Dear Teacher: Six Dreaded Assignments

Every year, without fail, one of my kids will come home from school upset because they've been given one of six, always-upsetting, school assignments.  The assignments are usually given by language arts, social studies, and science teachers.  Each of the six assignments can vary, depending upon the grade level to which they’re assigned.  However, all six involve painful topics for a lot of adopted children (not to mention kids in foster care, kids who’ve experienced a traumatic event such as a fire or tornado that destroyed their home and all their possessions, children being cared for by someone other than their parent, etc.)

Dear teacher, if you absolutely MUST incorporate the following projects into your curriculum, would you take the time to read why these assignments are a challenge for my children, and so many other children in your classroom now, or in the years to come?  I’ll start with the one our family has most recently worked through together, and conclude with the most dreaded assignment of them all.

DNA – Genetic Traits:  This is the assignment usually given by middle school science teachers and high school biology teachers.  The student’s task is to chart or write about a genetic trait or traits that run in that students’ family.  The assignment is designed to give the student personal experience in studying how genetic traits are passed through generations.  The challenge with this assignment for kids who were adopted is it often raises questions which cannot be answered for the adoptee.  Some teachers mistakenly think by framing the assignment so students can chart a genetic trait in their adoptive families, it makes the assignment okay.  The fact is, this can make it much more painful, and can be a very real trauma trigger for the child. 

Suggested Alternatives for the ENTIRE Class:  Study genetic traits in various people groups.  For example, why do people of Celtic heritage often have red hair and/or green eyes?  Or look at historical examples such as inherited diseases in the royal families of Europe?  (I suggest alternative projects be given to the entire class so as not to single out the child unable to trace their genetic heritage, or for whom it would be painful to do so.)

The Family Tree:  My kids HATE this assignment.  It sends each of them reeling whenever they get it, no matter how benignly the teacher believes they’ve framed the project.  This assignment usually involves either drawing a tree with branches (and sometime roots if the teacher is trying to accommodate kids) or drawing a chart with family names and relationships defined as they relate to the student.  The assignment is designed to illustrate family relationships.  Sometimes, it can be part of a “getting to know you” assignment, as it was in my son's 9^th grade English class this year.  This assignment is a challenge because even when it does accommodate birth and adoptive or step families, it can involve very painful memories for the student and make him feel as though he’s being forced to reveal parts of his history he would rather not share.  Even when the teacher tells him he need not share all of his history, he is conflicted because he feels he is denying a part of who he is – or is being unfaithful to a part of his family.  As my children have gotten older, the feelings associated with this assignment become more complicated and more painful.

Suggested Alternatives for the ENTIRE Class:  Have students create a forest of trees or a neighborhood of houses, showing all the close relationships in their lives.  The trees could include friends, neighbors, teachers, coaches, clergy, and family.  If the assignment is geared more toward biology, trace the tree of a historical figure, or even of the teacher, and make it a classroom assignment.  There are plenty of genealogical resources available online.  Most public libraries also have a genealogy room.

Student of the Week:  This assignment is usually only given to elementary school students.  However, my daughter’s 6^th grade English teacher did a variation of this assignment with her class.  The assignment involves students taking turns each week to be the “star” student of the week.  They design a poster (in my daughter’s English class, they used paper bags), and then add things to the poster such as pictures of the student growing up, family pictures, and the student’s story.  The goal of the assignment is to help students know one another and give each child a leadership opportunity in the classroom.  This is a challenge for many adopted kids, and especially traumatized adopted kids, because the subject of their adoption is often brought up when they would rather it not be.  Not all kids are comfortable sharing their adoption with fellow students.  For traumatized kids, the classroom is not a safe place to process the big feelings surrounding their adoption and they cannot separate their past trauma from their adoption story.

Suggested Alternative for the ENITRE Class:  Have students use current pictures of themselves and of their favorite things, such as pets and activities.  Let the star of the week write about their favorite color, food, subject in school, favorite activity, etc.  Focus on the present.  Students are interested in their classmates and what they’re about NOW.

