Alverno College

EFFECTIVE CITIZENSHIP REFLECTION

Students will choose one of the following meetings to attend at their assigned schools: open
house, PTA/PTO meeting, parent orientation meeting. (Parent/teacher conferences are an
acceptable choice, however, many cooperating teachers do not promote this choice for reasons
of parent comfort and confidentiality.)

A. Identify the type of meeting you attended, explain its purpose and describe what took
place.

This meeting/event was called All The World and consisted of families creating booths to
inform the school about their heritage. This took place on a Friday night and included around
15 different families. This event was a way for the school to learn about all the different
cultures that are in the school and shared insight of their personal lives around the
Thanksgiving holiday. Many of the booths had information about their country, food,
traditional dress and ext. I personally had three students from my field participate with 2
booths on Jordan and one on Guatemala, which all three students were born. Other countries
included Mexico, Germany, Ireland and Serbia. At this event students were given a passport
and the families would stamp their passport after they visited and learned about each booth.
Parents, grandparents, students and other family members were all invited to participate at this
event.

B. From your perspective, evaluate the overall effectiveness of this meeting. Be specific.

Overall I felt that this event was extremely effective because it helped promote the community
environment at the school. This event promoted a lot of casual conversation between parents,
teachers, principals and students all while learning about all the different cultures within the
school. This is also such a great tool for teachers to better understand the students in their
classroom. I also thought that the environment was very light and fun and overall just a great
event to help create a bond at Highland. Students were also able to learn about their
classmates which is a very enriching experience.

C. If you could have been actively involved, what contributions might you have made and
explain why you would have done so.

If I was a teacher at Highland then I would defiantly make the effort to come to this event and
socialize with the parents and learn more about my students home life. I think that this is so
important because it promotes a relationship between me and the parents. This event is
particularly good for this because the conversation would not necessarily be based around
school which would help build trust and make communicating easier in the future. I also
think that it is important to go to these events because it helps promote the school
environment.