# data[].attributes.headline
"What is the biggest issue we should be advocating for in regards to education?

# data[].attributes.subject
"What is the biggest issue we should be advocating for in regards to education?

# data[].attributes.body
PARENTS:
1. That the students education comes first.   Kids are being pushed from one grade to the next without fulling understanding and gaining knowledge.
2. Teachers to work more one-on-one with students.
3. Social-emotional education
4. Instruction, my son is a GT student. I want him to be supplied with the tools and instruction to push him.
5. Respect in education. I want my child to be respected by teachers/staff/admin/ students.

# data[].attributes.headline
"What is the biggest issue we should be advocating for in regards to education?

# data[].attributes.subject
"What is the biggest issue we should be advocating for in regards to education?

# data[].attributes.body
TEACHERS:
1. 6th Grade Reading Teacher ...
For teachers:  equal pay compared to other professions that have the same requirements in their schooling and on the job expectations.
For students:  smaller class sizes to meet the needs/make sure each student is learning what the standards expect of them so that so many are not so far behind each year.
2. 7th Grade Science Teacher..
Funding for resources (material and staffing) to meet the needs of the current generation.
3. 8th Grade Reading Teacher.
Teacher pay not in line with other professions.  Better pay recruits better teachers that are the educators of the future.
4. 8th Grade Math Teacher...
Equal funding for public schools state wide (or even better country wide).
5. 8th Grade Lang. Arts Teacher.
I feel that education at the moment doesn't have a penalty. That students today are allowed to continue their education and be given multiple resources in order to get a passing grade which moves them through the system until they get their diploma. While this is good for student confidence and the morale of some, it doesn't help the system as a whole. Students grow up trying to master skills that they cannot and get pushed through instead of learning valuable skills that they are good at that would benefit them and their economy. As of now Canada is #1 in education.

# data[].attributes.headline
"What is the biggest issue we should be advocating for in regards to education?

# data[].attributes.subject
"What is the biggest issue we should be advocating for in regards to education?

# data[].attributes.body
ADMINISTRATORS/SPECIALIST..
1. Art Teacher ...
Teacher pay
2. PE Teacher....
Preparing our students for the real world.  Teaching them that it is not going to easy and giving them skills that will benefit as citizen.  We need to get back to teaching real life.
3. Principal....
Earlier interventions- Parents are not going to help the GAP kids. We can educate them all we want but there ate too many parents today who feel the schools should do it all and the kids are the ones who pay the price. Providing interventions for reading an math are critical.
4. 8th Grade Special Education..
I don't know!  This year has been so different!  Coming from a special education point of view, I think we should be focusing on what kids really need as opposed to all kids having to master the same standards and take the same classes.  It's a catch 22 for my kids.  A lot of my kids are not going to go to college; cognitively, they would never be able to graduate.  They should be able to enroll in the vocational/technical school and spend all four years taking classes there and earning certificates that will help them obtain employment, however, they have to have a 2.5 GPA to get accepted into the vocational school!  When we turn them out from high school, they should either be college bound or skilled for the workforce.
5.Paraeducator....
I feel poverty is a big issue that we should be advocating for in regards to education. There is not enough educational support at home for the kids in this situation to stay educationally motivated. Low-income children are much more likely to experience food instability, family turmoil, and other stressors that can negatively affect their academic success. All of this means that teachers face instructional challenges that go beyond students' desires to learn.

# data[].attributes.body
Higher rates of work completion

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
by Katy Ridnouer

Wonder, not doubt, is the root of all knowledge.

* RABBI ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL *

When I taught my first class of students at Dore Academy in Charlotte, North Carolina, I looked into 15 sets of eyes and thought, "These are my students. I can't wait to see how far I can take them!" Running through my head were all the ways I hoped to connect with them, engage them in meaningful learning activities, and help them develop into thoughtful, capable, educated adults. I wanted to succeed as a teacher so that my students could succeed as learners, and I vowed that together we would take on learning as partners in a great adventure.