Exploring Our Heritage:  This assignment usually involves making a map, drawing a flag, or doing a presentation on the student’s country or culture of origin.  This assignment happens throughout grades K-12.  The goal of the assignment is to have students learn about various cultures.  This assignment can be a challenge for adopted students in several ways.  For my kids, the only “culture” they remember experiencing in their birth country was a culture of alcoholism and abuse.  While they are curious about their birth country, its history, its government, and its people, they do not want to process that curiosity in the classroom.  They are much more comfortable processing it in pieces, as they direct, at home.  Other students may want to share their country’s culture, but because they do not share that culture with their adoptive family, they are uncomfortable with the inevitable questions about the differences between themselves and their adoptive family.  Others may rather talk about their adoptive family’s culture.  There’s just not an easy answer.  Each student will react differently to this assignment.

Suggested Alternative for the ENTIRE Class:  Have students choose a culture of interest to them to research, rather than one related to their family.

The Life Timeline:  This is another assignment my children hate.  The assignment involves having the student create a timeline of events from their birth to the present.  Timelines incorporate both personal life events and historical events.  The goal of the assignment is to chart historical events on a timeline and show the student’s relationship to history.  This assignment is a challenge for adopted kids because they may be unsure of the time, location, or even the date of their actual birth.  My daughter wondered if she needed to include painful details such as when she entered the orphanage, when she last saw her birth mother, etc.  Adopted children are often confused about what personal information they should and should not include in their timelines. 

Suggested Alternative for the ENTIRE Class:  Do not specify that the timeline begin with the child’s birth.  Allow for open ended time frames such as, “past and present.”  Create a timeline for a historic figure, or perhaps, for the teacher.

The (Dreaded) Baby Picture Assignment:  This assignment is by far the most painful for my kids, and one I find the most cruel.  Teachers ask students to bring in baby pictures, which are usually posted anonymously, and students are challenged to guess who is who.  This assignment is also part of a lot of graduation programs and celebrations.  (Do I really need to say why this is a challenge?)  My kids came home at ages nine and twelve.  We have no baby pictures.  We have very few pictures of them before their adoption, and those pictures are of them in situations we do not share publicly.  My “baby” pictures of my two youngest kids are of them at the age of their adoption.   Not all adopted kids were adopted at birth.  Most are adopted as "older" children.  For some kids, the race or physical feature of a child may make them stand out from most of the other children. 

Suggested Alternative for the ENTIRE Class:  Have children bring in pictures of “when they were younger,” or perhaps a current picture of themselves, disguised by a costume.  Younger children can draw pictures of themselves “when they were younger.”  (Again, my most honest suggested alternative would be to ban this assignment all together.)

Dear teacher, you can find additional resources regarding school assignments and the adopted child in your classroom by visiting two of my favorite websites:    

http://adoptivefamilies.com/school

or

http://www.adoptionarticlesdirectory.com/Category/School-issues/89

Sample ELL Plan for Post-Institutionalized, Internationally Adopted Student

I thought it might be helpful to add some tools for parents to use when working with their child's school, youth organization, or health care provider.  I'll work on getting things posted over the next few weeks or so.  For now, here is a sample ELL plan I used last year at the request of our school district's English Language Learner's coordinator to educate ELL teachers about the (VERY SIGNIFICANT) difference between a post-institutionalized, internationally-adopted student and a bi-lingual immigrant student living with their biological family.  These students do not learn English in the same way, or at the same rate.

If you've recently come home with your IA child, or if you're planning to bring your child home soon, you may find this document helpful.

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**Example**

ELL Plan for Post-Institutionalized, Internationally Adopted Student

References: 

Kansas State Department of Education, English Proficiency Level Descriptions, Spring 2000. Version 2.5 

United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Department.  Discrimination Against English Language Learner Students (Settlement with Boston Schools documents)  http://www.justice.gov/crt/edo/ellpage.php

Resources: 

Melanie Manares, ESOL Education Program Consultant, Kansas State Department of Education.  Phone:  (785) 296-7929, Email: mmanares@ksde.org 

Office for Civil Rights, Kansas City Office, U.S. Department of Education - 8930 Ward Parkway, Suite 2037 - Kansas City, MO 64114-3302 - Telephone: (816) 268-0550
Fax: (816) 823-1404 – email:  OCR.KansasCity@ed.gov 

Dr. Boris Gindis, Director, Center for Cognitive Developmental Assessment and Remediation.  150 Airport Executive Park, Suite 152, Nanuet, NY 10954, Tel.: (845)694-8496 – http://www.bgcenter.org

   

FIRST OF ALL – IMPORTANT FACTS

1.   It is against the law to place or hold back a child because of language learner status.  No child, not even an internationally adopted child with little or no prior education, can be legally placed at a grade level below his or her age-level peers without the prior and explicit written request of the parents.  The school may not recommend it, nor require it.  Schools MUST place internationally adopted kids according to the age.  Additionally, the school can NOT hold back a student because she or he is not “up to grade level” with their age peers.  Additionally, placing or holding a child, without parental request, due to a lack of prior education is AGAINST THE LAW!

