Scientists can tell us all about how dominant and recessive genes determine the color of our eyes, but they haven’t yet isolated the teaching gene. To accomplish that, they may want to focus on the three members of a teaching family at Brooklyn’s PS 335 who would appear to carry that dominant gene.

The family’s years-long struggle to become teachers and make a difference in the lives of children has entailed overcoming language barriers, dealing with life in public housing and battling to make ends meet. Yadira Velasquez has been an art teacher for six years at the Crown Heights school that she and her two siblings attended as children. Her students’ artwork attracts attention throughout the building. Children passing in the hallways whisper shyly or shout, “Hi, Miss Yadira.”

A few doors down the hall, Yadira’s sister Marlene Velasquez is working one-on-one with kindergartners as a paraprofessional and wrapping up her bachelor’s degree this semester. Her darks eyes light up: “I’m not looking to be a good teacher,” she declares. “I’m looking to be a great teacher.”

Their mother, Esther Edmondson, is observing classes as part of an education course requirement as she collects credits toward her B.A. For Edmondson, the journey has been especially long and hard. A bride at 15, a mother at 16, she came to this country from the Dominican Republic without a high school diploma and knowing no English.

Edmondson remembers once looking through the door window into Yadira’s classroom where “I saw the passion she has for teaching.”

“So now it’s my time for school,” she said, smiling. Referring to her years of work with the elderly to support her family, she observed, “The elderly and children both need a lot of care.”

The three children she raised as a single mom — her only son is a graphic arts college student — couldn’t be prouder of her.

It’s the family’s close ties to the school over 22 years that gives them a special satisfaction and stake in PS 335’s new role as a Community Learning School. The school will serve as a hub for the Brooklyn community, offering sorely needed outreach programs for adults and after-school programs for the students.

Yadira remembers how hard it was for her family and others in the community growing up without those support services. “There were no after-school programs and we lived in the projects so we weren’t allowed outside after school,” she explained. “And because there were no local ESL or GED classes nearby for my mom, she had to make a long two-bus journey to earn her high school diploma.”

Dr. Laverne Nimmons, the principal, credits Yadira’s work on the grant proposal and her stories of growing up in the community for helping the school to be selected as a Community Learning School.

The family’s experiences enrich their understanding of the need to focus on the whole child. So they bend all their energy and talent to meet those needs in the new generation of schoolchildren. Because they know children’s health affects their academic achievement and long-term success, the sisters are involved in CookShop, the city’s Food Bank nutrition program. Marlene runs the hands-on workshops for children during school and Yadira works with adults after school.

And when Yadira isn’t inspiring students to create collages by “drawing with scissors” and stretching their imaginations in 101 directions, she’s working with Arts Achieve to create a standardized way to assess student achievement in the arts.

If you ask them where their inspiration and commitment come from, they are quick to point to one another. It’s all in the family.