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SOCIOLOGY OF EDUCATION
Community Influences on the School
SOCIOLOGY OF EDUCATION
Community Influences on the School
Prepared by Noor Syahreer Bin Hadi Munir, ISED-IIUM
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Q1: How might students home environments influence their
motivation to learn and to behave in a self-disciplined way?

The importance of education in an individual cannot be over emphasized.
Education has a long lasting impact in ones life. For examples, the acquisition of
knowledge and skills or all other things that is important which are transmitted to a
child through formal and informal education determine their potential in future.
Basically, we understand that the home is the first school for a child where
they were taught the basic norms and values by the parents before the child leaves
for the formal education in school. Contrary to popular opinion learning and reading
begins in school but the first foundation of the child begins at home.
Based on those facts, the situation has to do with asking the following
questions on why does students home environment affect student performance in
school.

Unconducive learning environment reduces a child academic performance?
Can the attitude of illiterate parents affect the child performance?
Can the good infrastructures make any differences?

Evidence showing us that parental involvement in early learning has a greater
impact on childrens well-being and achievement than any other factor, such as

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SOCIOLOGY OF EDUCATION
Community Influences on the School
family income, parental education or school environment. Supporting parents to help
them provide a positive home learning environment is therefore a vital part of
improving outcomes for children, particularly those from disadvantaged
backgrounds.
As we know that strong and secure relationships help stabilize children's
behaviour and provide the core guidance needed to build lifelong social skills.
Children who grow up with such relationships learn healthy, appropriate emotional
responses to everyday situations. But children raised in poor households often fail to
learn these responses, to the detriment of their school performance. For example,
students with emotional dysregulation may get so easily frustrated that they give up
on a task when success was just moments away. And social dysfunction may inhibit
students' ability to work well in cooperative groups, quite possibly leading to their
exclusion by group members. This exclusion and the accompanying decrease in
collaboration, performance and behavior.
Some teachers may interpret students' emotional and social deficiency as a
lack of respect or manners, but it is more helpful to understand that the students
come to school with a narrower range of appropriate emotional responses than we
expect. The truth is that many children simply don't have the storeroom of necessary
responses. It is as though their brains' just like a film recording whatever they have
seen or heard.





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Community Influences on the School
Q2: How should you deal with students lack of attention?
Children with a lack of attention are continuously restless and impulsive.
Some characteristics of the disorder are; The child cannot sit quietly when needed,
moves constantly with its hands and feet and is quickly diverted by incentives from
the environment.
The child has difficulty doing what it is asked and does not finish what it
started. This is caused by its inability to focus its attention.
Children with a lack of attention have a habit of speaking constantly and to
comment on anything that happens in their vicinity. They are often chaotic and
continuously loose things. Sometimes children become unruly when they discover
not being well understood. This characteristic may even continue after becoming an
adult.
Treatment
The origin of the disorder is not only in the child but also in the parents or
attendants. Therefore both the child and the parents need to be involved in solving
the problem.
In the first place the parents need assistance in their difficult task. But also the
child needs individual help, dedicated attention and training in behavior, since the
child feels eccentric and suffers from the negative attention it receives.
Special attention is needed to avoid the child entering a vicious circle. If the
child is not well understood, it will get more and more negative attention. This will
aggravate the problem.

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Community Influences on the School
(Source; http://library.thinkquest.org/26618/en-med-1.1.htm)
Ill give an answer based on my experiences of teaching in state religious
schools.
Most teachers think that students today have a problem paying attention at
classes. They seem impatient, easily bored and rather keeping their eyes out of
window instead at the whiteboard.
I have argued that its unlikely that they are incapable of paying attention, but
they are quick to deem things not worth the effort.
We might wonder if patience would not come easier to a student who had the
experience of sustaining attention in the face of boredom, and then later finding that
our patience as a teacher was rewarded.
These kind of students can eagerly spend hours playing video games,
watching television, reading comics or playing football made from papers . Actually, it
is not a problem of paying attention; it is a narrow field of interest and a lack of
discipline to work to expand it.
My school have seen this situation of students not paying attention in classes
but focusing like Supermans laser eyes on things they like. It is negatively affecting
students learning. Students in school have to learn and re-learn facts and skills to
build a solid educational foundation. A major part of school is not always new and
exciting but must be done to prevent this from happen.
Students have to be convinced that concentrating on things that society has
deemed important opens up new worlds. The dosages of work given to a reluctant
student in a particular area should be short and sweet. The exposure to difficult