2.  Nearly 100% of all internationally adopted children under the age of 12 will lose their first language within 6 months of coming home to live with their English-only speaking family.  English will become their new first language.  They will not be 2^nd language learners.  They will be learning an entirely new first language.  Post-institutionalized, internationally adopted (PIAI) students will, for the most part, not have sufficient language skills in their native first language due to institutionalization.  Translating English into their old language to “help them understand” actually hurts their English language acquisition.  More importantly, it is DETREMENTAL to their attachment to their English-only speaking, new families.  Even IF someone can speak to a child in his native language at school, THEY SHOULD NOT DO IT!  The child will learn more quickly – not only English, but all academics – and will attach more quickly to their new family.

Within 4 months of being home, most PIAI kids under 12 are doing quite well in their new classroom setting.  While there are still often challenges to re-learning expected behaviors, catching up developmentally and academically, most teachers see a marked difference after a child has been in their classroom by the fourth month.

3.  Teachers CAN NOT expect a PIAI child to “do the work” of their classmates.  Do not expect a child to be “taught to the test.”  Deal with it.  Your PIAI child WILL MESS UP your state test scores, especially during the first 1-2 years home.  Sorry.  But that’s not your student’s problem.  It’s not their parents’ problem either.  YOU MUST MODIFY work for your PIAI student.  The older the student is when they arrive home, the more modification needed, and the longer it will take for your student to perform at grade level.  For example, a boy home at age 12 and in school three years (now 15) still needs considerable modifications on much of his work.  Yet, when he came home, he could not add two digit numbers together.  Today, he is getting A’s in 8^th grade level math.  He is of average intelligence.  His sister, home at age 9 just skipped from 4^th grade into 6^th grade.  She had no more schooling than the average pre-school child in America when she came home.  She is a now a straight “A” student.  Both students were placed in grade levels requested by the parents.

5.  You MUST HAVE a written ELL plan for your PIAI student.  Document all progress!  MOST PIAI students will test out of ELL after their third or fourth full year home.  Their English language acquisition is amazing!  The first few months home can be rough.  The first few years of healing from “Lord of the Flies” behaviors learned in order to survive their very tough start in life can be challenging.  However, most teachers will be amazed at how well their PIAI students are doing with language acquisition as compared to their other ELL students.

