In the News

We are all teachers here at The Family Place. We teach parents how to be effective; we teach parents how to be advocates for those children who need extra help; we teach money management, life management, how to drive, how to eat nutritionally. Our days are filled with the intense task of educating.

Playing is an important job for the under-three set.

The best teachers are those who never stop learning. Susan Finer is one of those. After a long career as a school principal she now teaches a class at Dartmouth to prepare new teachers for the real world of education. Before taking on this position, she spent several months as our on-site Kitchen Supervisor. In this role she worked with participants in Families Learning Together, teaching them how to prepare healthy meals and listening while they shared the monumental challenges they faced each day as they tried to raise their babies in a world that told them continuously how little they were worth.

When she left to begin her work at Dartmouth, Susan told the young women how much she had learned from them, how they had revealed to her a world she’d already judged on little knowledge, how grateful she was for the chance to see beyond her own assumptions. Last month she brought her two worlds together; four FLT participants visited her Dartmouth class and spoke about their lives, answered questions about what it was like to be a young, poor parent in school, and what it meant to have someone offer the kind of help they really needed.

Susan’s students were amazed at these unusual guest speakers. It’s not every day you’re confronted with a reality you may have never before witnessed, never mind had such generous access to. These future teachers wrote up their impressions and shared them with The Family Place and we’d like to share them with you. Because we learned something. And we hope you will, too.

Families Learning Together participants get tutoring at The Family Place

As our conversation progressed, I came to see how much strength this young woman has, how much love she gives to her children, and how she’s just trying to live the best life she can.

“The most prevalent theme of the discussion with the women was the importance of showing your students that you care. This doesn’t mean simply caring for them; it means showing them with actions that each student’s well-being is important to you… Actually caring about students is important, but it’s more important that the students see and feel that you care for them. I couldn’t help but wonder, how would their school experience have been different if they knew their high school teachers cared?

Like so many Dartmouth students I have limited experience with poverty. At first I felt awkward or guilty or shameful asking questions about her life, such as when she had her children or her current employment status. Though I had no conscious intent of judging her, I was overwhelmingly self-conscious that I would offend her. However, she was so open and unapologetically forthcoming with the details of her life that I soon realized it was my personal views on having children at an early age or not having career goals that created my feelings of a division. This pains me to type, but I was worried about offending her because I considered these life decisions and circumstances as inferior. I cannot say that one conversation with one woman has fundamentally changed these assumptions because that would not be honest or realistic. However I can say that it bothers me to have this realization. As our conversation progressed, I came to see how much strength this young woman has, how much love she gives to her children, and how she’s just trying to live the best life she can. As a future teacher, it’s important for me to realize these value judgements. Especially if I am to teach in under-resourced areas as I plan to do. I need to seriously reevaluate these assumptions so that my unconscious judgements do not interfere with my teaching.”

FLT participants receive help with challenging academics.

“The most important lesson Jane taught me was that as as teacher I will have an unimaginably powerful influence over some of my students. When I asked her if there were any teachers who she had a strong relationship with, she replied that no teacher cared. She said the school principal was the first educator to approach her in a way that was truly helpful. I learned that the best way to build a relationship with my students was easy; I simply had to ‘ask them how they are, get to know them.’ According to Jane, that’s what her principal did that no other teacher had done before. Jane came from a neglectful household; her parents had drug abuse problems, and school was a way to escape those issues, but not a good one. She told us how many of the teachers paid attention to the smart kids or the jocks, leaving children like her to fall through the cracks. She befriended children who habitually used drugs and was reeled into a similar lifestyle.”

Participants have access to computers, books, and tutors at The Family Place

“Given my interest in teaching science, I asked Stephanie about her science clases. Currently she is working on earth science in independent study. She likes that in this class she can pace herself, and there is not pressure and stress for her if she does not finish something by a certain day. During her time at school, one science class she said she was interested in was biology. She enjoyed the hands-on experiments and the true-to-life feel of the class. The sentiment that class should be fun and interactive was shared by the rest of the young women from The Family Place. Making students actually perform the discipline was also mentioned as something positive teachers could do. This reflects the recommendations within literature about teaching science with a more inquiry-oriented teaching style. The recommendations of these young women from The Family Place make this seem more than just a fun way for deeper learning; it makes it essential to keeping up their interest in school.”

With focused help and personal attention, students who did poorly in high school can achieve their academic goals.

