When you think about education, whose job is it to teach the child? This question can cause a bit of contention when people view teaching as only the teacher’s job. This week's host is Jessica Wall, a Kindergarten teacher in rural Saskatchewan. Jess welcomes Kelsi, a middle years teacher, also from rural Saskatchewan. Throughout the episode, Jess and Kelsi unpack what it means to honour parents as partners in their child's education. 

The notion of "Looking Out vs Looking In" is a crucial understanding and an essential element of honouring parents as partners in education. Jess and Kelsi use their own experiences with families to demonstrate the impact honouring parents can have and what can happen when families don't feel that they matter.

This podcast is brought to you by Debbie Pushor Engagement Group Inc. 

Resources

Noddings, Nel. (2004). Happiness and education. Cambridge University Press.

Pushor, D. (2011). Looking out, looking in. Educational Leadership, 69, (1), 65-68.

Pushor, D. & Amendt, T. (2018). Leading an examination of beliefs and assumptions about parents. School Leadership and Management, 38(2), 202-221.

“It takes a village to raise a child” - Proverb

What possibilities await when we tap into one of our greatest resources and engage in meaningful conversations? Join host, Haylee Olver, and parent guest, Lance Zacharias, in a meaningful conversation about nature and learning. 

Haylee Olver, BEd & MEd, is an early years teacher with Prairie Spirit School Division. Parent guest, Lance Zacharias, CPA, CMA, is a father of four, CFO of Zak’s Home Hardware in Hague & Warman, SK and a nature enthusiast. 

The two explore how learning happens everywhere through sharing experiences, stories, and values about learning outdoors from both home and school. They explore how honouring parent voices and funds of knowledge can lead to co-created learning experiences and a shared vision.

This podcast is funded by Debbie Pushor Engagement Group Inc. 

Resources

Hanscom, A. (2016). Balanced and barefoot: How unrestricted outdoor play makes for strong, confident, and capable children. New Harbinger Publications.

Links:

• Saskatchewan WIldlife Federation: https://swf.sk.ca/ 
• Sask Outdoors: https://saskoutdoors.org/ 
• Timbernook tips podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/timbernook-tips/id1491940075 Balanced and Barefoot Blog: https://www.timbernook.com/blog/
• Zak’s Home Hardware and Building center: https://www.homehardware.ca/en/store/51645

“The technology you use impresses no one. The experience you create with it is everything.” Sean Gerety. 

For years, technology was something new that many teachers resisted. Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, technology became part of their job description, and family engagement was more relevant for all students. Join our host, Rebecca Fisher, and her guest, Chandrée Gudmundson. Rebecca is an elementary school teacher. Meanwhile, Chandrée is a technology consultant with the Greater Saskatoon Catholic Schools Division and has brought forward a new way of introducing technology into the classroom.

Today’s podcast focuses on technology for educators, students, and families to collectively work together to engage everyone more meaningfully. When educators encourage connection between school and home environments, more authentic conversations begin to form. 

Resources:

Using Technology to Support Family Engagement

https://blog.kaplanco.com/ii/using-technology-to-support-family-engagement

Schools Can Maintain Parent Engagement With Technology

https://www.govtech.com/education/k-12/schools-can-maintain-parent-engagement-with-technology

This podcast is sponsored by Debbie Pushor Engagement Group Inc. 

How can indigenous parent knowledge be incorporated into the school curriculum? Can we infuse the curriculum with Indigenous knowledge from parents and others and fold it into a curriculum that is westernized by nature?

Join host Tom Claxton as he unpacks his conversation with Linda Young and forays into the world of the public school curriculum. Tom Claxton is an Education Instructor at Northwest College, and Linda Young is a Traditional Knowledge Keeper and Sessional Lecturer. The two discuss the challenges of grafting parents’ Indigenous ways of knowing onto westernized school curriculums. This exploration delves into how we, as parents and teachers, will walk alongside and create new understanding and a more inclusive curriculum. 

Resources:

Learn more about Linda Young: https://www.debbiepushor.ca/grad-students/hylq12p55v57z0zzxov3ptnc4pom66

Young, L. (2020). Acimowin. Telling and retelling my residential school story. What was lost? What replaced it? What is needed to heal, reconcile, and reclaim Indigenous education for the benefit of students, families, & communities?

https://vimeo.com/543353638 In-depth video

https://vimeo.com/543372833 Overview video

For both videos, the download password is acimowin.