The funny thing is, I didn't spare the slightest thought for the people who, next to the students themselves, could have been my closest allies in achieving these objectives: my students' parents. Why would I? Nothing in my teacher-certification process had even mentioned parents. I was taught pedagogical strategies, educational philosophy, and lesson planning; I never considered that I could use these same tools to engage parents in their children's academic life. And the truth was, my actual contact with parents was limited. The students attending our K-12 school were dropped off in the morning and picked up in the afternoon, plucked off the steps like ripened tomatoes from a vine. I would call parents occasionally, when there was a problem or a particular success to report, yet I was always uncomfortable during these exchanges. Perhaps it was because the only advice I had received about working with parents came from an administrator colleague, who once whispered to me in the hallway, "Never meet with them alone, Katy. You'll lose your job." This colleague's philosophy when it came to parents? "Give 'em what they want, and you'll get 'em off your back." It was a perspective that cast parents as adversaries instead of partners.

When it came my turn to be "the parent," I was determined not to be an adversary at school. I volunteered. I chaperoned. And I realized that parents' roles in school were not limited to victim, complainer, or boss. Parents could make suggestions. We could apply our skills. We could make a difference.

As I worked toward being a partner in my son's academic progress, I began thinking about how each student's academic experience could be enhanced by parent involvement. I also started researching the connections between good teaching practice and the kind of parent involvement that improves student achievement. There was plenty of information available. Since the 1970s, researchers have been documenting the power of home-school connections to enhance student success. School and parent partnerships are associated with higher levels of achievement measured through standardized test scores and with gains in factual, conceptual, critical, and attitudinal aspects of learning (Eccles & Harold, 1993). When parents are involved in their children's education, children may acquire skills and knowledge beyond those they would achieve through school experiences alone (Hoover-Dempsey & Sandler, 1995).

Even as I continued my reading, I delved into some firsthand research by joining the Parent Leadership Network, which meant committing to three weekend training sessions over the course of three months. My fellow trainees and I met with our children's principals and discussed their concerns about parent involvement at the school and particular issues within the school-academic and otherwise. We went on to create project plans that addressed these concerns and made use of both the schools' resources and our personal skill sets.

Guided by the Parent Leadership Network staff, I began to get a clearer sense of the overlap between the elements of successful parent partnership and successful teaching practice. I also realized what parent involvement in schooling could mean for children. Henderson and Berla (1994) tell us that parent partnership benefits students in the following ways:

A more positive attitude toward school

Improved academic achievement

Better behavior in the classroom

Higher rates of work completion

Increased participation in classroom activities

Better attendance

Any educator reading this list is sure to notice that the picture it paints is of a positive, functional, harmonious classroom-the kind of environment we strive to set up for our students and maintain through their collective participation. Once I made that connection, it seemed foolish to continue working alone. Simply put, using engagement practices to partner collaboratively with parents and students alike made much more sense.

Finding a New Solution to a Familiar Challenge

Of course, if facilitating effective parental partnership were simple, all schools would already be doing it. Numerous obstacles stand in the way, from parents' lack of time and know-how, and their perception that schools don't want them around, to teachers' perception that parents don't get involved because they don't care about their own children's academic success. According to the 2006 MetLife Survey of the American Teacher, new teachers consider engaging and working with parents their greatest challenge, more so than classroom management, organizing a new classroom, or obtaining supplies. In fact, parent involvement in learning is the area they feel the least prepared to respond to during their first year of teaching. Not surprisingly, fewer than half of the new teachers surveyed were satisfied with their relationship with parents.

It is time for a change. It is time to look at parent partnership in a different way, using the lens of engagement. Encouraging parent partnership doesn't mean tallying the number of hours parents are in the school building each week or teaching parents how to teach reading. What it means is cultivating a welcoming atmosphere for parents, just as we create a welcoming atmosphere for our students. It means giving parents comfortable and significant ways to participate in the schooling process in the same way we aim to give our students meaningful and appropriate work to help them master academic goals and other classroom challenges.

Meaningful Engagement

One of the most valuable lessons I've learned as a teacher is that all students need to feel seen and known. Before they will fully engage their minds in the classroom, they need to believe that their teacher has an understanding of who they are. Involving parents in and out of the classroom provides a way for teachers to complete the full picture of who students are by capturing the personal details that can fall through the sieve of students' school records, anecdotes from previous teachers, and the face students present in the classroom.

