Innovative Curricula: Involving the Community in Novel Ways.

This paper discusses a broad array of types of community involvement in innovative curricula that involve a three-way partnership among the educators, the parents, and the community. The aim is to demonstrate that the community can be involved in novel ways with innovative curricula when the needs of all the parties involved are met. Specifically, the paper emphasises the role of (1) parents, when given the school support, in turning out smarter students, (2) the business community in promoting education while promoting itself, (3) the university in teaching new skills and knowledge of work processes to both employees and employers, and (4) the nation as a whole in fuelling and sustaining this totally new partnership that is needed for the next century.

It has long been known that effective education in the schools includes a three-way partnership among the educators, the parents, and the community. Teaching in isolation from the family and community accomplishes only short-term aims, at best, and can even result in frustration for those who wish to serve favourably the interests of the students. Community involvement in the classroom and school can take many forms. Here are some examples of community involvement programs that have been used for different age levels and in different types of schools. The aim is to demonstrate that the community can be involved in novel ways with innovative curricula.

Often, most community involvement efforts take place at the elementary or primary school level. Perhaps this is because of the recognition that attitudes formed in the younger years are very important in terms of long-term learning and success. A variety of activities can successfully include parents and community at this school level.

Collaboration Between Parents/Children and the School

Parents can help to turn out smarter students. In Missouri, one innovative program called "Parents as Teachers (PAT)" helps parents to interpret their babies' different developmental stages and explain how the behaviour may affect later learning (Caminiti, 1990). This kind of home-school partnership can help educate parents in supporting their children who struggle with education and literacy. Often, parents want to help but are at a loss because they are not trained in educational methods. Therefore, parents depend totally on teachers and educators and this creates stress and unnecessary demands on the educational system.

Getting Parents to Share Their Knowledge of Their Children's Literacy

As parents bring up their children, they should know their children best. One study by Lazar and Weisberg (1996) demonstrated the significance of inviting parents to share their knowledge of their children's literacy with teachers. This kind of sharing helps teachers to design appropriate classroom instruction to meet the needs of their students.

The study involved a group of children in Grades 1 through 6 who were referred to the Beaver College Reading-Language Arts Centre (Glenside, Pennsylvania, USA) for a program of literacy instruction on the basis of their poor school performance. The children were African American, Asian American, and Caucasian youths of different economic backgrounds.

The teachers in the program only communicated with parents through newsletters, report cards, narrative progress reports, weekly work folders, letters, notices, conferences, back-to-school presentations, meetings, and telephone conversations. Parent feedback was hardly asked for. However, today's parents are better educated. Hence, two-way communication between parents and teachers becomes necessary. Although some parents do volunteer to help out in schools where their children are studying, this is at most a small scale involvement. Schools do need parents' involvement on a much larger scale.

The study involved teachers in the program initiating a relationship with parents by:

1. inviting the parents to attend an orientation meeting where they could share their observations of their children's reading and writing at home,

2. interviewing the parents on their children's experiences, beliefs, practices, and goals in reading and writing, and

3. asking the parents to record their observations of their children's literacy development in a journal at least three times a week, and then discussing these entries with their children's teacher at the Centre to obtain instant feedback.

This kind of collaboration can achieve the following:

1. Teachers can learn about their students' ways of reading and writing at home and thereby understand better the cultural differences between schools and homes. The parents' input on their children' s difficulties can help teachers to support their students' literacy development in and out of school. For example, teachers can then suggest a few teaching strategies to help the children identify unknown words or to suggest that the children read less demanding books in order to gain self-confidence in reading.

2. Parents are given an opportunity to help teachers understand how their children relate to print outside the school. They can do this better because of their intimate and continuous acquaintance with their children in personal ways at home.

3. In communicating about their children as literacy learners, parents are also conveying their own thoughts about learning, teaching, and literacy. This can help teachers to understand family influence on their students' literacy and educational development.

4. Teachers can use the parents' input to select texts, teaching materials, and methods that suit the children's ways of learning and life/family experiences.

