邦海外讯 美国很多学校都强调与家长沟通的重要性，然而传统的沟通方式只限于电话或者家长会，但现在一些学校已经开始采取家访这种形式。然而也有学校对这种形式感到担忧，家访的效果真的好吗?

　　Dave Levin thought he was going to be fired from his Houston school the day he picked up a huge, unruly sixth-grader and dropped him in his seat. He had touched a kid. That was a big no-no. He felt so bad that he went to the boy’s small wood-frame home after school — another thing he had been told never to do — and apologized to the boy’s mother.

　　Devin Levin以为自己会被休斯敦学校解雇，因为他把一个不守规矩的学生从座位上拽起来然后在扔回座位上，学校是绝对不允许老师这样做的。他感觉很抱歉，于是去了那个学生的家和那个孩子的妈妈道歉，而这也是他不被允许做的事情。

　　To his surprise, the woman seemed pleased by his visit.

　　“Listen,” she said, “you’re the first teacher that ever came to the house. Do whatever you have to do to my son. He doesn’t listen to me. Do whatever you have to do.”

　　让他惊讶的是，学生的妈妈对他的到来似乎很欢迎。她对他说:“你是第一个到这儿来的老师，你可以用任何方式教育我的孩子，他也不听我的话。”

　　Meeting the mother caused the boy to behave a bit better. Levin and his friend Mike Feinberg, another teacher, began to do home visits regularly, making them part of the KIPP charter school network they founded. Two decades later, several other charters and even some regular public schools have begun to reject the traditional view that parent contacts should be confined to the phone or meetings at the school. The District’s new Family Engagement Partnership has just led to a $20,000 award for history and reading support teacher Kristen Whitaker, the catalyst behind more than 200 home visits by Columbia Heights Education Campus faculty this school year.

　　家访后，那个孩子表现得要好一点了，Levin和另一个老师也开始定期给学生做家访。20年后，其他学校的老师也开始放弃与家长联系的传统方式，即只限于打电话或在学校的会面，家访的形式越来越流行。

　　Schools often say they are trying to involve parents, but that usually translates into stiff, arms-length gestures such as sending notes home or holding back-to-school nights. Whitaker and the other D.C. home-visiting teachers are trained and paid with funds from the D.C. public schools and the Flamboyan Foundation. Using a model developed by educators in Sacramento, the teachers visit in pairs after school or on weekends. They don’t do surprise visits. They don’t make assumptions about kids or parents. They don’t take notes. They listen more than talk. The idea is to visit every family.

　　学校总是强调与家长之间的沟通但常常只是以发信息或开家长会这样的形式。而现在华盛顿一些老师会在下班后或者周末做家访，他们的拜访不会很突然，也不会对学生和家长做出任何主观假设，比起发表观点他们更注重倾听。

　　Very few other public schools are trying this. Principals say they fear what might happen to teachers visiting certain neighborhoods. Yet it appears, at least in the case of Whitaker and the other Columbia Heights teachers, that what the visitors find is nothing more than gratified parents willing to help them create better lives for their children.

　　然而公立学校很少会采取这种做法。校长们说他们对家访的效果感到担忧，至少从某些家访经历来看，老师去了之后没感觉有任何发现，除了看到家长都表示愿意他们帮孩子创造更好的生活。