By The Wiz
I have to go clean my house. (Therefore I’m blogging.) Never mind that I spent lots of time cleaning it yesterday. Nope, it’s still not done. And if you had seen the state of my house yesterday, you would understand why it’s still not done. (Yes, my designer friend, I’m talking to you. You get it, right?)
The main reason, however, that I still have to clean my house today is not because I freakishly need a clean house at all times. (HAHAHAHAHA) Nope, it’s because my child’s third grade teacher is coming over today at 5:00 for a home visit.
Why, you ask? What on earth has your kid done to warrant a home visit? The answer is, of course, my answer to most questions: I have no idea. We just received a progress report and my kid is of course getting straight A’s because she’s brilliant beyond anything your children will ever know.
No, the teacher is coming because, well, she just is.
She’s going to visit all her students. All 26 of them. I can’t decide if this is one dedicated teacher, or one scary stalker lady. I’m leaning toward the former, if only because the alternative scares me.
Maybe she wants to case out the joint and then come and steal all our extra lamps. I’m OK with that. I have an abundance of lamps for some reason, and some of them are quite scary.
Maybe she will fall in love with our hideous fabulously gorgeous gold-leaf curtain rods. Then she will steal them. And then I won’t have to take them to D.I. in the middle of the night so my boy won’t see me taking perfectly good swords out of the house. I hope this is the case. Maybe I can offer them to her as a way to guarantee future A’s. (Here, have some curtain rods and lamps. Now, do we have an understanding, wink, wink?)
Have you ever had teachers do home visits as a matter of course? If you are a teacher, have you done this? Why is this perfectly nice woman adding stress to my life? Do I offer her, like, cookies or something? Crap, do I have to make cookies now?
I don’t know. I’m not going to think about it. I’m just going to clean my house, and pray that my kids don’t destroy everything right before she gets here…..even though that would make a good blog post. There are just some sacrifices for blogging that I’m not willing to make.




Home visits are required in some Headstart programs, due to regulations imposed by the feds, but I have never heard of home visits by a 3rd Grade Teacher - especially for all her students. As a former teacher, I applaud her dedication (sincerely and deeply admire it) - as long as she isn’t a nutcase stalker. I guess you will find out, right?
Comment #1 by RayAugust 23rd, 2007 at 9:40 amMaybe she just likes your shoes, and wants to talk sartorially.
Comment #2 by Heather O.August 23rd, 2007 at 9:41 amI think it’s smart — to get an idea of where the child comes home to every day…
Comment #3 by HilaryAugust 23rd, 2007 at 9:53 amWhen I taught school (up until 2 years ago) they told us it would be perfectly fine to set up home visits with our students so that we can see what their home lives are like, but I was busy enough and was in close contact with enough parents as it was that I didn’t ever do that. I think it’s a good idea, and no, don’t make cookies or anything, a glass of water or juice would cut it (I would think.) If your daughter is that great a student, it’ll just be a nice little visit where you’ll hear DD get bragged about, and what parent wouldn’t love that? Good luck!
Comment #4 by StarababaAugust 23rd, 2007 at 10:07 amWhen I taught 7th grade it was encouraged to visit their homes. It was more of a “visit everyone so you can have the excuse to visit the one child who needs watching without cluing the abusive parents in on it type of thing. That way you’re not sued for singling a child out.” It was WAY scary to visit some of their homes (I was at an inner-city school). We had a triathalon student advisor who would go with us (yes insert body guard/ undercover cop). Several times we would be at a house about to go in and ignorant little me is getting out of the car and my bodyguard/student advisor would say in a very not so calm voice “step on the gas and go go go!”. By visiting though we found out that 4 of my children were in drug manufacturing houses, 3 were in abusive homes and 2 didn’t have anyone at home until 11-1 at night.
Comment #5 by NestleAugust 23rd, 2007 at 11:08 amWe just watched a show with Matthew Perry called the Ron Clark Story. He played a teacher at an inner city school, in New York I think, and he tried to visit all the homes. It’s based on a true story, so apparently some teachers do the visits. (By the way, I would recommend the show–we got it through Netfilx.)
Anyway, good luck with the visit. I always have a tough time when visitors come–as far as trying to make the place super clean.
Comment #6 by AndreaAugust 23rd, 2007 at 12:37 pmit is totally so she can judge you
:)
Maybe it is to tell you that your daughter is totally brilliant and needs to join the gifted class!
Comment #7 by LisaAugust 23rd, 2007 at 2:39 pmMy ds’s kindergarten teacher did that at the beginning of the school year to get to know the kids, get them excited for kindergarten & meet the families.
It wasn’t too bad. Just make sure the pb&j sandwich is NOT jelly-side up on the couch when you offer her a seat!
Comment #8 by Natalie S.August 23rd, 2007 at 2:59 pmMy kids’ kindergarten teacher always came for the home visit. While it might make you nuts I bet it will make your daughter feel kinda cool.
Take a picture of the two of them together…..offer a drink and a cookie and walk her out the door.
Comment #9 by Tammy and ParkerAugust 23rd, 2007 at 5:27 pmMy 2nd grade teacher not only visited our house, but served as our family babysitter frequently when my parents would leave town for their week long trips abroad. We loved it! I know my parents appreciated having a close relationship with her and she’s always been my favorite teacher because of the deeper relationship I was able to make with her.
Don’t worry, I’m sure once the teacher sees that you aren’t making meth in the pantry she’ll call the visit a total success!
Comment #10 by SarahAugust 23rd, 2007 at 10:14 pmAre comments working here?
Comment #11 by SarahAugust 24th, 2007 at 8:30 amNestle, That situation is sad, but it is so cool that you did that. Do you know if it had a positive impact on the kids?
Comment #12 by Matt W.August 24th, 2007 at 10:17 amI think it’s a great idea for the teacher to visit the student at home. I think it would be beneficial to my little guy who is starting kindergarden this week to meet his teacher on his home turf where he feels comfortable. Good luck with the visit.
Comment #13 by mommy-of-3August 26th, 2007 at 6:34 am