For me, the real breakthrough came when I realized that parents, too, need to be seen and known. The same five elements that are essential to engaging students in the educational process are critical to engaging their parents:

1. Laying the groundwork for engagement: Recognizing that each student and each parent is a unique individual and finding a way for every person to contribute to a positive learning environment.

2. Communicate invitations: Maintaining a welcoming attitude and inviting both student and parent participation in the learning community.

3. Cultivating interpersonal responses: Considering what students and parents are willing and able to give of themselves and providing appropriate support and encouragement.

4. Dealing effectively with engagement challenges: Anticipating and handling setbacks and complications related to connecting with both students and parents.

5. Extending the learning community: Tapping outside resources.

Being the Difference, Being the Advocate

The approach I outline in this book reflects my own experience as a teacher and a parent, as well as the experiences of my students, children, friends, and colleagues. As noted, my writing has been further informed by the insights of the Parent Leadership Network and by research on parent and student involvement. What I advocate here is in many ways an extension of my first book, Managing Your Classroom with Heart (Ridnouer, 2006), which explored how a compassionate teacher can bring out the best in students. Teachers who focus this same compassion on parents will be able to initiate productive and rewarding conversations about forming home-school connections that support student learning.

An advocate is a person who supports or promotes the interests of another, and that is what a teacher is doing when he or she works to engage students and their parents as partners in a positive, learning-focused classroom community. An advocate is also one who promotes a cause, and I believe every teacher must be an advocate for student and parent engagement in learning, and for learning in general. They must promote it actively; they must embed these efforts into their classroom practice on an everyday basis. Some students and parents will be prone to engagement-easy to reach, easy to know, and eager to be involved in the classroom-due to the very nature of who they are. Other students and parents are the exact opposite. I believe it is up to the teacher to cast a net wide enough to pull in students and parents-those who are naturally inclined toward engagement and those who reject the traditional methods of engagement.

Each of this book's five parts focuses on one of the key elements of meaningful engagement, identifying and answering specific questions you may have, and offering strategies for tackling the associated challenges. Taken together, these elements provide a stable groundwork for a collaborative partnership among schools, students, and parents-a partnership that, once established, becomes as much of a part of the classroom environment as curricula, pencils, and paper. And from that point, the question for students and parents is not if they will be engaged in classroom learning, but how they will choose to engage, how far that engagement will take them, and what else is possible.

Every teacher has the power to be a tremendously positive force in the lives of their students. The fact that you are reading this book suggests you share this belief, and I hope that the questions asked and strategies explored in the pages ahead will be helpful in your work. Let's get started.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Introduction: The Teacher as Everyday Advocate

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
by Katy Ridnouer Wonder, not doubt, is the root of all knowledge. * RABBI ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL * When I taught my first class of students at Dore Academy in Charlotte, North Carolina, I looked into 15 sets of eyes and thought, "These are my students.

# data[].attributes.body
Improved academic achievement

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
by Katy Ridnouer

Wonder, not doubt, is the root of all knowledge.

* RABBI ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL *

When I taught my first class of students at Dore Academy in Charlotte, North Carolina, I looked into 15 sets of eyes and thought, "These are my students. I can't wait to see how far I can take them!" Running through my head were all the ways I hoped to connect with them, engage them in meaningful learning activities, and help them develop into thoughtful, capable, educated adults. I wanted to succeed as a teacher so that my students could succeed as learners, and I vowed that together we would take on learning as partners in a great adventure.

The funny thing is, I didn't spare the slightest thought for the people who, next to the students themselves, could have been my closest allies in achieving these objectives: my students' parents. Why would I? Nothing in my teacher-certification process had even mentioned parents. I was taught pedagogical strategies, educational philosophy, and lesson planning; I never considered that I could use these same tools to engage parents in their children's academic life. And the truth was, my actual contact with parents was limited. The students attending our K-12 school were dropped off in the morning and picked up in the afternoon, plucked off the steps like ripened tomatoes from a vine. I would call parents occasionally, when there was a problem or a particular success to report, yet I was always uncomfortable during these exchanges. Perhaps it was because the only advice I had received about working with parents came from an administrator colleague, who once whispered to me in the hallway, "Never meet with them alone, Katy. You'll lose your job." This colleague's philosophy when it came to parents? "Give 'em what they want, and you'll get 'em off your back." It was a perspective that cast parents as adversaries instead of partners.