5. When parents and teachers communicate about real educational issues that concern the children under their care, the children see the importance of exchanging dialogues through journal writing. They can be more receptive to using journals to exchange stories, solve problems, or clarify issues with others.

Although such a collaboration between parents and schools may embarrass some children or make them think they are being reported on, thus giving unnecessary stress to parents not used to journal writing and to teachers having to engage in dialogues with parents in spite of their tight teaching schedules, it is one way where parents and schools can work towards helping students who really need help.

Teaching Parents to Read to Their Children at Home

Reading to children is an important activity, which normally starts at home. It is a requirement that cannot be neglected in the children's formative years. For the past five years, Montclair State College and the Newark, New Jersey, public schools have collaborated in a pioneering venture in family literacy called "Partnership for Family Reading" to advance reading and literacy in elementary schools (Handel, 1992). The Partnership's aim is to help parents support their children's language development and at the same time improve their own literacy. The Partnership program serves the students, the parents, and the educators by building on the strengths of all three groups. The parents are regarded as literacy resources and are, therefore, treated with dignity in the Partnership program.

In the program, the parents and other interested family members attend the school for enjoyable informal workshops where they use children's books. The adults learn reading strategies, borrow books to take home, and receive encouragement to read to their children at home. Initially, the parent sessions included book presentations, storytelling, and reading strategies. Later, the program included puppet making and reading games. Each of the involved schools uses the Family Reading workshop model, while adding creative touches of its own. Hence, there is flexibility in the program.

As a result of this program, family literacy has improved. Family closeness and positive attitudes toward books and reading are fostered. Parents learn that even very young children can gain from reading in the home. The positive approach is most appreciated by the parents who now come into the school and not hear anything bad about their children. The "Partnership for Family Reading" program develops adult growth as well. Some parents who have had to overcome their negative experiences with schools in the past are treated with respect as contributing members of the project, and even the children can spur the adults to attend.

However, one problem with the "Partnership for Family Reading" program is that the schools have difficulty in meeting the schedules of the employed parents. Occasionally, employed parents may take time off work in the daytime, or fathers who work night shift may sometimes attend an early morning session. Nonetheless, the value of the Family Partnership program has surpassed its obstacles. With the children receiving similar messages about reading from both home and school, their interest in reading has increased.

Involving Parents in Planning and Teaching Them Classroom Skills

As parents are becoming more educated, educators should not be alone in planning and teaching. Parents can be involved. A "Parents as Partners in Learning" project (Galen, 1991, p. 18) was started at Mildren Magowan School in Edgewater Park, New Jersey. Prior to this project, the school only welcomed parents at the usual traditional times -- back-to-school night and parent-teacher conferences. However, over a 10-year period, parents' participation has increased significantly. The school has even developed a measuring instrument to gauge the level of parental involvement from low (no parental involvement) to high (parents, trained by teachers, assist in the classroom with writing, learning centres, and computers).

Over this period, the parents have been taught various classroom and computer skills to enable them to become active partners in the teaching process. The parents particularly enjoy assisting the children at learning centres, reviewing number facts with children, and working in the computer laboratory. According to the author, the success of this program lies in the involvement of parents in the initial planning stages. Another unique factor was the slow, steady pace with which the program began and developed. A conscious effort was made to keep it small in order to work out difficulties before expanding. An interesting result of this program is that the teachers feel more appreciated. Often, elementary teachers leave their profession because of their perception of lack of respect from society. Increased participation of the community in the schools enhances the teachers' feelings that they are appreciated and valued. This is a great boost to the morale of teachers.

