I have developed 2 new graduate courses which I will be teaching this summer in our College of
Education. I am very excited about these courses as they begin to position a “curriculum of parents” as important in teacher education. Please be in touch if you have questions or comments. I’d love to hear from you.

ECUR 898: Re/Presenting Families in Schools
CRN# 60956

Representations of families exist everywhere. This course will explore dominant social, cultural and institutional narratives about families which underpin these representations and consider the influence they have on curriculum-making and decision-making in schools.
(Classes will be held weekday mornings, one evening/week, one ½ day Saturday.)
July 19^th through July 30^th, 2010

ECUR 898: Engaging Parents in Teaching and Learning
CRN# 60510

This course will explore what parent engagement is – and is not, conditions which invite engagement, the complexities and multiplicity inherent within it, and possibilities within programming and curriculum-making for incorporating parents’ knowledge.
(Classes will be held weekday afternoons, one evening/week, one ½ day Saturday.)
July 19^th through July 31^st, 2010

New Summer Graduate Course Offerings – PDF

Representing Families Summer 2010 (ECUR 898) – PDF

Engaging Parents in Teaching and Learning (ECUR 898) – PDF

Speaker: Dr. Debbie Pushor
Location: Adult High School – Auditorium, 300 Rochester Street Ottawa, ON
Date & Time: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.

Full Details – Parental Engagement Connecting Schools and Families

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to attend a public ward meeting in a core neighborhood in my home city of Saskatoon. The meeting was intended to be an opportunity for citizens to ask questions of and to provide input to key public officials – the mayor, the alderperson, the police chief, the fire chief, a city planner and so on – on matters of local concern. A very long time was spent that evening, while each of the dignitaries addressed those in attendance, prior to the microphones opening and the opportunity to ask questions or make comments being provided. Finally, after waiting a long time, a woman who had been standing in line had her turn to address the city officials. With passion and emotion, she said, “All evening I have been listening to each one of you speak to us about the work you are doing to build capacity in our neighborhood. No one has acknowledged that we HAVE capacity. We live here and so we have a very good understanding of what the issues are and we also have very good ideas of what the solutions are as well. We do not need you to come here with solutions. We do not need you to come here to build our capacity. All we need you to do is to help us garner resources so we can realize the capacity we already have.” Her words were powerful; they sent shock waves through me in a way that will stay with me forever.

Lori Pulai’s words were an act of dis/positioning. She was asking – demanding really – that each official in attendance move away from his usual stance as knower and knowing to take a new stance as a listener, as a learner, as a guest in a community which possessed knowledge and capacity. In Vinz’s (1997) writing, she asserted that “dis-positioning” calls for engagement in continual processes of learning to “un-know” and “not-know” (p. 139). To “un-know,” city officials would have had to come to the meeting intending not to talk first, but to listen first. They would have needed to come to hear what suggestions community members had for their neighborhood’s growth and development, rather than with plans and strategies for the community. To “not-know,” city officials would have had to have been comfortable to come to the meeting trusting in a process – one of conversation, perhaps one of debate and even potential disagreement – open to working through moments of ambiguity and uncertainty as the process unfolded. Lori was asking city officials to take up a new position, one which offered community members a true opportunity for engagement in their neighborhood’s development.

Parents are asking the very same thing of us as educators, school staff members, trustees, senior administrators and policy makers. They are telling us structures such as school councils and parent involvement policies are not enough to make engagement possible. They are asking each and every one of us to assume a new dis/position in order to realize the possibility structures offer parents for their engagement in their children’s teaching and learning.

An April 23rd email I received after the release of the March 2009 School Advocate reads,
As a first time co-chair with my children’s school council, I am feeling burnt, exhausted and unsupported. I truly and firmly believe that the systems are there to allow for Parent Engagement, however, the people who we are supposed to partner with (the staff, the principal, the trustee, the superintendent) do not “invite true parental involvement.”