Pushor, D. (2015). Mapping parent knowledge. In D. Pushor and the Parent Engagement Collaborative II, Living as mapmakers: Charting a course with children guided by parent knowledge (pp. 20-41).Sense Publishers.

Imagine a school community where all parents and children feel included and accepted, where cultural knowledge and diversity are embraced. Our host for this week’s episode is Katelyn Hopkins, a passionate Kindergarten teacher who works in rural Saskatchewan. Katelyn welcomes Shannon, former school community coordinator at Howard Coad School, as well as Ayesha, a parent in the Howard Coad community. They discuss the importance of developing an inclusive school community through the use of language, culture, and family funds of knowledge. This discussion provides ideas for integrating family knowledge into the classroom and school community to develop authentic relationships and empower families, students, and teachers. 

Resources

Khan, M. & Cottrell, M. (2017). Oh Canada, whose home and native land? Negotiating multicultural, Aboriginal, and Canadian identity narratives. Education Matters: The Journal of Teaching and Learning, 5(1).

Moll, L., Amanti, C., Neff, D., González, N. (1992.) Funds of knowledge for teaching: Using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms. Theory into Practice, 31, 132-141. http://www.jstor.org.cyber.usask.ca/stable/1476399

Pushor, D. (2019). Using parent knowledge to enhance teaching and learning experiences in schools for children and youth. In T.A. Turner-Vorbeck & S. Sheldon (Eds.), Handbook of Family, School, Community Partnerships in Education (pp. 243-263). John Wiley & Sons.

This podcast is funded by Debbie Pushor Engagement Group Inc. 

There’s a lot of talk about how to engage families in schools, it’s an important issue to discuss. We want families to be part of a student’s education and we want them to feel welcome on the school landscape. Part of the conversation around this should then be how to engage families in curriculum and learning. How do we do this in a real and authentic way? 

Today’s podcast host, Lindsay Munroe, is a mother of two and a Grade 3 teacher. She will be speaking with Kirsten Kobylak and Brett Rowland, both teachers–one primary grades and one high school–who have had some real success in this area. Join us as these three educators share their thoughts, perspectives, and ideas with you today.

Resources:

Kobylak, K. (2015). The family-school storytelling connection. In D. Pushor and the Parent Engagement Collaborative II, Living as mapmakers: Charting a course with children guided by parent knowledge (pp.8-103). Sense Publishers. 

Pushor, D. (2013). Bringing into being a curriculum of parents. In D. Pushor and the Parent Engagement Collaborative, Portals of promise: Transforming beliefs and practices through a curriculum of parents (pp. 5-19). Sense Publishers

Pushor, D. (2013). Planning and living a curriculum of parents. In D. Pushor and the Parent Engagement Collaborative, Portals of promise: Transforming beliefs and practices through a curriculum of parents (pp. 21-55). Sense Publishers.

For detailed information on Brett Rowland’s parent student book clubs, contact Brett at [email protected]. Brett can share with you his introductory letter to parents, book club lists, the check in assignments he designed for students and families, and samples of those assignments. Ask him to share feedback he has received from parents; their comments about their connections with their kids and their learning are powerful! 

This podcast is sponsored by Debbie Pushor Engagement Group Inc.  

Within the broad field of parent engagement, this episode zeroes in on a topic that may make some people uncomfortable. The topic of white Privilege. White privilege is something that our hosts, Randi and Andrea, grew up with and had no idea existed. As young learners who struggled, and were later diagnosed with ADHD, both hosts wanted to help students who were often forgotten or who did not receive differentiated programming. These feelings were what led both Randi and Andrea to teach in a core community school with a high Indigenous population. Their intentions “to help” were good, they discuss, but nonetheless damaging as they were unawake to the fact that systemic racism created multifaceted issues for their students and their families, issues outside of their own experiences.

Their hope for this podcast is to share their experiences over the course of their Master’s journey that have enabled them to move from being saviours to allies. Wherever you are in your journey, we encourage you to listen to the words of Maya Angelou, “Do the best you can until you know better, then when you know better, do better.” 

