Teaching English Language Learners Post 3: Parental Volunteers

What is the purpose of having volunteers in the school community and how can you incorporate volunteers effectively in the classroom environment? 

Volunteers in general are important to a school community for a number of reasons, they provide services that are capable of giving teachers and other staff support in areas that might be in need of such support based on the size of the school and staff. Support could be chaperoning support on field trips, in school dances, at lunch time and recess even possibly.

Students benefit from having volunteers in the school community because sometimes there is a person who is permitted to volunteer that has a community connection to students making them a person they can trust and go to if there is something they need. Students are able to do more with volunteers than without. Volunteers do not only provide the extra supervision needed to take students on field trips and what not, but they also provide forms of education that teachers may not provide or be able to deliver in the same way as say, a police officer.

Volunteers are the connection between the school and the extended community. Volunteers are made up of PTA members, community leaders as well as young professionals who will soon be teachers or other contributing members of society themselves. Effective incorporation of volunteers would look like taking on a teacher candidate and having them observe as well as teach. In the time that they are teaching, the mentor could be taking notes and try to take some notes from them. Veteran staff won't usually acknowledge that there are younger staff members who are interested in such things, but there are young teachers or candidates even who volunteer their time and provide examples of skills that veteran teachers could benefit from practicing themselves.

When I was a youngster, V.I.P. (Values Influences and Peers) was a great program that also incorporated police volunteers to come into schools and provide important talks about the different crimes, drugs and laws that we as youngsters needed to begin familiarizing ourselves with.