 8th graders perform the play “Stone Soup”. The story is about a group of soldiers who slyly convince a group of poor villagers to make them a wonderful soup. We made paper hats, collected some local vegetables, and scrounged up all the props that we could come up with.
The day of Open House came along and it was an exceptionally beautiful sunny morning. There wasn’t a drop of dew in the sky to dissuade parents from making the short walk to the school building. The staff and students met up early in the morning and put the last minute touches on our event. There was still a lot to take care of and we barely organized everything in time for the flood of parents to arrive. We kicked off the event at an arbitrary time somewhere in the vicinity of 11ish. The exact timing of things in Chuuk is utterly unimportant. Time is merely based off the position of the sun and the length of time since the last meal. So when the sun was high and late morning hungry started to creep upon us, we called the throngs of people together and started the festivities.
The afternoon performances were a hit and the community really enjoyed seeing the students all pepped up for their routines. It was sloppily organized and could have been put together with better precision, but overall it was a great success. The kids had the chance to exhibit their hard work and the parents got an opportunity to see education in action. The teachers loved having Open House and are already planning for next year.
Love it!
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