Resources: 
DiAngela, R. (2018). White fragility: Why it's so hard for white people to talk about racism. Beacon Press.

https://www.amazon.ca/White-Fragility-People-About-Racism/dp/0807047414

Gebhard, A. (2012). Pipeline to prison: How schools shape a future of incarceration for Indigenous youth. Briarpatch Magazine.

McIntosh, P. (1989). White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack. Peace and Freedom. https://psychology.umbc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/57/2016/10/White-Privilege_McIntosh-1989.pdf

Pushor, D. (2015). Walking alongside: A pedagogy of working with parents and family. In C. Craig & L. Orland-Barak (Eds.), International Teacher Education:  Promising Pedagogies, Part B (pp. 233-253). Emerald Group Publishing Ltd.

St. Denis, V.(2011). Silencing Aboriginal curricular content and perspectives through multiculturalism: “There are other children here.” Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 33(4), 306-317. 

Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action

https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2015/trc/IR4-8-2015-eng.pdf

This podcast is sponsored by Debbie Pushor Engagement Group Inc. 

"The moment a child is born, the mother is also born" - Rajneesh

Stacey Crowe hosts this week's episode alongside her guest Melanie Lynchuk. Join them as they chat about their experience of becoming new moms while taking their master's program and the life-changing impact it had on them as people and teachers.

The two discuss the feelings and worries of being new moms and the life decisions they now face when putting their children into someone else's care. Further, they explore their fresh perspective on what their classroom families go through with their children.

Melanie shares a bit about how she seamlessly blended her teacher and parent identities with the unique opportunity she had to have her daughter in her class. She also offers concrete suggestions on how to engage families in schools, encouraging other educators to do the same. 

Resources

Lynchuk, M. (2015). From educator to mother: My personal journey. In D. Pushor and the Parent Engagement Collaborative II, Living as mapmakers: Charting a course with children guided by parent knowledge (pp. 43-49). Sense Publishers. 

Lynchuk, M. (2015). Connections with all families. In D. Pushor and the Parent Engagement Collaborative II, Living as mapmakers: Charting a course with children guided by parent knowledge (pp. 105-114). Sense Publishers. 

Huber, J., Graham, D., Murray Orr, A. & Reid, N. (2010). Literature conversations for inquiring into the influence of family stories on teacher identities. In M. Miller Marsh & T. Turner-Vorbeck (Eds.), (Mis)Understanding families in schools: Learning from real families in our schools (pp, 79-94). Teachers College Press.

This podcast is sponsored by Debbie Pushor Engagement Group Inc. 

The simple act of a parent-teacher relationship can have a profound effect on the student. Join Michael Crowe on this week's episode, where he talks about changing mindsets and building relationships between teachers and parents. Michael will be interviewing Linda about working closely with parents, how it benefits the students she works with, and her experiences as a parent. Linda runs a behaviour support program at Michael's school. Her input is hugely impactful. 

Resources: 

Global Family Research Project. The Family Engagement Playbook.

https://medium.com/familyengagementplaybook

Global Family Research Project

https://globalfrp.org/

This episode is sponsored by Debbie Pushor Engagement Group Inc. 

Debbie is a mother and educator with parent engagement as her driving focus. Having experienced schooling as a student from Grade 1 through doctorate, as a public school teacher, consultant, principal, senior administrator, and now as a researcher and teacher educator, Debbie is working to create a place and voice for parents in their children’s schooling. 

In this, the first episode of the School Interrupted podcast, Debbie will introduce herself, her body of work, and what’s to come in the rest of the series. Together, Debbie and a group of her incredible graduate students have put together an inspiring, informative, challenging series that we know you’ll love. Ready to join the gentle revolution? 

This podcast is brought to you by Debbie Pushor Engagement Group Inc. 

Resources: 

Pushor, D. (2017, Winter). Familycentric schools: Creating a place for all parents. Education Canada, 27(4).

Pushor, D. (2012). Tracing my research on parent engagement: Working to interrupt the story of school as protectorate. Action in Teacher Education, 34:5-6, 464-479.

Pushor, D., Ruitenberg, C., with co-researchers from Princess Alexandra Community School. (2005, November). Parent engagement and leadership. Research report, project #134, Dr. Stirling McDowell Foundation for Research into Teaching, Saskatoon, SK, 79 pp.

Click here to visit Debbie’s website where you’ll find more information about her, her students, and the incredible work she is doing.