Students' life circumstances need not marginalize them. The author's students--Margot and Steve--missed out on her full support because she assumed they had lots of support of their own, given their race and the socioeconomic status she assigned to them. She focused on their papers, not their lives. The complicated areas of students' lives don't always show up in course assignments. It doesn't take a PhD to notice when students are struggling. However, it does take some courage to risk getting close enough to ask about struggles and to extend a hand for help. Sometimes, those struggles are difficult to see because students work hard to mask the struggle; teachers are complicit in that veiling when they allow their own assumptions to hide their students' realities from them.