Managing parental expectations is an aspect of education. As in any field, education is often misunderstood by outsiders. Parents simply do not have the time to keep up with modern pedagogy while they pursue their careers and raise their children. However, education differs from most industries because everyone has school experience. The average adult’s view of education is shaped by their time in school decades ago and media presentation. This is not a recipe for a well-rounded and modern view of education in the 21st century, especially as technology is changing so quickly. As such, getting parents to buy into differentiation is important if we do not want them to think we are “treating children differently.”
PTAs can be bridges that promote differentiation among parents. School open houses need to stress what differentiation is and how it is beneficial for everybody, not only the gifted or struggling students. If differentiation is going to be the norm in a school district, everybody must be informed.
Helicopter parents get lots of media buzz for being annoying and bad for children’s development. Other parents are less engaged and can not be expected to focus on what their children are doing. More distressingly, some parents are suspicious or actively hostile toward schools and teachers. All these groups will need to be reached to avoid “treating children differently.”
My opinion on convincing parents of differentiation is to focus on the interests of the students. Parents want their children to be happy. If we can show parents how effective it is to use students’ interests as a motivational differentiation practice, the door to more strategies cracks open. Once everyone understands that all students do not need to be taught the same way to learn the same skills and content, the threat of “treating children differently” diminishes. Differentiation is nothing more than multiple paths to the same endpoint.
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