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Deb and I were talking about this, the parent issue, after the session.   And it (along with the administrator, school board, state assessment, etc) is an important one in at least two respects.

First, we all have a tendency when we're frustrated to attribute problems to others.  And it is certainly true that our successes and failures in our own classrooms are heavily influenced by lots of other things, including parents (etc).  But, it isn't actually particularly useful to us (or any one else) to blame other things.  What happens at any given time is the result of a whole host of interacting influences each of which is in turn the resultant of a whole set of additional influences.  Maybe we should presume that, on the whole, parents are doing the best they can to deal with a whole lot of influences, just as we are?  And that sometimes they pull in the same direction we want to pull and other times don't?  And get our minds back on the more immediate question of how to facilitate the development of students (and ourselves) to work in an emergent environment.  So, notice a parental influence, but don't get hung up on it.  Figure instead it is another perspective that can be used to get things less wrong?

Second, we should not only be practicing good listening with parents (administrators, school boards, etc) but we should also be actively trying to involve them in the emergent system.  We tend to prefer to think that we are alone in our classrooms with our students, and to try and organize things that way.  But all the other influences are always there.  Maybe we should act to make them more explicitly a part of the educational process?  Among the ways we might do so that was suggested in our afternoon conversation was to actually hold emergent sessions with parents.  That strikes me as a really good idea.  And perhaps with administrators, school boards, politicians, and so forth as well?  Maybe, as educators, we should accept resonsibility for playing an active role not only in the emergent education of our students but of others as well?