Getting Children to Help Improve Adults' Reading and Writing Skills

Too much focus has been on teachers and parents. To balance this focus, involve children in the educational process. For example, a pen-pal program was developed by Marion Dorotik and Mike R. Betzold (1992) at Petrosky Elementary School in Houston, Texas. Third-grade students were matched with adults from the Houston READ Commission (an organisation founded to promote the literacy skills of adults), and pen pal relationships were developed around units focused on particular books. This pen pal program reduced the number of school dropouts, and improved the adults' reading skills. At intermittent points throughout the book units, both groups wrote to the other, expressing their thoughts, feelings, and reactions to the literature and related activities developing the themes of the books. The adults gained in their ability to read and write, and the third-graders realised the consequences and struggles of going through life without the ability to read. Prior to this pen pal program, the children were unaware of the literacy problems of adults in the community. The case of Bill Ware from Melbourne (The Straits Times, 16 September 1997) is a sobbing one.

"I WENT TO ASK FOR A JOB ONE DAY AT A BAKERY AND AS SOON AS THEY FOUND OUT I COULDN'T READ OR WRITE THEY SAID, `DON'T BOTHER FILLING OUT ANY OF THE FORMS, JUST GO'."

- Bill Ware on his illiteracy 

At the end of four weeks on stories and four weeks on poetry, the project culminated with the adult students visiting the elementary school. Everyone involved enjoyed a picnic lunch and shared reading and discussion. The success of this program lies in a more positive student attitude toward reading. They realise that reading is a precious gem and that they are lucky to be able to read and feel proud that they actually taught an adult how to read better.

Collaboration Between the School and the Industry

The business community can make valuable contributions to the community. By helping the community to promote education, a company promotes itself. The beneficiaries, who are today's students, are tomorrow's employees. This is the cycle of nature in the business world.

Inviting Experts to Guide Students

In Singapore, the invitation of creative thinking guru Edward de Bono to talk to students at The Chinese High, a secondary school, and conduct a two-day de Bono course for the teachers in the school is a great step in this direction (The Straits Times, 6 November 1997).

The value of inviting experts is best illustrated in an innovative project involving the Toledo Museum of Art, fibre artist, Meg Dickason, the Ford Motor Company, and students at Bath Elementary School in Bath, Ohio. This community-assisted art project began with the Toledo Museum of Art's special exhibition entitled "Impressionism: Selections of Five Museums." The works of Van Gogh, Monet, and other Impressionists were so visually stimulating to the students that they wanted to create Impressionistic works of their own (Lehman, 1991). With materials provided by the Toledo Museum of Art and the Ford Motor Company, guest artist Meg Dickason guided the eager students through artistic processes to create dyed, woven, and painted multi-dimensional projects inspired by the Impressionistic style.

Furthermore, the Degas sculpture, "Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer", was a part of the museum exhibit, and the children quickly became excited about doing something sculptural. The results of this community-sponsored and -inspired event were so spectacular that the Toledo museum displayed the children's constructions in their Education Department during the final two weeks of the Impressionism exhibition.

Teaching Practical Personal and Business Techniques

Experienced business people can teach or team teach a course on practical personal and business techniques. Topics can include note taking and filing; letter, memo and report writing; the art of listening; corporate culture; and making presentations. Students equipped with these skills will have lesser anxiety about their future and a greater chance of success on their first job. More importantly, business people who often travel can impart their global experiences to students who can then gain a better understanding of the social and intercultural aspects of the changing world. This will help students become more knowledgeable citizens of an international community.

Teaching Creativity

The types of creativity training currently being used in the industry can be made available to the schools. For instance, Boeing uses mind mapping in its technical publications unit. This technique of mind mapping can be taught in the schools because of its value in packing a lot of information onto a page, which can then be seen at a glance. This enhances learning as it enables students to grasp the information taught by their teachers and from books. Furthermore, students can use mind maps to present their projects in class. Lastly, teachers can also use this for their staff meetings, like what executives do in the industry.

Schools can also learn from Du Pont which uses the teachings and writings of Edward de Bono as the basis for its creative thinking techniques. They can also learn from Hewlett-Packard which encourages its engineers to spend about 10 per cent of their time exploring projects outside their assignments and allowing them to use the workplace to pursue their weekend hobbies. Similarly, schools can allow students to explore projects of their choice after they have discussed the projects with their teachers, and to pursue their hobbies using some of the school facilities such as computers, photocopiers, printers, and internet accounts.