When it came my turn to be "the parent," I was determined not to be an adversary at school. I volunteered. I chaperoned. And I realized that parents' roles in school were not limited to victim, complainer, or boss. Parents could make suggestions. We could apply our skills. We could make a difference.

As I worked toward being a partner in my son's academic progress, I began thinking about how each student's academic experience could be enhanced by parent involvement. I also started researching the connections between good teaching practice and the kind of parent involvement that improves student achievement. There was plenty of information available. Since the 1970s, researchers have been documenting the power of home-school connections to enhance student success. School and parent partnerships are associated with higher levels of achievement measured through standardized test scores and with gains in factual, conceptual, critical, and attitudinal aspects of learning (Eccles & Harold, 1993). When parents are involved in their children's education, children may acquire skills and knowledge beyond those they would achieve through school experiences alone (Hoover-Dempsey & Sandler, 1995).

Even as I continued my reading, I delved into some firsthand research by joining the Parent Leadership Network, which meant committing to three weekend training sessions over the course of three months. My fellow trainees and I met with our children's principals and discussed their concerns about parent involvement at the school and particular issues within the school-academic and otherwise. We went on to create project plans that addressed these concerns and made use of both the schools' resources and our personal skill sets.

Guided by the Parent Leadership Network staff, I began to get a clearer sense of the overlap between the elements of successful parent partnership and successful teaching practice. I also realized what parent involvement in schooling could mean for children. Henderson and Berla (1994) tell us that parent partnership benefits students in the following ways:

A more positive attitude toward school

Improved academic achievement

Better behavior in the classroom

Higher rates of work completion

Increased participation in classroom activities

Better attendance

Any educator reading this list is sure to notice that the picture it paints is of a positive, functional, harmonious classroom-the kind of environment we strive to set up for our students and maintain through their collective participation. Once I made that connection, it seemed foolish to continue working alone. Simply put, using engagement practices to partner collaboratively with parents and students alike made much more sense.

Finding a New Solution to a Familiar Challenge

Of course, if facilitating effective parental partnership were simple, all schools would already be doing it. Numerous obstacles stand in the way, from parents' lack of time and know-how, and their perception that schools don't want them around, to teachers' perception that parents don't get involved because they don't care about their own children's academic success. According to the 2006 MetLife Survey of the American Teacher, new teachers consider engaging and working with parents their greatest challenge, more so than classroom management, organizing a new classroom, or obtaining supplies. In fact, parent involvement in learning is the area they feel the least prepared to respond to during their first year of teaching. Not surprisingly, fewer than half of the new teachers surveyed were satisfied with their relationship with parents.

It is time for a change. It is time to look at parent partnership in a different way, using the lens of engagement. Encouraging parent partnership doesn't mean tallying the number of hours parents are in the school building each week or teaching parents how to teach reading. What it means is cultivating a welcoming atmosphere for parents, just as we create a welcoming atmosphere for our students. It means giving parents comfortable and significant ways to participate in the schooling process in the same way we aim to give our students meaningful and appropriate work to help them master academic goals and other classroom challenges.

Meaningful Engagement

One of the most valuable lessons I've learned as a teacher is that all students need to feel seen and known. Before they will fully engage their minds in the classroom, they need to believe that their teacher has an understanding of who they are. Involving parents in and out of the classroom provides a way for teachers to complete the full picture of who students are by capturing the personal details that can fall through the sieve of students' school records, anecdotes from previous teachers, and the face students present in the classroom.

For me, the real breakthrough came when I realized that parents, too, need to be seen and known. The same five elements that are essential to engaging students in the educational process are critical to engaging their parents:

1. Laying the groundwork for engagement: Recognizing that each student and each parent is a unique individual and finding a way for every person to contribute to a positive learning environment.

2. Communicate invitations: Maintaining a welcoming attitude and inviting both student and parent participation in the learning community.

3. Cultivating interpersonal responses: Considering what students and parents are willing and able to give of themselves and providing appropriate support and encouragement.

