A Letter to Inform Your Students’ Parents/Guardians of the Value of the Transferable Skills That Can be Developed in Your Class

Attempts by high school teachers to teach transferable skills (e.g., responsibility, time management and academic honesty) are often resisted by their students, their students’ parents or guardians, and their administrators and may even place these teachers in professional jeopardyopens in new window. The purpose of this document is to provide a sample letter that high school psychology teachers who attempt to teach these skills to their students can use to accomplish the following objectives with one of these groups, the parents or guardians of their students:

1. Make this group aware of the nature and value of the transferable skills that can be developed in a high school psychology class.
2. Make this group aware of the crucial role they can play in their children’s attainment of these skills by supporting — rather than opposing — the strategies used to teach them.

High school psychology teachers can use the letter below as the beginning point for the creation of a letter of their own that would be both clearly understood and well received by their students’ parents or guardians. For example, the demographics of a school district may require a Spanish translation or a letter written in less formal language. Or the reference to a “mean” teacher could be omitted if the teacher believes that some parents or guardians might respond negatively to this term. It is also important to stress that the inclusion of a school district’s mission statement will be appropriate only if the high school psychology teacher's school district has a mission statement and, if it does, it has been reproduced accurately in the letter. 

If high school psychology teachers decide to create such a letter, it will also be important to determine the most effective way it can be delivered. A hard copy of the letter could be mailed directly to the parents or guardians, a hard copy could be given to each student to deliver to her/his parents or guardians, or an electronic copy could be sent to parents or guardians if the teacher has access to the appropriate technology.

Although the vast majority of high school psychology teachers already understand the wisdom of the following piece of advice, it may not be known to some (e.g., first-year teachers). It is absolutely necessary for high school psychology teachers who plan to create a letter of this kind to share it with their department heads and/or principals before they send it to their students’ parents or guardians. Doing this can produce positive outcomes such as constructive suggestions to improve the letter and the recognition of the high school psychology teacher's understanding of and support for the school district’s mission. Failure to do this could have very negative consequences if the letter is sent before it has been approved by those who are in the position to determine the high school psychology teachers’ professional success or failure.     

Draft Letter to Parents or Guardians

Dear Parents or Guardians of My Students,

I would like to introduce myself, explain the two purposes of my class, and request your support. My name is Jane Doe, and I teach the Psychology class in which your son or daughter is enrolled. The most obvious purpose of my class is to increase my students’ knowledge of psychology. While mastering this knowledge is very important, my class has a second purpose I also want you to understand.

While the possession of knowledge is necessary for success in both college and the workplace, it is not as important as the set of skills, characteristics, and attitudes that help people to manage their time, work well with others, solve problems, and behave in an ethical manner. These essential abilities are known as transferable skills because they can be developed in one environment (e.g., the high school classroom) and then transferred to future environments (e.g., college and the workplace) where their presence will be needed to produce success. 

Many students fail to bring these transferable skills to the workplace. This failure is referred to as the “skills gap,” whose meaning is captured in the following quote from a report by Adecco Group, the world’s largest staffing firm. “Forty-four percent of the executives we surveyed think Americans are lacking transferable skills such as communication, creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking. Thus, while candidates may look good ‘on paper,’ they don’t know how to effectively work within a team or in an office” (Adecco, 2018). But how can we overcome this skills gap?  An answer to this question can be found in a report titled “Rising to the Challenge: Views on High School Graduates’ Preparedness for College and Careers,” which states, “The research suggests that providing real academic challenge for high school students and communicating with them about what is needed for future success helps to better prepare grads for the road ahead” (Achieve, 2015). 

The success of my students—both now and in the future—is very important to me, not only because I personally want them to succeed, but because the mission statement of our school district clearly specifies that “every student will graduate ready to achieve excellence in higher education and the workforce.”  Many of the transferable skills that students need to succeed in college (see "Why Your Freshman Year In College Will NOT Be 13th Gradeopens in new window") are the same as those that will help them succeed on-the-job (e.g., time management, teamwork, honesty, and responsibility). That is why I require my students to hand in their assignments on time, collaborate effectively on group projects, avoid plagiarism, and read my class syllabus to know when assignments are due rather than relying on me to provide them with constant reminders. The lessons they learn as they develop these transferable skills will not always be easy and the consequences they experience on their way to mastering these skills may sometimes cause them to describe me as an overly-demanding or “mean” teacher. But I am willing to bear this title—and to bear it proudly—as it is defined in the following website: "A Mean Teacher" from Dr. Robert's Computer Labopens in new window.

Thank you for reading this letter and thank you for the support I hope you will provide me this semester. We both want your child to succeed, not only in my class this semester, but also in the future as a successful college student and/or a productive member of the workforce. We can make this happen if we work together.

Sincerely yours,

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