Giving Students Realistic Career Education and Encouraging Classroom Visits by Working Adults

Recent decades have also brought to the high school level another area of community-school co-operation--the concern with career development. Formerly called vocational education, recent acts by governments have brought to focus the necessity for intelligent planning in the areas of work, lifestyle and livelihood. Many of these career education programs involve a systematic plan to develop partnerships between the schools and businesses which train and sponsor student interns as they learn their trade or profession. Dr. Sidney P. Marland Jr. coined the term "career education" in 1971 and became its avid proponent (McClure, 1985). According to his basic plan, by the ninth and 10th grades, students should be visiting work places which reflect their job interests and getting some basic skills in their preferred areas of work. By the 11th and 12th grades, students should select job types and perfect the skills for those jobs. Perhaps, part-time work and a flexible school schedule, if possible, can be an effective part of realistic career education.

The mid-1970s brought an expansion of the concept of career education to include distributive education. In these programs, young students had opportunities to learn, co-operatively with community professionals, specialised skills in advertising, automotive work, finance and credit, food services, industrial materials handling, travel services, and transportation work. Career education has its critics, but the element of co-operation with community workers is a positive aspect that needs to be preserved. Even the youngest elementary and pre-school students benefit greatly from classroom visits by working adults. Furthermore, visits to various types of business and industry give students meaningful information on the realities of the world they cannot see within the confines of the classroom.

Collaboration Between the School and the University

Allowing Schools to Use Sophisticated Equipment

The university, being a centre of higher learning, has more sophisticated instruments and equipment which are needed by research scholars and for training degree students. If schools are to engage students in ambitious and creative projects, it is uneconomical to buy such expensive equipment. Therefore, the university can help by making their instruments and equipment accessible to the schools and even training teachers on how to use them. This helps teachers to overcome their fear of recommending ambitious projects to students with the aim of stretching students' creative minds. The logistics limitation is thus overcome in an economical way.

Training High School Students on Parapsychology Programs

Social and disciplinary problems in schools are a sore which need to be healed fast. Like any wound, it must never be left unattended or its condition will deteriorate. John L. McManus (1986) of Eastern Michigan University describes an interesting use of untapped resources for the schools. He recommends the training of high school students as psychology paraprofessionals to assist in program organisation, assessment, intervention, education, liaison, evaluation, and personal intervention. It was found that these trained students could become very proficient in tutoring and counselling other students, especially younger and handicapped students. McManus notes that ideally the school is a focal point within the community. Community resources converge on the school in order that students may be served. He envisions that student psychology paraprofessional programs develop interactively between the school and community and extend downward such that the senior students involve themselves with younger age levels in training and practice. He suggests that other paraprofessional groups affiliate with the schools in order to mutually enrich the programs.

This interesting model would revolutionise the practice of school psychology as it now exists and create a comprehensive helping network throughout the community. School psychologists tend to lament that they do not have time in their already busy schedules to embark on such an ambitious plan, but McManus suggests that even the busiest school psychologist has the time to sit down with one senior student and teach him or her some basic tasks that would eventually lighten the psychologist's work load. Larger-scale parapsychology programs could include other areas of support, outside grants, and co-operation with local community mental health professionals. Existing university school psychology training programs are useful in training the young paraprofessionals. McManus believes so strongly in the value of this type of intra-community co-operation that he suggests psychologists volunteer their time to get paraprofessional programs started.

