There has been ample discussion on how a teacher should create an inclusive classroom in which all students feel safe and secure to learn. Scholars, such as Beatrice Schindler Rangvid, suggests that the notion of inclusion extends to the home. The parents and the home environment play a prominent role in motivating their children to take the risk and participate. Scholars have analyzed the language, participation in mother-tongue lessons, leisure-time activities, help with schoolwork, missing school and the student composition at school (Schindler Rangvid, 2009). In my opinion these factors do not take into consideration the position of parents in society. For example, not every parent is going to be native to Canada, not every parent is going to be have a stable employment and not every parent is going to have a stable personal life.

In my practicum class we had two international students come from Hong Kong for a new learning experience. I thought this was quite interesting as two ELLs were coming into a classroom. I was very interested to see how they could integrate into the class and how the notion of inclusion would play out. These students come from very stable, wealthy, traditional and educated families so it is assumed their academic performance and motivation to exceed would be high. In reality this assumption proved to be false. When I interacted with the students they were fully able to hold a english conversation, however they were disengaged in the class. There were times the students would simply sit there doing nothing or participating in the class discussion.  At first I thought since they were unaware of the context could be why they are not doing the task, but they did not participate in the art lessons. I found this to be very strange. Then I started to think maybe there disengagement may be the result of the lack of effort put into integrating them into the class. I did not get much time to see if that may be the case as the students went on an afternoon field trip.

However, this did get me thinking of parents of my students. These are average/middle class parents that have a set routine, especially parents who are immigrants. Immigrant parents may not have the home support, access to resources, or even time to invest in their child education as they are busy fending for their basic needs. Comparing these factors to the parents of the international students it did not make sense. The parents of these international have invested money in their learning experience. You would think they would try to make the best of their experience? At the same time I do need take into consideration they are still kids. They are going to slack of when they get a chance.

Looking at these international students I do not know if I feel comfortable assessing a students academic performance based on their parents involvement.

There are so many factors to take into consideration. It is very hard to point what is right and what is wrong. I guess not everything is so white or black.