How Can the School and the Home Co-Operate in Reducing Delinquency Among Some Teenagers?

Abstract

328hurdle in the course, more students would turn tests to good advantage in sharpening or hastening their own learning.With the parents.-Once the teachers can be led to see how formal measurement will motivate and facilitate learning, parents should be informed, too. Parents generally need to be disengaged from the notion that tests (particularly standardized tests) represent &dquo;standards&dquo; of excellence that all but the handicapped must &dquo;pass.&dquo; Study groups in the PTA provide excellent means for informing parents on the nature and uses of tests in the school program. Until a fair proportion of parents are thus informed, puzzled queries and outright challenges may come from parents whose recollection of tests includes only final examinations on which &dquo;70 per cent correct&dquo; was the minimum passing grade.When these things have been accomplished, then the results of testing can be used effectively by the student in assessing his own strengths and needs, by teacher and counselor and parent in guiding next steps in the learning process, and by the administrator in assessing the quality of his leadership and his instructional program.Summary of the presentation made by EDWARD A. GLATFELTER Edward A. Glatfelter is Principal of the William Penn Senior High School in York, Pennsylvania.T HE residual function of education has always been in a state of change as the needs and wishes of society have dictated. From the three R's of the old school to the complex offerings of the secondary school of 1956, lies a long period of struggle, change, and development in accordance with obligations and responsibilities that slowly, but certainly, were transferred from the home to the school. The home and the school must work together as a harmonous team in the interest of the child. The Parent-Teacher Association is the strong arm of the public schools. The objectives of parents and teachers must be consistent, one with the other, to implement the highest hopes and the loftiest aspirations of both groups working as a co-ordinated team. In an atmosphere of mutual respect, all 329 problems that concern the education and training of our children can be solved. The interacting experiences between teachers and parents in facing the realities of their common interests yield understandings that are mutually advantageous.The schools belong to the people and school people are responsible to keep parents informed concerning the aims and objectives as well as the philosophy of the school. The offerings and opportunities of the school must be interpreted to the parents who in turn will then be able intelligently to give consent to the type of education that will be best suited . to each pupil.In this atmosphere parents and teachers can work together to give proper guidance at the various stages of child development and growth. Ideally then, by their inherent obligations, parents and teachers can prevent delinquency. Practically they can, at least, reduce it. Parents and teachers must be intelligently and sympathetically ...