A Nationwide Involvement

A totally new partnership is needed for the next century to focus not only on the teaching environment, as we have always been doing, but also on motivating students to learn, especially those who feel neglected or have lost out academically. It should be a learning environment where no one is left out. Such a partnership would entail greater parental and community involvement, school restructuring, and greater attention to early education. This requires the concerted efforts of the parents, children, schools, and the community. The aims are to:

1. prepare students for future jobs so that they will not be caught with trained skills that later become obsolete as governments realise too well the dilemma of older workers becoming redundant in fast changing times;

2. help students with special problems such as dyslexia, spelling, reading, writing, speech, discipline or relationships with peers, parents, and teachers;

3. monitor students' progress so that they see the change in them and get the returns on their time and commitment, like what investors hope to get when they invest;

4. counsel and provide mentoring programs to help students with emotional and psychological problems (teachers can be trained on the basic counselling skills with some full-time-qualified counsellors in charge of clinical treatments);

5. provide students with meaningful work experiences such as organising trips for younger students to see work in practice outside the schools, and attaching senior students on short stints in the industry during school vacations.

Involving School-based Clinics in Health Education and Health Care for School-aged Clients

Recent years have shown the need for school-based medical clinics to meet high school students' needs. A handful of school-based clinics were started in the 1970s out of concern over rising fertility rates among girls 13 to 17. This population was increasingly dropping out of school and finding themselves unable to access primary health care (Alexander, 1990). Some of the earliest, most successful clinics were started in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area with the support of the schools and local government agencies. The early clinics demonstrated that students would use the services, that adolescents used clinics for different services than younger elementary students, and that teenagers often perceived their health concerns as a crisis.

Alexander, however, cautions that school-based clinics should not become a mere fad but a sensible response to a community's particular circumstances and needs relating to adolescent health concerns. In order to prevent hasty planning of clinics that might be inappropriate, Alexander proposes a set of questions which address the real situation in each community. Is the clinic needed? What are the resources and support? Are there other ways to provide the same services? What will be the emphasis of the clinic? How will it be funded? What are the anticipated problems?

Apparently, staffing of such clinics is a sensitive concern. Teens can quickly determine when a clinic is an attempt at social control rather than health care. They can tell if the people working with them like them or disapprove of them. They know when the program is an advocate of parents rather than of the youth they are trying to serve, and they can easily sense if the staff is trying to control or change their behaviour. For these reasons, it is important in school-based health clinics that the professional staff be highly qualified and interested in working with teenagers. According to Alexander, there is a growing need to provide for the health of adolescents. They have special health needs which often are not met because they think that traditional health services are inaccessible. School-based health clinics offer a unique community involvement opportunity to provide health education and health care for underserved adolescent populations. The policies of such clinics must meet the needs and goals of the community, the school, and the school-aged clients.

Organising Community Tuition

A wide range of interested volunteers from the community is needed to help promote the literacy development of students. The volunteers can be parents, university students, or anyone who can be trained by school educators to provide tutorial service.

For example, in the Charlottesville Volunteer Tutorial programme (Invernizzi et al., 1996/7) in Charlottesville, Virginia, USA, volunteers from the community were trained in teaching methods three times a year during two-hour training sessions, with video demonstration lessons of actual tutorials and a walk-through of the lesson plan. In the school, a reading co-ordinator, who may be a graduate in reading education, trains the tutors and gives them administrative support such as writing lesson plans, arranging teaching materials, and providing feedback. The tutors teach the first- and second-grade elementary children twice weekly in 45-minute sessions during non-classroom hours.

Establishing a Creative Foundation

With creativity, no problem cannot be solved. What is really needed is the creative consciousness of people. This may seem difficult to instil in the minds of people. On the contrary, there is already plenty of creativity in us. Creativity is infinitely available, if only we manifest it. This manifestation of creativity can be contagious if one person's vision to change something in the world prompts another person to do the same, and so on. Creativity will then be another norm which everyone follows.

In order to create this widespread consciousness in creativity, an organisation dedicated to improving creativity can be formed. It may be called by any appropriate name such as the Foundation of Creative Individuals or the Creative Foundation (as in Shaw Foundation). The motto: "Awaken the Creative Genius in You."

