2008 Volume 75 Issue 4 Pages 381-392
The formation of cooperative relationships between teachers and parents is becoming increasingly difficult in contemporary times. We can view such a phenomenon as something derived from a "privatization" stance adopted by parents. In other words, parents' interests are concentrated only on their children. Thus, it is plausible that publicness in education has been weakened. In such a situation, this paper investigates the manner in which dialogue can be established between teachers and parents. To this end, I observed the teaching methods adopted by a primary school teacher, San-ni Shimomura. His method entails the issuance of classroom newsletters to parents of pupils on almost all working days. Through his classroom newsletter, Shimomura intends to communicate with the parents. In the newsletter, the parents' views appear as responses and lead to a dialogue. Since the replies are published in the newsletter-whose readership is constituted by parents-an element of publicness is evident. For the purpose of examination, I set two requisites for publicness-"potentiality of the expression of parents' views" and "potentiality of the establishment of common interests among parents." These parameters have been adopted from Hannah Arendt's theory of publicness. The idea of an "intimate sphere" is also researched as part of the examination, since an atmosphere of security and reliability is required for modern-day parents to air their views. The following are the findings of the research. First, the characteristics of the classroom newsletter are explained. I ascertain the process through which parents begin to develop interest in all the children in the classroom and in the classroom atmosphere by means of the newsletter. Second, I examine the cases of two parents whose views were published in the classroom newsletter. It was difficult for both of them to express their views because their own children were physically handicapped. However, the responses of these parents reflect the faith that they have in other parents and the teacher and the sense of security they feel in. the medium of communication. This suggests that parents express their views in a public sphere if they perceive a sense of reliability and security. Third, I determine how the space where parents can express their views develops. This space was developed and maintained only by the appearance of parents who voiced their concerns. Fourth, I study the position and role of the teacher in the context of dialogue and publicness. In a dialogue that leads to publicness, a teacher should be one of the parties in the dialogue and serve as a moderator of the space. We find that to be in such a position, teachers are required to engage in reflection and exercise discretion as professionals.
