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When my daughter was about to start K her teacher made home visits. I didn't give it a second thought. We lived in rural WV and the teacher was my aunts best friend. My daughter thought it was great to have her teacher come to her house. The teacher brought a little gift bag with crayons and stickers. We had coffee and banana bread. She stayed for only 20 minutes or so. My daughter is now in 7th grade and no other teachers have wanted to come to our home. I thought it was just a nice welcome to school thing?
We lived in WV too when my son was in kindergarten.
There were home visits and I got the impression they were pretty much voluntary.
He was excited to meet his teacher and I thought it was a good idea for him.
There was some element of feeling like the school system was 'checking out the place' but I felt it was worth it for my son to have met the teacher before the first big day of K.
I seriously don't get you. Teachers are not *out to get* parents. The idea of this is to make it easy on parents to get to know the teachers and to find out how the kids are doing. Certainly, parents don't have to let the teacher in, but really, I cannot see the harm in something like this. The idea is actually to promote trust and show how much the teachers care about the kids. In elementary school, kids absolutely love having visits from their teachers. Jr. High and High school is a bit more problematic, but will depend on the particular teachers and students.
Jaime Escalante visited some of his students at home. Everyone loves to tout how much he did to get kids who would never have done well to pass the AP calculus tests.
Note that a lot of teachers consider this extra work foisted upon them by the administrators too, but really, relationships are built outside of school. If you live in a small town, you probably see the teachers at the grocery store or other places and may even socialize with them. When I taught preK in Evanston, kids loved seeing me around at the library, bookstore or grocery store and that was not even a small town.
This x1000.
I'm not surprised by the remarks here though because not one of them has even a whiff of background information in them.
This is a great opportunity for teachers to get to know their students on "their" turf, meet their family members and connect on a personal level.
If you are not interested, say no. It IS voluntary. If one hasn't the backbone to say no, that isn't the district's shortcoming.
Having someone from a school go to a home to evaluate whether it is a fit home for a parent hardly sound like someone trying to build a partnership.
They are NOT trying to evaluate the home. Teachers have no training and no authority to decide what is and isn't a fit home. The only training they have is how to identify child abuse, and they have a responsibility to report it to CPS like anyone else. They are not at the home for any such reason.
Last edited by toobusytoday; 10-11-2011 at 08:52 AM..
Reason: removed personal remark. Please address the post and do not insult the poster.
Unfortunately, this is exactly what this whole thread sounds and looks like.
While mandatory home visits sound like flavorless, wooden government bureaucracy I, personally, would welcome as many teacher visits to our home as possible - announced or unannounced. Privacy is a severely over-rated value.
I choose to see my child's teachers as THE most important influence on their lives after us and grandparents. Because of that, I certainly would want them up close, real and personal as opposed to detached and bureaucratic. Yes, coming to our house would personalize and humanize the child-teacher and parent-teacher relationships. It is not the same as school, on a 20 min scheduled conference.
Unfortunately, they don't come at home here and I wish they did.
Last edited by toobusytoday; 10-11-2011 at 09:27 AM..
BTW, this thread was moved from the politics and other controversy forum, which should explain the first few pages of rage.
Oh... that makes sooo much sense now. I was very confused on how someone was concerned that their teacher was a potential murderer, so would rather their child be with them 8 hours a day without parental supervision, but draws the line at sitting across a table from them in their house. We would be honored to host a teacher at our home, and I guess if they were of questionable character, I would want even more interaction to evaluate.
I feel bad for the teachers, who has time for this? For the homes that welcome them, there will probably be no need benefit from this. Those homes that would benefit, they probably won't let them in anyway because they have 25 cats, an arsonal of weapons, a meth lab, or an extra child locked in the basement.
Having someone from a school go to a home to evaluate whether it is a fit home for a parent hardly sound like someone trying to build a partnership.
That IS NOT what they are doing. Teachers do not evaluate the homes of their students. They are there to actually meet the parents, see if there is anything that might effect the child's school learning and give the parents first hand info about themselves as teachers.
Oh... that makes sooo much sense now. I was very confused on how someone was concerned that their teacher was a potential murderer, so would rather their child be with them 8 hours a day without parental supervision, but draws the line at sitting across a table from them in their house. We would be honored to host a teacher at our home, and I guess if they were of questionable character, I would want even more interaction to evaluate.
I feel bad for the teachers, who has time for this? For the homes that welcome them, there will probably be no need benefit from this. Those homes that would benefit, they probably won't let them in anyway because they have 25 cats, an arsonal of weapons, a meth lab, or an extra child locked in the basement.
That's funny because once on one of these home visits, the parent actually did have 25 cats and tried to get me to take some!
That IS NOT what they are doing. Teachers do not evaluate the homes of their students. They are there to actually meet the parents, see if there is anything that might effect the child's school learning and give the parents first hand info about themselves as teachers.
This is what would bother me. I do not feel that anyone from a government school should be sent to my house to evaluate the environment for any reason.
BTW-I am a teacher (not currently working) and I would not like this from a teacher's standpoint either. I think it could be dangerous for the teachers and it places them in a position of evaluating someone else's home environment.
Where did you see that was the reason for the visit?
It's just how it seems to me.
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