Parents as Talent Developers

Our purpose in writing this book is to give minority parents (African American, Latino) the tools they need to help their children perform much better in school. The content of the book comes from discovering actual parental practices used by minority families whose children excel at school. Our research teams went to public schools in minority neighborhoods in New York City and Long Island to find high-achieving minority children. We then visited their families and interviewed the parents and children separately to uncover what the parents did to warrant such high achievement. It is these minority parents who are the instructors in this book. We have talked with them, wrote down their stories, and extracted the parental practices that we call “kernels.” Kernels are seeds in the plant world. The kernels on an ear of corn are the seeds needed to grow the next generation of corn. We use this term in the sense that each parental practice that we highlight in this book should be viewed as a seed for a child’s academic growth. Our research teams highlight ninety-six kernels and embed many more practices in the text that bolster academic achievement. It is a resource that minority parents can use to give their children the opportunities that result from an emphasis on academics. The book is also designed for educators to use in their everyday interactions with minority and nonminority parents.