Guest Post by Joe Mazza
Upcoming #PTchat: J.Michael Hall Joins #PTchat to Share Ideas on How to Engage Dads in Education
Wed., 5/23 9PM EDT
Fathers can initiate or participate in activities that help their children succeed academically. Helping children learn can increase success in school. The nature and frequency with which parents interact in positive ways with their children reflect the parents’ investment in their children’s education (NCES, 2000). Some steps that fathers can take at home, at school and in the community that make a positive difference for their children’s education have been compiled on the Department of Education’s Fathers in Education Resource Page.
It’s important to remember up front that both sensitivity and self-confidence are greater than any specific skills in paternal behavior and influence. Sensitivity is critical to both involvement and closeness. The closeness of the father-child relationship is the crucial determinant of the dad’s impact on a child’s development and adjustment. Developing sensitivity enables a dad to evaluate his child’s signals or needs, and respond to them appropriately. (Abramovitch in Lamb, 1997).
J. Michael Hall will join us as our chat’s expert this week. Mr. Hall is the father of two sons and the husband to a middle school teacher. Mr. Hall has been a special education teacher, a teacher of the gifted and talented, and an intermediate and middle school principal. After realizing that he was spending more time raising other people children than his own he left the principalship and soon became an advocate for stronger parent and father involvement in public education. As an educator, speaker and founder of Strong Fathers-Strong Families, he has worked with more than 110,000 fathers and parents at local schools, Head Starts, and regional and national conferences.
Join us on Wednesday, May 23rd at 9PM EDT as parents and educators share their best ideas on how to best engage Dads in schools. Before you finalize your calendars, make sure you’ve purposefully differentiated for all members of your students’ families.