Would You Step Through
When I was growing up, my teachers never would have stepped through my front door. Not that
I was a bad, unlikable kid—I was well-behaved in school. My mom had no
issues with teachers or schools. But the
abyss between the school’s clean desks
and bright lights and the government
housing I grew up in was great, and it
would have been too embarrassing to
allow any teacher to cross it. Even if
a teacher had tried to visit my family,
it would have been impossible. For as
long as I can remember, my single mom
juggled two or more jobs.
So, as a teacher in an urban, high-poverty school, I get it when I make my
annual phone calls to my students’ families and they balk at my suggestion of a
home visit. I empathize with the embarrassed sighs and even the defensive,
“What do you mean you want to come
to my place? Can’t we just talk at the
conference later?” But I persist because
I know that these same parents will
probably be unable or unwilling to
show up for parent–teacher conferences
in a few months.
I wish I could reassure parents by
saying, “I’m not checking the legality
of your residency or counting how
many people live in your apartment.”
Instead, I say something like, “The
school is always asking parents to
enter our world—to come to conferences or family night or volunteer in
Visiting low-income kids
in their homes often
sheds light on their
hidden strengths.
Stephanie Smith
classrooms. I want to return the favor
and go into your world. Maybe hear
about what your typical day is like
instead of walking you through our
class schedule—or play a card game in
your living room instead of explaining
our flash cards.”
Inviting parents into school and dis-
cussing things like class schedules are
important. But why do teachers judge
parents for not setting foot on our
campus when we make no attempt to
set foot on their front porch?
Bonds of Trust
Home visits are especially essential
in areas characterized by poverty and
diversity. Most teachers come from
a middle-class background and have
never experienced the realities of low-
income students’ lives. It’s my respon-
sibility to experience and embrace that
reality, even if just for 30 minutes in
a student’s living room. Tish Howard,
author of Poverty is NOT a Learning
Disability, 1 believes that “the first step
in developing effective lines of school–
home communication is making it easy
for parents to get to know, like, trust,
and respect us—to see us as their peers,
not their superiors” (p. 67).
Glimpsing Their
Hidden Strengths
Gabby was a 4th grader who came
to our school in January. Her older
brother Davon had been expelled from
their former school. Gabby’s mom—a