This parent told a story of a dying school council and how her goal was to invigorate it and to draw new parents to it. She told of how a trustee showed up at one meeting unannounced and then intervened in the process of the meeting, a process determined by her and her co-chair. She told of a being asked into a meeting in the principal’s office afterward, where she was informed of how “disappointed” the trustee was in the meeting. She told of how their next school council meeting was cancelled by the principal. She told of being directed by the superintendent to work with the Board’s school council consultant. She told of the school council consultant’s refusal to come to their school council meeting because their anticipated attendance was not high enough. She told of another meeting where the superintendent and a trustee arrived together, once again unannounced and once again not in a show of support for the work they were attempting to do. Finally, she told of her co-chair’s frustration and desire to quit. She ended her email, with these words,

Our partners, the ones we are trying to support, feel it’s all about control; they have no commitment to honor and respect the process and the individuals in their role. When conflict arises, they want to avoid it in hopes that it will go away. Well, they win. I work, I have a young family and aging parents, and I can’t wait to go away. …I will go away and spend time with my kids in a way that will impact them directly.

Another email, this one dated April 28th, also speaks out against the current positioning educators frequently assume.
As of last night, I felt ready after 3 years to give up being a voice and volunteer for our school and our board. Parent voices are being lost, and engagement is a term thrown to the wind. I don’t expect as a parent that my voice leads, but I do expect to be respected and heard. I often times find in particular that parents are intimidated by this education system … I feel very strongly that School Councils can and should act on behalf of their communities, unfortunately and often though, they are not heard.
This parent’s words follow a story of how, when their school community asked for an opportunity for communication and consultation on an issue of importance to them, they were told they would have to submit their concerns in writing in order to have a meeting with representatives from their Board’s administration. Six months after their meeting, they received a one page response to their questions. This parent ended her email with the words,

I am tired of performing the duties of a ladies’ auxiliary, and being treated as such. This education system is losing parents who want to help and try to be engaged, by not being engaged with parents [in return].

When I think about the words of these two parents, I’m drawn back to a session I attended at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association in New York in March 2008. While John Raible was talking about the situation of marginalized youth in large urban centers in the United States, he could just as easily have been speaking about the situation of parents who are trying to be engaged in their children’s schooling. He spoke of how we “shut them out, box them in, and lock them down” (personal notes, March 25, 2008). How much of that is just what educators do to parents when they call them to their office, cancel their meetings, ask parents to submit their questions in writing in advance of a meeting, respond six months after a meeting, or say very little? These are actions that reflect a disposition to protect the power and authority of those within the system, to maintain control of the agenda, to attend more to procedures than to people. These are actions that make school council meetings and structures of communication and consultation safe for those within the system. They are actions which ensure the comfort of those within the system, but they do it at the cost of parents’ discomfort. They are actions which will continue to cause parents go away in frustration, to give up in despair.

The stories of the parents are poignant – and they are bold in their critique. At the end of my March article, I said that we need to ask ourselves what is needed to create a dis/position that sees parent voice and input into decision-making as meaningful. Perhaps creating that dis/position begins with using parents’ critique as a vehicle to move us to action, rather than to anger or despair. Perhaps it begins with looking at what we do, and why we do it, and being honest both about what the cost may be and who may bear that cost. Perhaps it begins with an emphasis on building relationships and trust. Perhaps it begins with our engagement in a process in which we learn to “un-know” and “not-know.”

On April 16, 2009 in San Diego, CA, Debbie Pushor was presented with an Early Career Award, an International award sponsored by the Narrative Research Special Interest Group (SIG) of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). This award is designed to recognize a researcher’s outstanding accomplishment in the area of narrative research and is intended to honor an individual in the early stage of her or his career, that is, no later than 10 years after receipt of the doctoral degree.

Dr. Jerry Rosiek, in making the award presentation, noted that Debbie received this award because of her writing in the area of narrative inquiry, her mentorship of graduate students and new scholars engaged in narrative inquiry research, her contribution to developing narrative inquiry graduate courses, and her use of narrative research methodologies in developing an exciting new research program around the topic of parent knowledge and parents’ positioning on school landscapes.

Writing in the Area of Narrative Inquiry
Debbie has published two significant co-authored pieces on narrative inquiry. The first, “Navigating sites for narrative inquiry” was published in the Journal of Teacher Education and laid out a compelling framework for helping scholars design and live out narrative inquiries in teacher education. The article has been widely quoted as an excellent beginning source for narrative inquiry. The second of Debbie’s co-authored publications, “The interconnections between narrative inquiry and action research,” is an invited chapter in the new SAGE Handbook of Educational Action Research. Both pieces establish Debbie as a new scholar with expertise in narrative research methodologies.