4. Dealing effectively with engagement challenges: Anticipating and handling setbacks and complications related to connecting with both students and parents.

5. Extending the learning community: Tapping outside resources.

Being the Difference, Being the Advocate

The approach I outline in this book reflects my own experience as a teacher and a parent, as well as the experiences of my students, children, friends, and colleagues. As noted, my writing has been further informed by the insights of the Parent Leadership Network and by research on parent and student involvement. What I advocate here is in many ways an extension of my first book, Managing Your Classroom with Heart (Ridnouer, 2006), which explored how a compassionate teacher can bring out the best in students. Teachers who focus this same compassion on parents will be able to initiate productive and rewarding conversations about forming home-school connections that support student learning.

An advocate is a person who supports or promotes the interests of another, and that is what a teacher is doing when he or she works to engage students and their parents as partners in a positive, learning-focused classroom community. An advocate is also one who promotes a cause, and I believe every teacher must be an advocate for student and parent engagement in learning, and for learning in general. They must promote it actively; they must embed these efforts into their classroom practice on an everyday basis. Some students and parents will be prone to engagement-easy to reach, easy to know, and eager to be involved in the classroom-due to the very nature of who they are. Other students and parents are the exact opposite. I believe it is up to the teacher to cast a net wide enough to pull in students and parents-those who are naturally inclined toward engagement and those who reject the traditional methods of engagement.

Each of this book's five parts focuses on one of the key elements of meaningful engagement, identifying and answering specific questions you may have, and offering strategies for tackling the associated challenges. Taken together, these elements provide a stable groundwork for a collaborative partnership among schools, students, and parents-a partnership that, once established, becomes as much of a part of the classroom environment as curricula, pencils, and paper. And from that point, the question for students and parents is not if they will be engaged in classroom learning, but how they will choose to engage, how far that engagement will take them, and what else is possible.

Every teacher has the power to be a tremendously positive force in the lives of their students. The fact that you are reading this book suggests you share this belief, and I hope that the questions asked and strategies explored in the pages ahead will be helpful in your work. Let's get started.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Introduction: The Teacher as Everyday Advocate

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
by Katy Ridnouer Wonder, not doubt, is the root of all knowledge. * RABBI ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL * When I taught my first class of students at Dore Academy in Charlotte, North Carolina, I looked into 15 sets of eyes and thought, "These are my students.

# data[].attributes.body
A more positive attitude toward school

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
by Katy Ridnouer

Wonder, not doubt, is the root of all knowledge.

* RABBI ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL *

When I taught my first class of students at Dore Academy in Charlotte, North Carolina, I looked into 15 sets of eyes and thought, "These are my students. I can't wait to see how far I can take them!" Running through my head were all the ways I hoped to connect with them, engage them in meaningful learning activities, and help them develop into thoughtful, capable, educated adults. I wanted to succeed as a teacher so that my students could succeed as learners, and I vowed that together we would take on learning as partners in a great adventure.

The funny thing is, I didn't spare the slightest thought for the people who, next to the students themselves, could have been my closest allies in achieving these objectives: my students' parents. Why would I? Nothing in my teacher-certification process had even mentioned parents. I was taught pedagogical strategies, educational philosophy, and lesson planning; I never considered that I could use these same tools to engage parents in their children's academic life. And the truth was, my actual contact with parents was limited. The students attending our K-12 school were dropped off in the morning and picked up in the afternoon, plucked off the steps like ripened tomatoes from a vine. I would call parents occasionally, when there was a problem or a particular success to report, yet I was always uncomfortable during these exchanges. Perhaps it was because the only advice I had received about working with parents came from an administrator colleague, who once whispered to me in the hallway, "Never meet with them alone, Katy. You'll lose your job." This colleague's philosophy when it came to parents? "Give 'em what they want, and you'll get 'em off your back." It was a perspective that cast parents as adversaries instead of partners.

When it came my turn to be "the parent," I was determined not to be an adversary at school. I volunteered. I chaperoned. And I realized that parents' roles in school were not limited to victim, complainer, or boss. Parents could make suggestions. We could apply our skills. We could make a difference.