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Community Influences on the School
subjects for the child should end with success and be followed by an activity that is
highly regarded by the student. take them out of the classroom! This is what I do
when I see them starting to lose focus.
Also, a better facilities is needed to attract students focusing on their studies.
But we do not find this kind of environment in Sekolah Agama. Sadly, we assume
that religious education is important but we do not provide them with proper
infrastructure.
Teachers must improve their teaching skills so then, they can become the
competence and versatile murabbi.

Q3: How might you involve the home and parents of inattentive
students to increase their motivation and learning?

Here are five easy-to-implement ways of getting parents more involved at school:
1. Ask Parents To Get Involved
Engaging parents is a multi-step process. The first step is simply reaching out
and asking parents to get involved at school. Invitations to school activities, such as
lunch visits, assemblies, concerts and student-led activities are a great way to
introduce parents to a schools culture, as well as to its teachers, staff, and
administration. The opportunity to meet other parents is also a great way to increase
involvement.

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SOCIOLOGY OF EDUCATION
Community Influences on the School
Encouraging parents to attend parent-teacher conferences, open houses and
back-to-school events give parents the opportunity to see their childs work and learn
more about any student successes or challenges.
There are so many ways to engage parents in their childs education. Many
parents will not take the initiative, so schools must become proactive and make
regular requests.
2. Make Parents Feel Like Part of the Team
Teachers and administrators can increase parent involvement at school by
making parents their partners in a childs education. Some parents may believe that
teachers can do it all, or that they are not needed. They may even feel unwelcome in
the school or classroom.
3. Designate a Space For Parents
Creating a welcoming atmosphere is crucial to improving parent participation.
Parents may not become involved at school because they dont know where to go or
how to begin. Teachers might think theyve done all they can to communicate that
parents are welcome.
There is a sure way to communicate that parents are needed and wanted at
the school: creating a parent room. In fact, helping with such a space can be a
perfect introduction to what its like to be involved at school. Teachers can enlist
parents by asking what they would like to see in the parent room and then ask
them to help make it happen.



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Community Influences on the School
4. Avoid Pre-Judging Parents Ability to Become Involved at School
A few reminders about what NOT to do when approaching parents about
becoming more involved at school:
Dont make decisions about a parents abilities based on appearance
Dont limit a parents involvement based on socio-economic status
Dont assume a parent is inclined to become involved or not based on
income
Dont forget that parents, whether they are middle-income, low-income, one-
parent, two-parent, physically or mentally challenged, are all interested in their
students success and well-being
Dont hesitate to offer every parent the opportunity to participate in activities
5. Send Lists of Needs and Opportunities Home with Students
Encourage parental involvement at school. Make it part of your
communication and outreach plan to find out what talents, knowledge and abilities
your schools parents have to offer.
Compile a list of needs and volunteer opportunities.
Be specific and enthusiastic. For example, rather than Garden volunteers
needed, try, We need four volunteers to dig in the dirt for one hour per week.
Help us plant our garden!
Ask parents to fill out a skills and interests assessment and create a database
for future opportunities.
Brainstorm with other teachers to determine what skills fit which jobs.
Once youve matched a need with a skill, contact the parent and ask for their
help.

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Community Influences on the School
When Parents Are Involved At School, A Childs Education Is More
Successful
Its hard to argue with student success. And there is little doubt that as
parents are regularly involved in a childs education, their student will have better
attendance, grades, and even self-esteem. Numerous studies show that as parents
become involved in school, children achieve more regardless of socioeconomic
status, parents education level, or ethnic or racial background. Getting parents
involved in school is in everyones best interests, and these five strategies can help.

THE END