I chose this part of the text because it caused me to think of early care centers such as Head Start that have a mandatory parent involvement requirement. I wonder how the parents feel about this requirement and also how the teachers feel about it? Why does it exist and does it result in the parents feeling more ownership in their child's education or does it only add burden?

When reading this passage of the text, I was reminded of Adichie’s caution of only knowing or believing a “single story”. When I encounter a person or situation for the first time, I am seeing but one portion of a whole. When I meet a student, a family or a school for the first time, it is critical to be aware of the images and perceptions that come to my mind and remember to meet the experience with curiosity and openness. There is a history that has shaped the family, student or school that needs to be encountered and understood for me to understand the forces of influence and how they interrelate with the present. Miller later quotes Freire to say, “You never get there by starting from there, you get there by starting from some here.” To me this means when starting with the goal of understanding the experience of any “other”, I need to start with the present and work towards understanding through enduring curiosity.

Hi all, this is Joanie. The first two words of my highlighted text didn't make it here which were "As I...". As teachers, we will encounter multiple perspectives through interacting with children and through parent communication and may not understand the perspective a parent or child brings to the classroom. As teachers in educational settings, it is important to develop a relationship with families so that the family’s specific hopes and desires for their child can be understood through open communication such as parent teacher conferences. A parent teacher conference is an example of an influence within the Mesosystem of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological framework. Even though the child may not be present at the parent teacher conference, the interactions and understandings reached will have direct influence on the child in their two major settings the child interacts with; home and school