As I worked toward being a partner in my son's academic progress, I began thinking about how each student's academic experience could be enhanced by parent involvement. I also started researching the connections between good teaching practice and the kind of parent involvement that improves student achievement. There was plenty of information available. Since the 1970s, researchers have been documenting the power of home-school connections to enhance student success. School and parent partnerships are associated with higher levels of achievement measured through standardized test scores and with gains in factual, conceptual, critical, and attitudinal aspects of learning (Eccles & Harold, 1993). When parents are involved in their children's education, children may acquire skills and knowledge beyond those they would achieve through school experiences alone (Hoover-Dempsey & Sandler, 1995).

Even as I continued my reading, I delved into some firsthand research by joining the Parent Leadership Network, which meant committing to three weekend training sessions over the course of three months. My fellow trainees and I met with our children's principals and discussed their concerns about parent involvement at the school and particular issues within the school-academic and otherwise. We went on to create project plans that addressed these concerns and made use of both the schools' resources and our personal skill sets.

Guided by the Parent Leadership Network staff, I began to get a clearer sense of the overlap between the elements of successful parent partnership and successful teaching practice. I also realized what parent involvement in schooling could mean for children. Henderson and Berla (1994) tell us that parent partnership benefits students in the following ways:

A more positive attitude toward school

Improved academic achievement

Better behavior in the classroom

Higher rates of work completion

Increased participation in classroom activities

Better attendance

Any educator reading this list is sure to notice that the picture it paints is of a positive, functional, harmonious classroom-the kind of environment we strive to set up for our students and maintain through their collective participation. Once I made that connection, it seemed foolish to continue working alone. Simply put, using engagement practices to partner collaboratively with parents and students alike made much more sense.

Finding a New Solution to a Familiar Challenge

Of course, if facilitating effective parental partnership were simple, all schools would already be doing it. Numerous obstacles stand in the way, from parents' lack of time and know-how, and their perception that schools don't want them around, to teachers' perception that parents don't get involved because they don't care about their own children's academic success. According to the 2006 MetLife Survey of the American Teacher, new teachers consider engaging and working with parents their greatest challenge, more so than classroom management, organizing a new classroom, or obtaining supplies. In fact, parent involvement in learning is the area they feel the least prepared to respond to during their first year of teaching. Not surprisingly, fewer than half of the new teachers surveyed were satisfied with their relationship with parents.

It is time for a change. It is time to look at parent partnership in a different way, using the lens of engagement. Encouraging parent partnership doesn't mean tallying the number of hours parents are in the school building each week or teaching parents how to teach reading. What it means is cultivating a welcoming atmosphere for parents, just as we create a welcoming atmosphere for our students. It means giving parents comfortable and significant ways to participate in the schooling process in the same way we aim to give our students meaningful and appropriate work to help them master academic goals and other classroom challenges.

Meaningful Engagement

One of the most valuable lessons I've learned as a teacher is that all students need to feel seen and known. Before they will fully engage their minds in the classroom, they need to believe that their teacher has an understanding of who they are. Involving parents in and out of the classroom provides a way for teachers to complete the full picture of who students are by capturing the personal details that can fall through the sieve of students' school records, anecdotes from previous teachers, and the face students present in the classroom.

For me, the real breakthrough came when I realized that parents, too, need to be seen and known. The same five elements that are essential to engaging students in the educational process are critical to engaging their parents:

1. Laying the groundwork for engagement: Recognizing that each student and each parent is a unique individual and finding a way for every person to contribute to a positive learning environment.

2. Communicate invitations: Maintaining a welcoming attitude and inviting both student and parent participation in the learning community.

3. Cultivating interpersonal responses: Considering what students and parents are willing and able to give of themselves and providing appropriate support and encouragement.

4. Dealing effectively with engagement challenges: Anticipating and handling setbacks and complications related to connecting with both students and parents.

5. Extending the learning community: Tapping outside resources.

Being the Difference, Being the Advocate

The approach I outline in this book reflects my own experience as a teacher and a parent, as well as the experiences of my students, children, friends, and colleagues. As noted, my writing has been further informed by the insights of the Parent Leadership Network and by research on parent and student involvement. What I advocate here is in many ways an extension of my first book, Managing Your Classroom with Heart (Ridnouer, 2006), which explored how a compassionate teacher can bring out the best in students. Teachers who focus this same compassion on parents will be able to initiate productive and rewarding conversations about forming home-school connections that support student learning.

