"Double reduction" expects a home visit
The traditional home visit is very small. Nowadays, more schools adopt the online home-school communication form
Two teachers from a middle school visited the students' homes to see their learning environment.
A primary school teacher conducts video home visits to students.
"What is a home visit?" Today's children may have little idea of this.
Home visits are an effective means for schools to understand the current situation of a specific student's family life in a targeted manner, and have advantages unmatched by other forms of home-school cooperation.
With the development of informatization, the traditional but effective home-school communication method of "home visit" is gradually declining.
The "14th Five-Year Plan" economic and social reform and development goals propose to "build a high-quality education system", and it is necessary to strengthen the construction of the home-school-community collaborative education mechanism. Under the background of the implementation of the "double reduction" policy, how to better Give full play to the role of home visits to highlight the value of home-school-society collaborative education?
The reporter conducted an interview recently.
Text, Photos/Feng Qiuyu, All Media Reporter of Guangzhou Daily
Reporter's investigation: Nowadays, home-school communication mainly relies on mobile phones
The daughter of Ms. Xu, a citizen, is studying in a public primary school in Guangzhou. Talking about the communication between home and school, she told reporters: "In six years of primary school, parents usually take the initiative to communicate with teachers. If the child has no special problems, the teacher will not specifically contact the parents. At most, it’s just a phone call. My daughter is quite good. Looking back now, in the past six years, except for the parent-teacher meeting once every semester, we have hardly had face-to-face communication with teachers.”
As a "post-80s" Ms. Xu recalled the scene of reading when she was a child.
"I remember that both elementary and junior high schools have a home visit system. At least four parent meetings and one home visit are held in a semester. Primary school teachers will invite parents to go to the school for one-on-one exchanges, and they will also help parents plan their children's education very early. Road; and middle school teachers will visit home once a school year."
Citizen Ms. Wu's son has been studying in public schools from elementary school to high school.
Recalling her child's reading experience, Ms. Wu said: "Indeed, from the first grade of primary school to the graduation of high school, I have never been visited at home. I don't know if it is because of the relatively developed means of communication, the communication between home and school is mainly based on WeChat groups and group text messages. If there is a home visit, we are very welcome."
The reporter found that most of the interviewed parents generally felt that the type of home-school contact in the school where their child was located was relatively simple and less frequent.
A first-tier city in China once conducted a questionnaire survey entitled "Current Situation, Problems and Suggestions of Home-School Relations in Primary and Secondary Schools" on the issue of home-school communication. 13.97% of parents chose 0 times.
The survey found that some home-school links are still problem-oriented: 54.63% of parents in some schools reported that "when children have ideological or behavioral problems at school, teachers will contact me."
The reporter learned from interviews that the current forms of family education guidance in various schools are more diverse, including parent-school special lectures, publicity boards, WeChat groups, etc., and some schools have formed school-based courses with their own characteristics in the long-term exploration process. On the whole, the family education guidance of many schools has not yet formed a system, and some parents report that the family education guidance "doesn't take into account the diversity of the family enough."
At the same time, teachers, especially the class teacher, also have a lot of feelings about this.
Teacher Chen, who is the head teacher of the third grade of a primary school, told reporters: "The head teacher of the primary school has many and complicated things, and there is almost no spare time during the day. Unless you encounter difficult problems, there is really no more energy to do too much homework. school communication."
Parents' voice:
"The home-school communication helped a lot"
However, in the interview, the reporter also found many examples of positive energy.
"I am especially grateful to my child's head teacher. Without her help, the child might have dropped out of school long ago." The mother of 14-year-old girl Lili told reporters: "This child has been self-willed since he was a child. All kinds of thoughts, crying and screaming at home, in a daze at school, and frankly, I want to give up."
Although Lili's head teacher Feng is a novice head teacher who just joined in 2020, she is very enthusiastic about helping children grow up and creating a positive class culture in the class.
After discovering Lili's situation, Teacher Feng has maintained frequent and regular communication with Lili's parents, "The teacher often communicates with us on the phone about the child's situation, and once at a parents' meeting, I was left alone for a long talk. Two hours." That night, it was almost 10 pm when Lili's mother and Teacher Feng finished their conversation and left the school.
"Mr. Feng studied education. That night, we not only talked about children, but also about my relationship with her father, and even about my own growth. Although we can't solve the fundamental problem with one conversation, I did solve it. There are a lot of knots, and it is surprising that the child's state is also developing in a good direction."
Teacher Feng told reporters: "I like this job very much. I like to be with children, and I am happy that I can bring even a little positive impact to their lives." Lili's mother was quite emotional. Said: "I think effective home-school communication doesn't have to be a visit to the home. The key is to see how the teacher treats the profession and whether he is willing to settle down and care for the child."
Online home visit:
Reduce anxiety of parents and children during special times
Affected by the epidemic, home-school communication is also a test for children who take online classes at home and their parents.
However, during the online teaching period from April 11 to April 22, the "online home visit" arranged for each child by a kindergarten in Haizhu District, where the 5-year-old boy Zhuangzhuang lives, did help parents and children a lot. less busy.
"There are two 'online home visits' in total, and the head teacher will make a video call at the appointed time. This is the first time we have communicated with the teacher in this way. We saw the teacher calling his name kindly on the other end of the mobile phone. Zhuang Zhuang, who was being naughty at home, ran over immediately and happily answered the teacher's question. I took the opportunity to 'comment' to the teacher, in fact, I hoped to take this opportunity to help the child improve his behavior."