The plan is to begin with membership -- unrestricted membership. It should be a creative foundation in which no one is left out. Every able mind is encouraged to contribute creatively to solving world problems which can range from simple problems of food and shelter to more complex ones of education and government policies. More importantly, it is a foundation that represents people's hope in fulfilling their artistic or business dreams. This is important because we all have dreams but how many of us can actually realise our dreams if left on our own?

This creative foundation can focus on many different things at every level of human endeavour and every level of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. In Maslow's pyramid of needs, the lowest level concerns our basic needs such as food and shelter. The next higher level concerns our security. The level above that concerns our self-esteem. Lastly, the top level concerns our self-fulfilment. As we function at different levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, everyone in this creative foundation, no matter at what level of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, contributes to solving problems at that level. For example, at the lowest level, creative efforts are aimed at getting food and shelter; at a higher level, ensuring security; at the next higher level, working on educational and personal problems and psychological development; and at the highest level, focusing on creative expression.

In this way, the foundation operates at all levels of human needs. Those needing food, shelter, and security are supported. Those needing emotional support are supported by free programs, support groups, and even therapy. Those who need to improve their education can do so. Those with creative dreams and who wish to fulfil their personal desires are supported by arts and sports centres, universities, and business schools. Thus, the community can be strengthened in this cohesive way as new supportive centres sprout to meet specific needs emerging-from time to time.

To finance such a foundation, all arts and business schools must first help those who wish to study their courses to realise their dreams. These people can be taught how to write business plans and set up limited partnerships to finance their projects. Later, when they become successful, they will donate generously to the foundation which in turn will help many more others starting out. Everyone who has been helped by the foundation or just wishes to support it is encouraged to donate to the foundation. The foundation can then invest the funds proportionately to help those at the various levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. There may even be excess from the foundation which can then be donated to non-profit organisations, arts and sports centres, youth and child-care centres, etc.

An example of this self-financing scheme at work is best seen in Kohler Company which started its 4-week Arts/Industry residential program in 1974 (Weiss, 1992). The company annually sponsors about 15 artists-in-residence to work for four months in Kohler factories alongside Kohler employees. The company gives artists studio space, materials, equipment, and technical assistance in its factories. In return, the artists are required to spend one day of each month of their residency teaching art education to different community groups. This program can, of course, be adopted in any company but its success depends greatly on strong administrative support. At the same time, companies which participate in such schemes benefit from their strong corporate presence in the community. Furthermore, allowing passionate employees in the company to pursue their causes sends a strong signal to the public and employees of the company that the company is not only flexible but also caring above all.

More importantly, this creative foundation will transform youth centres and schools into centres of higher education, training people to discover their creativity and simultaneously their talents and ways to support themselves abundantly. This may seem a mammoth task. It is, considering the support groups it will embrace. There will, of course, be challenges and difficulties, involving perhaps a re-education of the public. However, when realised, this vision is contagious and will spread, aided by the new generation of vibrant youths calling impatiently for change. Change perpetuates changes, slowly but growing. As our new youths become more aware of their career choices, they will become a powerful force, exerting their impact on businesses and individuals. A new renaissance will emerge where individual creativity will flourish, like an evolution but unlike that of Charles Darwin's.

Hence, with enough financing and the vision, this creative foundation can become a reality. The aim of creativity that results from this creative foundation is not so much to make our world a richer place but to transform it into a place we love to do what we think is best creatively. From this creative foundation will sprout more such foundations and consequently more creative individuals to confront the new problems of a new world.

Conclusion

Community involvement in classrooms, schools, and universities is as diverse as the types of students, schools, and universities which exist today. From this discussion on community involvement, one can gain an understanding of the broad array of types of programs that have been successfully used at every level. The success of these efforts lies in co-operation which is a vital element. The partnerships among the community, the school, the university, and the students work well when the needs of all these parties are met.

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James Poon Teng Fatt, Assistant Professor, Business Communication and English Proficiency at School of Accountancy & Business (B1C-108), Nanyang Technological University.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to James Poon Teng Fatt, School of Accountancy & Business, Nanyang Technological University, Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798.