An advocate is a person who supports or promotes the interests of another, and that is what a teacher is doing when he or she works to engage students and their parents as partners in a positive, learning-focused classroom community. An advocate is also one who promotes a cause, and I believe every teacher must be an advocate for student and parent engagement in learning, and for learning in general. They must promote it actively; they must embed these efforts into their classroom practice on an everyday basis. Some students and parents will be prone to engagement-easy to reach, easy to know, and eager to be involved in the classroom-due to the very nature of who they are. Other students and parents are the exact opposite. I believe it is up to the teacher to cast a net wide enough to pull in students and parents-those who are naturally inclined toward engagement and those who reject the traditional methods of engagement.

Each of this book's five parts focuses on one of the key elements of meaningful engagement, identifying and answering specific questions you may have, and offering strategies for tackling the associated challenges. Taken together, these elements provide a stable groundwork for a collaborative partnership among schools, students, and parents-a partnership that, once established, becomes as much of a part of the classroom environment as curricula, pencils, and paper. And from that point, the question for students and parents is not if they will be engaged in classroom learning, but how they will choose to engage, how far that engagement will take them, and what else is possible.

Every teacher has the power to be a tremendously positive force in the lives of their students. The fact that you are reading this book suggests you share this belief, and I hope that the questions asked and strategies explored in the pages ahead will be helpful in your work. Let's get started.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Introduction: The Teacher as Everyday Advocate

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
by Katy Ridnouer Wonder, not doubt, is the root of all knowledge. * RABBI ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL * When I taught my first class of students at Dore Academy in Charlotte, North Carolina, I looked into 15 sets of eyes and thought, "These are my students.

# data[].attributes.body
To empower teachers in and outside of the classroom.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Teaching is an isolating career. I didn't realize this until I stepped outside of the teaching industry into a new industry, and reflected back on my teaching positions. I realized I have been working and teaching in isolation the whole time: all of my 8 years of teaching experience have been me in the classroom, and me and the students.

Our profession does not feel very isolated to start, and it might not even feel this way for a while, but reality is teachers teach the students alone in the classroom. The students keep us company throughout the day, and they make it all worth it, but our professions are by nature individualistic.

Solution:Advocate for other teachers

Why is advocating for teachers important?

Love this quote by Unknown author.
How to Become an Advocate for Teachers:

To not teach in isolation.

To empower teachers in and outside of the classroom.

To build a community.

To create a positive environment in the classroom and school.

Increase effectiveness in teaching and learning.

To make a difference in education.

Take initiative & become a mentor:Many teachers, especially new teachers would really appreciate a teacher reaching out and offering advice, support or simply an ear to listen to. Reach out and offer your time to a teacher to provide advice, mentorship and support in and outside of the classroom. It's important that the relationship here is fitting for both parties. So use your best judgment when it comes to reaching out to the right teacher, but usually teachers who are most isolated and do not have many teacher friends at school would really appreciate your reaching out.

Be Someone's ChampionThis post by Shelly Sanchez is really inspiring. Becoming someone's champion is about supporting and cheering another teacher throughout their learning journeys. I recently encouraged a new educator on Twitter, Elisabeth Bostwick to share her great ideas with the Edutopia community. She wrote a post that resonated with many of Edutopia's readers, and I was so happy to see her amazing ideas and work speak to not only myself but to other teachers to be passed on to their students. You can read her amazing post here. When I started my journey to becoming a connected educator, it was very encouraging to hear kind and supportive words from my PLN. I think it's necessary to pay this forward to other educators, to build and foster a supportive learning community.

Extend Resources and Support: all teachers are always very receptive to new ideas and resources, sometimes it's finding these inspirational resources that blocks many teachers from trying them out in the classroom. We teach our kids "Sharing is Caring" and that is exactly what we should do to support and advocate for each other as teachers.

I love Valeria's message here. It speaks to the power of words and encouragement of others to not give up when things get tough:

Share what worked for you, even better, share what didn't work for you. Chances are by sharing these ideas you are helping this teacher not only become a better teacher, but you're also reaching out and telling her "it's okay, I've been there, you're not alone!".