“A consistent theme among all of the visitors from The Family Place was their desire to be personally recognized by their teachers. Many of them felt shy or out of place in the classroom and consequently felt ignored or picked on by peers and teachers alike. They seemed to agree that having a teacher reach out to them did or would have made their experience in school much more positive. Furthermore, it is important for the teacher to understand each individual’s home situation. As we have learned, the home environment greatly influences student performance in the school environment. The woman that I spoke with (who I will call “Nicole”) mentioned that her home was not a safe place conducive to doing schoolwork. Assessing the resources of students living in poverty, as Payne recommends, is important in supporting them to succeed academically. If a teacher were to take the time to learn about Nicole’s home life, they might have been able to address some of the issues by inviting her to do homework in the classroom after school, for example. However, Nicole recognized that even with these supports, she might not have done her homework. She said there was little anyone could do to motivate her to do assignments outside of class because, after a grueling eight hours of school, the last thing she wanted to do was more work. Her perspective highlights the importance of making learning outside the classroom feel like fun rather than work.”

The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn but to unlearn. ~ Gloria Steinem

To me, this quote is incredibly powerful, and it speaks to our responsibility as educators. The visitors from The Family Place taught me exactly what this quote implies: great teachers break down all notions of stereotypical archetypes that exist within themselves due to what they have ‘learned,’ and they take an impartial stance to each of their student’s circumstances. I have spent my entire life resenting girls from my hometown who are similar to the individuals we met on Tuesday. Several of my peers from Berlin have children and many of them have been and are involved in drugs. I often get frustrated with these girls because I was always under the impression that if I could come from rural New Hampshire and get into an Ivy League school, why couldn’t they?

On Tuesday I had the opportunity to listen to and engage with girls I thought I knew; individuals similar to those I grew up with – girls I looked down upon. I was very fortunate to speak with Mary who is an open and caring person. She has a beautiful two-year-old son whom she loves more than anything. Growing up she got involved with the ‘wrong crowd’ and began using drugs. When asked if she felt supported by her teachers throughout her high school experience, she said she did not. She said that they never reached out to her. The biggest piece of advice she gives young teachers is to form relationships with their students. The word ‘relationship’ was continually reiterated throughout our conversation. She said that teachers who only seemed to care about the ‘jocks’ and ‘smart’ students often frustrated her. She articulated one of Ruby Payne’s strategies to help raise the achievement of students living in poverty – building relationships of respect. As James Comer (1995) writes: ‘No significant learning occurs without a significant relationship.’ When I asked Mary what specific things teachers could do to build relationships with their students, she noted some of the suggestions found in Payne’s article – calling a student by his or her name and saying ‘hi.’ She also said that talking to a student with respect and providing them with help is important.

The visitors from The Family Place taught me to be open-minded, listen without judgement, and to get to know each and every single one of my students and their own individual stories. I could not be more thankful for the new perspective these inspiring young girls have given me.”

The next generation of learners.

“Speaking with the visitors from The Family Place assured me of my privileged place in society and exposed me to white poverty, something I know rather little about. Between Dartmouth, my Jesuit high school and middle school with the offspring of the Silicon Valley boom, my previous experience with poor whites was limited to what I saw in San Francisco and an occasional view from the serving side of a soup kitchen line. When I first sat down with Kat and Stephanie I was uncomfortable. I couldn’t stop thinking about how I am a white man who, because of my family’s resources, is on the cusp of obtaining the corporate equivalent of young Charlie’s golden ticket. Sitting across from this young woman in one of the countless plush rooms across Dartmouth’s campus, it was hard to make eye contact with someone the world had dealt such different cards to. Sheepishly, I introduced myself and asked about her son.

After a couple of minutes my shame, embarrassment, guilt – I’m not exactly sure what it was – eased. It became clear she did not hold any ill will for the advantages I’d been granted, in fact I doubt she was even aware of the differences I presumed we had since Susan’s mention of the visiting group. Her unconsciousness and my consciousness of our disparate backgrounds forced me to consider the importance of assumption and perception in confronting diversity. While some of my assumptions concerning Stephanie’s upbringing were on the money (i.e. her parents’ educational attainment level) most of what she said took me by surprise (i.e. she likes learning, she was clean and sober). Although Stephanie and I approach the world from different places, I wonder how my consciousness of difference affects my interaction with her and other white families affected by poverty.

One thing I learned during my time with the visitor was that Stephanie hated doing homework at home. After a full day of classes she felt homework to be excessive and thus rarely did it. At home she was not encouraged or even expected to complete her homework. This lack of parental involvement spoke to the importance of knowing a students’ story and understanding the intersection between academics and families. Although formally teachers are most responsible for moving students toward academic benchmarks, a teacher may sometimes serve the student better by teaching life skills. This is not to say that when a teacher recognizes a student with an uninterested or indifferent home environment they should work to pick up all the parents’ slack, but that perhaps the teacher should adjust their expectations of academic engagement outside the school.

Ultimately, my time with Stephanie and the others from The Family Place helped me understand the errors in my perception of poverty in terms of who and how it affects education.”

The visitors from The Family Place taught me to be open-minded, listen without judgement, and to get to know each and every single one of my students and their own individual stories. I could not be more thankful for the new perspective these inspiring young girls have given me.