Sage Journals Online – Debbie Pushor

Mentorship of Graduate Students and New Scholars
Debbie has supervised the theses and dissertations of a number of students who have undertaken narrative inquiry studies, both at St. Francis Xavier University and at the University of Saskatchewan. She has also served as an external examiner for students at other universities. In her role as program co-chair and program chair for the Narrative Research SIG, Debbie mentored new scholars and played a significant role in working with participants in a signature session of the SIG, “Moving into the Academy.” Prior to the start of AERA this year, she co-chaired an innovative two-day doctoral student seminar for the Narrative SIG/Invisible College. Debbie is an excellent mentor for graduate students and is enthusiastic about playing a mentorship role for the SIG.

Developing Narrative Inquiry Graduate Courses
Working with her colleagues at St. Francis Xavier University, Debbie introduced a graduate level course in their Education program. The course was well received and it has become an important part of the graduate program at St. FX. Since moving to the University of Saskatchewan, she has continued to push to have narrative inquiry as a methodology taught in courses and used for graduate student work. A course proposal for a methodology course in narrative inquiry, which Debbie co-developed, is currently being reviewed at the University of Saskatchewan. This course will promote narrative research in faculties outside of Education as well as within it.

Using Narrative Inquiry in her Program of Research
Debbie’s own research program relies heavily on narrative inquiry to develop conceptualizations of parent knowledge. She began this work in her doctoral program and has continued to pursue this program of research. Debbie was awarded a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) grant to support these studies. As well as publishing her work in academic venues such as books and journals, Debbie is making her research available in other forms and venues. She writes articles for school administrators, teachers and parents to engage a broad range of audiences and stakeholders in a dialogue about what it means to respect and use parent knowledge in decisions which impact children’s schooling and, in so doing, to shift the dominant stories of schools. Debbie is much in demand as a keynote speaker at local and national levels. ]]> http://www.debbiepushor.com/featured/early-career-award-2/feed/ 0 http://www.debbiepushor.com/news/parent-engagement-it%e2%80%99s-an-attitude/ http://www.debbiepushor.com/news/parent-engagement-it%e2%80%99s-an-attitude/#comments Mon, 27 Apr 2009 20:36:27 +0000 Debbie http://www.debbiepushor.com/?p=524 I walked by my son’s bedroom a little earlier today and was dismayed to see the chaotic state it was in. Clothes cover the floor, drawers and closet doors hang open, his laundry basket is still full of the clean laundry that never got put away and his book shelves are loaded with many more things than books. Why is it that our son’s room continues to be in such disarray when we have provided him with spaces and places for all his things?

Continue with Parent engagement: It’s an attitude Full Article

Ontario ASCD Conference – Guelph, Ontario

I will be giving the morning keynote presentation on Parent Engagement and Student Success.

Ontario ASCD Conference Brochure 2009

I will be presenting a paper entitled, Living and telling stories of parent engagement that lead preservice teachers to create new narratives of parent teacher relationships. This paper will be part of a larger symposium, When the story turns back on itself … Living, telling, retelling, reliving: Educative curriculum for teacher educators.

Living and telling stories of parent engagement

Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) at San Diego, CA

I will be co-facilitating this doctoral seminar with Dr. Janice Huber from the University of Regina. The seminar is an opportunity for doctoral students from across North America to share and discuss their narrative inquiries in a response community.

The term “essential conversation” comes from the work of Sarah Lawrence-Lightfoot (2003). While Lawrence-Lightfoot uses the term to describe the kind of conversation which occurs between parents and teachers in conferences about children, I use the term, in this context, to capture a kind of important conversation that occurs between colleagues about our identity as educators, about learners and their families, about what schooling is and can be, and about why we do what we do.

At the end of term, in lieu of a final exam, teacher candidates in my two undergraduate courses, ECUR 370 and ECUR 401, will schedule a half hour essential conversation with me, instructors in other courses, and partners from our community schools. In this conversation, they will be asked to talk about shifts in their identity as a teacher which occurred during the term; to make connections between and among topics discussed and researched in the course; to synthesize what they have learned from their experiences, relationships, course readings and discussions; and to consider what significance their experiences and their learning will have for their future practice as educators.

I will be presenting a motivational talk to Heritage Language Teachers, Student engagement: Bringing students’ lives into the classroom.