ELL Plan Suggestions

for

Student Name

Grade __ - School Name

Submitted by Your Name (Your Role), Date 

Qualifying Need	English as (student’s name) new first language, replacing his original first language of (Spanish/Russian/Mandarin/etc).  Residence in the USA since (date) with no prior English language abilities before adoption into an American family. Listening: Speaking: Reading Comprehension: Writing: *See English Language Proficiency Descriptions above.
Language Arts	Modify written assignments to include projects.  Allow for appropriate reading level materials.  Do not expect student to read at levels of age peers.    Correct spelling and sentence structure but avoid substantial grading on these.  Weight any reading logs lower for grading purposes than most other students due to mental energy exerted and stress related to required reading.  Provide support for academic language.  Make sure directions for assignments are understood. Allow for shorter tests and modified assignments.  Possibly allow take-home tests or modified tests.  Provide easy access to a safe person or safe place to which (student) may retreat if feeling stressed.  Provide for teacher's awareness to signs (student) is shutting down or withdrawing. NOTE:  PIAI children go into a “Language Limbo” between losing their first language and gaining English as their new first language.  They are unable to translate “in their heads” like other ELL students from bi-lingual backgrounds.  The way they learn is NOT THE SAME!  See articles by Dr. Boris Gindis – resource website above.
Social Studies	Provide professional or peer guidance for understanding academic language.  Establish take-home academic vocabulary within context of material covered in class. Allow for shorter tests and modified assignments.  Possibly allow take-home tests or modified tests.  Provide easy access to a safe person or safe place to which (student) may retreat if feeling stressed.  Provide for teacher's awareness to signs (student) is shutting down or withdrawing.  Do not take basic world knowledge for granted.  Avoid surprise assignments including out-of-ordinary homework assignments or pop quizzes.  Give clear, simple directions for assignments.  Break directives into simple steps, simply worded.  Encourage shared note-taking.  Substitute or supplement textbook reading assignments and classroom discussions with direct experience through film, CD's, recordings or internet links.
Science	Provide academic vocabulary within context of material covered.  Modify tests to include clear multiple-choice questions.  If fill-in-the blank tests are used, make the blank the size of the correct answer.  Use a word bank. Allow for peer interaction and cooperative learning activities based on kinesthetic techniques.  Allow for modified test arrangements.  Be aware of student’s limited world knowledge and explain concepts in very simple terms, using one or two syllable words.    Encourage shared note-taking.  Substitute or supplement textbook reading assignments and classroom discussions with direct experience and audio/visual materials, CD's, recordings or computer programs/links.  Reinforce verbally anything presented in a traditional format.
Math	Allow extra time for student to work on concepts not previously learned.  Assign student fewer problems for homework – only enough practice to ensure understanding or to assess knowledge (or lack of knowledge).  Allow extended time to complete calculations.  Allow student to “skip” problems she/he is unable to complete within a given time.  Provide adequate examples (for student's sake as well as parents'). Work with student to space problems far enough apart to allow room for calculations and reduce distractions.  Group similar problems.  Consider using graph paper to aid student in lining up place value accurately.  Limit word problems.  Understand student  concepts like the passage of time, charted schedules, etc. are things which student has no prior concept of before coming to America due to institutionalization/orphanage living.  While the student will learn much quickly, he/she will be overwhelmed with information and will not be capable of retaining it all.
Art/Music	View art as therapy for (student).  Place very few, if any requirements on work.  Break instructions down into simple steps, using simple vocabulary.  Ask student to repeat instructions back to teacher or class.
Physical Education/Gym	Present directions in clear, easy-to-understand vocabulary. Allow for rest if student complains of chest pain or a headache.  Be aware of signs of distress and modify activity or allow retrieval to a safe person or safe place if student is feeling inadequate or overwhelmed. BE VERY AWARE of post-institutionalized behavior.  Your student will likely be quite competitive and will even make themselves ill trying to be “first” in any sort of physical contest.
General Academic Considerations for ALL SUBJECTS And ALL Teachers	-IMPORTANT:  -DO NOT EXPECT GRADE LEVEL WORK until the third or fourth year home for students under 8.  (For students between the ages of 8-12+, do not expect grade level work with age peers until even later.) -OMIT ANY BIOGRAPHICAL ASSIGNEMENTS!  Do not even ask.  Do not ask your student about their background.  Period.  (Read Boris Gindis articles for more education on why not.) -Introduce key vocabulary before an assignment. -Give student opportunity to read aloud or verbalize assignments to peers, ELL teacher or a para familiar with the child. -Provide assistance for answering text-based questions. -Provide tests that are typed and neatly printed, clearly legible, with ample space for responses. -Avoid “trick” questions, slang, jargon and idioms. -Allow student break or rest time. -Allow easy access to a safe persons (This might be the ELL teacher or counselor.) -Preview assignments to orient student to a topic. -Develop a study guide or outline for material covered. -Allow student to use graphic aids such as maps, charts, posters, videos, computer, etc. -Allow for open book or take home tests. -Allow for memory aids, cues and references. -Provide opportunity to retest if necessary.  Be aware of the trauma experienced by any sense of failure due to any PIAI child’s past. -Provide experience & discussion before and after reading or introducing new concepts as a frame of reference and reinforcement. -Ask “WHAT” a student understands vs. “IF” they understand.   Have the student tell you specifically what it is they believe the assignment to be. -Directly and specifically point out relationships, as students are often confused about what is “real” and what is “imaginary” or fiction because of limited world knowledge.  (Again, this is true for ANY PIAI child.) -Omit assignments requiring rote copying.  A brain in “language limbo” does not absorb material by copying material.  -Omit scrambled word assignments. -Use demonstration to teach whenever possible. -Provide manipulative objects whenever possible. -Provide self-correcting materials, if available. -Pay special attention to trauma triggers.  ALL PIAI children are traumatized.  Just being adopted and brought to a new country is a significant traumatic experience.  (See more about trauma and attachment in adoption at www.attach.org, http://blogspot.traumamamat.org , and other web sites.)

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