Offer Help in building a PLN: I have been a connected educator for almost a year now, and I can fairly say it has made me a better educator. Talk to your colleagues about how they can create their own Professional Learning Networks on social media.

Kris's message here resonates because he was inspired by someone from his PLN, Valeria. It just goes to show the power of social media and having a great PLN:

Being a connected educator is not only about using Twitter and participating in twitter chats. It's also about teachers believing in the power of their own voice. Help another teacher create her blog, contribute to an educational site, or write a guest blog post. And the best part? Share their work with others!

Because when we empower others, we build a community, and even better, a stronger self.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Teaching is an isolating career. I didn't realize this until I stepped outside of the teaching industry into a new industry, and reflected back on my teaching positions. I realized I have been working and teaching in isolation the whole time: all of my 8 years of teaching experience have been me in the classroom, and me and the students.

# data[].attributes.body
To create a positive environment in the classroom and school.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Teaching is an isolating career. I didn't realize this until I stepped outside of the teaching industry into a new industry, and reflected back on my teaching positions. I realized I have been working and teaching in isolation the whole time: all of my 8 years of teaching experience have been me in the classroom, and me and the students.

Our profession does not feel very isolated to start, and it might not even feel this way for a while, but reality is teachers teach the students alone in the classroom. The students keep us company throughout the day, and they make it all worth it, but our professions are by nature individualistic.

Solution:Advocate for other teachers

Why is advocating for teachers important?

Love this quote by Unknown author.
How to Become an Advocate for Teachers:

To not teach in isolation.

To empower teachers in and outside of the classroom.

To build a community.

To create a positive environment in the classroom and school.

Increase effectiveness in teaching and learning.

To make a difference in education.

Take initiative & become a mentor:Many teachers, especially new teachers would really appreciate a teacher reaching out and offering advice, support or simply an ear to listen to. Reach out and offer your time to a teacher to provide advice, mentorship and support in and outside of the classroom. It's important that the relationship here is fitting for both parties. So use your best judgment when it comes to reaching out to the right teacher, but usually teachers who are most isolated and do not have many teacher friends at school would really appreciate your reaching out.

Be Someone's ChampionThis post by Shelly Sanchez is really inspiring. Becoming someone's champion is about supporting and cheering another teacher throughout their learning journeys. I recently encouraged a new educator on Twitter, Elisabeth Bostwick to share her great ideas with the Edutopia community. She wrote a post that resonated with many of Edutopia's readers, and I was so happy to see her amazing ideas and work speak to not only myself but to other teachers to be passed on to their students. You can read her amazing post here. When I started my journey to becoming a connected educator, it was very encouraging to hear kind and supportive words from my PLN. I think it's necessary to pay this forward to other educators, to build and foster a supportive learning community.

Extend Resources and Support: all teachers are always very receptive to new ideas and resources, sometimes it's finding these inspirational resources that blocks many teachers from trying them out in the classroom. We teach our kids "Sharing is Caring" and that is exactly what we should do to support and advocate for each other as teachers.

I love Valeria's message here. It speaks to the power of words and encouragement of others to not give up when things get tough:

Share what worked for you, even better, share what didn't work for you. Chances are by sharing these ideas you are helping this teacher not only become a better teacher, but you're also reaching out and telling her "it's okay, I've been there, you're not alone!".

Offer Help in building a PLN: I have been a connected educator for almost a year now, and I can fairly say it has made me a better educator. Talk to your colleagues about how they can create their own Professional Learning Networks on social media.

Kris's message here resonates because he was inspired by someone from his PLN, Valeria. It just goes to show the power of social media and having a great PLN:

Being a connected educator is not only about using Twitter and participating in twitter chats. It's also about teachers believing in the power of their own voice. Help another teacher create her blog, contribute to an educational site, or write a guest blog post. And the best part? Share their work with others!

Because when we empower others, we build a community, and even better, a stronger self.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Teaching is an isolating career. I didn't realize this until I stepped outside of the teaching industry into a new industry, and reflected back on my teaching positions. I realized I have been working and teaching in isolation the whole time: all of my 8 years of teaching experience have been me in the classroom, and me and the students.