Zhuang Zhuang's mother told reporters that although she usually has the opportunity to meet the teacher when she picks up her children to and from school and holds parent-teacher conferences, but because of the large number of people on the scene, they only had a brief exchange. This time, she had the opportunity to conduct an online home visit. Zhuang Zhuang's mother introduced the child's room layout and living conditions to the teacher.
"It feels like the teacher has come to the house, and it has indeed greatly deepened mutual understanding and interaction." In the second week of online home visits, the teacher also adopted the form of "one-on-three", and brought a few people together. Children who play more often have a "video conference" together. Although the children may not always stay in front of the camera, they can see the classmates they haven't seen for a long time. Said that through such a form of home visit to make himself less anxious.
Teacher Xiao, the head teacher of the first class of the kindergarten, told reporters that the kindergarten had arranged home visits before. "Most parents welcome home visits. This is indeed a good way to strengthen home-school communication."
Go to the child's "growth scene":
Strengthen home-school relationships
The reporter also found in the interview that Baiyun Experimental School in Baiyun District (Baiyun Province) has maintained a home visit system since the establishment of the primary school in September 2020, and the work content has been refined since the beginning of the new semester this year.
According to Zhang Wenwen, assistant director of the Student Office of the Primary School of Baiyun Province, the school has formulated a home visit system based on the relevant guidance recently issued by Guangzhou City, which is mainly divided into four forms: home visits, telephone home visits, appointments for parents to come to the school, and video home visits. The class teacher and all classroom teachers in the class are required to conduct a home visit to all students within two years.
"If there are some problems in children, they are actually closely related to the way of parenting and family atmosphere. When children get along with their classmates at school, they will bring their behaviors and habits at home to school." Mavericks (pseudonym) in the grade often disturbed the classmates in get out of class, and also had conflicts with classmates after class.
When Zhang Wenwen visited Xiao Niu's house and told the parents about the child's problems, Xiao Niu's father was so angry that he almost went to beat Xiao Niu.
"Home visit is to allow teachers to see the child's 'growth scene' and give help in time." Seeing this situation, Zhang Wenwen immediately began to communicate with the current state of Maverick's father to help parents analyze their children. The reasons for the problems in the body, and then improve the way of education.
"We recommend that parents of Mavericks accompany their children more, and at the same time establish a sense of rules and discipline for their children. We suggest that parents let Mavericks set a 'daily goal' every day, and when he wakes up, read what he is going to do today, after school. Summarize and reflect after returning home, and supervise the formation of good habits. Persist for a semester, because the parents are very cooperative, Mavericks can now sit down and listen to the class completely in class, and will not take the initiative when the get out of class is over. Playing with classmates and showing more respect for teachers.”
"Through home visits, it is easier for schools and teachers to provide help and support to parents, which is the core role of home visits in our opinion." Zhang Wenwen introduced that after the school started this year, the school visited more than a dozen fifth and sixth graders who lived in Conghua District. Families of classmates, "Parents are very welcome to this, and they have also raised a lot of questions, dispelling parents' concerns about students living on campus, and the communication between teachers and parents has become closer." However, at this stage, students live in a relatively scattered school. , it will be more difficult to visit, so the form of home visits to families currently only accounts for 10% of the total number of home visits; in addition, telephone home visits and appointments for parents to come to school account for about 35%, and video home visits account for about 20%.
The school has also innovated the form of "private parent meeting": the parents of students with similar situations in the class are invited to form a group, and teachers share educational experiences or learning suggestions in a targeted manner.
Zhang Wenwen told reporters that from the school's experience in home-school communication, video home visits are better than WeChat and telephone communication, "because video home visits are like face-to-face communication with teachers, allowing teachers to take a look at the furnishings and residences of the study at home. environment, and have a deep understanding of the family. Therefore, it is recommended that teachers give priority to home visits in the form of video with the consent of the parents." Zhang Wenwen also said that doing home-school communication is not a burden, but can reduce the burden: "If parents lack the ability to educate their children, Advanced concepts or methods, they will also be more anxious. We will regularly hold 'Parent Classes' to help parents update their knowledge. In this way, we and parents can be consistent in terms of handling methods, educational behavior, etc., and the communication between home and school is very smooth. ."
Expert Perspective:
Home visit is the ecology of education
Yin Fei, executive director of the Chinese Society of Family Education and vice president of the Family Education Research Institute of Nanjing Normal University, said that home visits are not only a regular channel for home-school exchange of information, but also a communication channel for educational concepts between home and school. On-site” embodied experience is an effective method for scientists to teach and guide.
Yin Fei said that the "double reduction" policy proposes to "clarify the responsibilities of home-school-community coordination". In the process of deepening the implementation of the policy, it is necessary to gradually implement the due responsibilities of the family and society (community) to form an effective home-school-community education system. pattern.
"'Double reduction' not only improves children's learning efficiency at school, enhances the school's individualized level of student assignments, guidance and management, but also improves each student's good habit of individualized home self-study after leaving the group. In the future, the foundation of self-discipline, self-control and self-learning will be laid. Therefore, while the school provides delayed custody services for families with real difficulties, it also needs to guide parents who have time and energy to learn to guide their children at home through home visits, parent schools, etc. Study, improve the good habits of home life, labor, sports, entertainment and study."
In response to the current situation in which traditional home visits are declining, Yin Fei said: "Home visits are an effective means for schools to understand the current situation of specific students' families in a targeted manner, and have advantages unmatched by other home-school cooperation methods. Schools should innovate educational management and evaluation methods, support, Encourage teachers to conduct home visits; provide special training for teachers to improve teachers' ability to visit home; actively publicize, win more parents' understanding and cooperation, and restore the ecology that education should have."