Thanks

Thanks for the comments on my post about home visits. It's really interesting that your comments really aligned with what I think teachers think about home visits, yet most of the studies are about educators who have conducted them and feel very positively about them. I am really interested in various teachers' views because I think in reality there is a lot of trepidation and concern over how to go about doing home visits, the risks involved, and how receptive parents will be. The articles I have read really speak to the importance of home visits, but it seems like the cases that are reported and the families that are discussed were all very welcoming and eager to share--which may not be the case with all families.

I feel like it's a legitimate question to ask how teachers view the practice of home visits and whether or not they would be willing to try them out as a means to better understanding particular families.

When I was a Head Start teacher, we conducted home visits and I would agree that it was a really eye opening and informative experience. I certainly learned a lot from it, yet back then I didn't have the skills to truly incorporate what I learned in the classroom like I would hope to do now. With Head Start, we were given specific days to do our home visits and there was ample time to get them finished. We were expected to visit the homes of each family, but if I remember correctly there were days when school was not in session so we could do the visits. With public school, I think that home visits would be extra workload for teachers without additional compensation, so they would be one more thing on our already very full plates. I don't think it's necessary to visit each and every family, but even visiting 5 families would be fairly time consuming, right? If we truly wanted to develop deeper relationships with families and students, it's not a wham bam kind of activity.

I feel like unless home visits become a mandated process, most teachers are not likely to do them, but I am very curious to see if that is true and what reasons teachers would cite for being either in favor or not in favor of trying it out.

Ok, enough about home visits and a little about the classroom...

Today was our first day back after the kids had a week off. They were a bit chatty, but I made sure to remind them of expectations as we went so we had a pretty good day. One thing that we did really made me happy and reminded me that yes, sometimes it is really important to put down the script and just listen to the kids. After our morning greeting (we are greeting each other with Namaste this week because our letter of the week is N and our country is Nepal) I asked each child to tell me something he/she did over the week long break. I followed up their statement with a few brief questions and it was so nice to hear all of the things they did. Several kiddos talked about getting Christmas trees and decorating, one boy went camping in the forest, one boy went to Disneyland,  one girl's mom had a baby boy, and one girl got a new puppy. I never would have known these things if I hadn't taken time out of our scripted lessons to ask and it was such a nice little segment of our day. I loved it! I wish there was more time to do that each and everyday because it is really important for our kiddos to get the opportunity to share and talk about their lives.

I can't believe it's 8:00 already! I spent a long time at the doctor today. First I waited for the doc to come in, then the appt was longer than usual, then I had to wait in a loooong line for a prescription and I didn't get home until 6:30. I am debating going to the gym because I really don't want to go, but I know it's important to get exercise and I haven't been doing an awesome job at that since being preggo....

I guess if I bring my book on Funds of Knowledge I am technically killing two birds with one stone....