Articles

Educating the Educators: What we as adoptive parents can do to help educate the teachers of our children about issues facing children of international adoption
By Ellen Fitzenrider

The awareness of my own ignorance of adoption terminology came in 2001 when I had a run-in with none other than Adam Pertman himself, Director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. I had just started looking into the process of adoption from Vietnam, and was joining newsgroups, reading books and making connections. Well, I shouldn’t say ‘run-in’, as Adam was nothing but coolness itself as he bluntly corrected my innocent query at a book signing here in Norfolk, Virginia. We had been discussing the open adoption of his two children, and, I don’t know how I started my sentence, but found it going down a road where I knew I was in trouble. My mind began searching for the right word ahead of my mouth (have you ever done that?). I was talking about parents who relinquish children for adoption and knew enough to choke on ‘real’ parent, but what came out was ‘natural’ parent, as I had nothing else in my repertoire of words that fit just right.

“An adoptive parent IS a natural parent” he told me without missing a beat, firmly but politely. “We use the term ‘biological parent’.”

Biological parent. I had never heard that term before, but it did make absolute sense. I was relieved that I now was armed with the right word to not risk offending anyone else in the future. His tone corrected me without embarrassing me, but was delivered with a directness that ensured both he and I that my lapse would never happen again. I wish sometimes when I’m caught off-guard by questions that I had the wherewithal to respond equally coolly.

I tell this story to illustrate a point: most people do not say or do things intentionally to hurt other people. Things that hurt are often said in ignorance, and that ignorance cannot be corrected if the offender never learns that there is something wrong with the way they speak or act. I’ve heard that in some countries, our familiar ‘thumbs up’ way-to-go signal is considered quite obscene. Similarly, most people whose lives have not been touched by international adoption don’t realize that when they ask “where are her ‘real’ parents from?” they deliver insult to a parent (several, in fact), a child and indeed a community.

Our educators, though we often hold them to a higher standard (their job IS working with children, after all, right?), are no different. Many have not been exposed to the issues and terminology of adoption, which is why many of the unintended events that involve our children at school, often causing emotional distress, happen. As parents, we can wait until the teachers of our children happen to catch a conference, read a book or attend a seminar that will educate them on adoption issues…which may or may not happen…ever. OR…we can become pro-active and take it upon ourselves to meet with the teachers, counselors and administrators that touch our children’s lives, and give them educator-specific information, tools, and above all, the one thing that only YOU can provide: the personal thoughts of an adoptive parent.

We often assume that educators are aware of, and know how to be sensitive to, issues that face the adopted child, especially a trans-racial adopted child. 25 out of 1000 school-age children are adopted, and “one in six adopted children is of a different race than their adopters.” (2000 U.S. Census) But in spite of these statistics, educators may not be familiar with the special issues involving loss and separation from families and birth cultures, identity confusion, developmental delays specific to the post-institutionalized child and fear of abandonment that many adopted children experience at least some time during their life. They may not realize that many adoption-focused incidences of teasing and bullying go unreported to parents and school officials (“Why didn’t your real parents keep you?”). And, most insidious, they may not realize that many common school projects can make adoptees feel excluded, isolated and singled out, such as:

Bringing in baby photos (a child who spent their first years in an institution may not have baby pictures, or the pictures they do have may not be something that the family wishes to share).

A family tree assignment (tracing one’s roots, which may not be known, biologically)

A simple Mothers Day or Father’s Day assignment.

Assignments tracing genetic traits.

There are resources listed at the end of this article that will help you with what to say. My goal is to encourage you to make the time to meet with your child’s educators before an unfortunate situation happens out of ignorance. If you feel that your child ‘is so well adjusted that he/she has no issues that could possibly cause emotional upset,’ I have heard from many families who report that children who seem to handle well the unique challenges of being an international and/or trans-racial adoptee when young can have significant challenges upon reaching the teen years…and beyond. One friend chooses not to talk to her daughter’s teachers, not wanting to single her adopted Chinese daughter out for special treatment, and deals as a family with situations as they arise, including the family tree assignment that came home one day. However, we as adoptive parents, if we have done even a little of our homework, are the experts, and can be a valuable source of information to the schools in our community. You may find that teachers and administrators may be anxious for information, concerned to say or do the right thing, but perhaps are reluctant to ask you. At the very least, you can point educators to the resources that follow.

Valuable adoption information for educators available online:

The Teacher’s Guide to Adoption presents some basic information on adoption for the elementary and secondary school teacher. While the focus is on the adopted child, they have tried to include the perspective of children of other non-traditional families. Give a copy to your principal. Suggest the school board make it a resource for teachers.

The "A is for Adoption" Educator Brochure
The Cradle Associates have created a simple brochure for teachers and educators to raise awareness about adoption sensitive issues in the classroom.

The ABCs of Adoption: (Streaming Audio segment) August 20-26, 2005 edition of With Good Reason, a public radio talk show produced by the University of Virginia. This show features education professors, Ruth Lyn Meese and Elizabeth Dore. They explore adoption issues from a professional perspective as well as a personal one. They are both adoptive mothers.

EMK Press School Resources EMK Press is a publisher of books for children and grown-ups whose lives have been touched by adoption, either domestic or international. Their website has some great downloadable resources, articles and activities for children, parents and teachers that enhance adoption awareness in school, from kindergarten through the teen years.

Children of Intercountry Adoptions in School : A Primer for Parents and Professionals, by Ruth Lyn Meese Children of intercountry adoption have complex histories that place them at high risk for difficulty or failure in school. Teachers and other school professionals rarely know how to test them, teach them, or meet their needs. This volume explains those needs and offers guidelines and suggestions for maximizing the educational performance of these children and helping them to meet their potential. Hardcover: 208 pages $45.95 Publisher: Bergin & Garvey (September 30, 2002)

I would like to thank David N. Kruchkow for research and Book on the topic: statistics used in the preparation of this article.

Last Spring our site content focused on ethical issues in International Adoption, from whether photolistings are a positive or negative past of our community to our first live on-line chat with Judith Mosley, one of the adoptive parents featured on the March 25, 2005 edition of ABC’s 20/20 covering Cambodian Adoption fraud. Our poll for the season carried along the theme, with our question to visitors being “I am 100% sure that my adoption was completely ethical.”

First, I’d like to state that this was an uncontrolled poll, answered by anonymous volunteers. Not all of this site’s visitors are already adoptive parents (many PAP’s—prospective adoptive parents—use this site for research). I did not ask why respondents had suspicions and/or if their suspicions could be substantiated. And if a parent did suspect that there were unethical aspects to how their adoption was processed, would they necessarily admit to it in a public forum, despite my statement that I had no way to trace the identity of poll respondents? However, I make the assumption that the 2000+ visitors who hit this site every month have some place or interest in the international adoption community, and perhaps their interest in knowing the results of such a query would help prevent false answers.

Only 34 people took the poll, which surprised me a bit, considering the volume of site traffic (over 3000 visitors a month). But, my main surprise was that more than half of the respondents were of the belief that there was some degree of unethical involvement somewhere in the adoption process. (47% said yes, they thought their adoption was ethical, while 53% responded no) It’s a bit startling to consider that perhaps a very high percentage of parents of internationally adopted children walk around with that dilemma in their minds. Who do you tell? Do you ever tell? CAN you tell? (is there an agreement signed with an agency that frightens parents into secrecy?) Do they wonder if I said anything, could my child somehow be taken away? What secrets might be concealed? What will they tell their child someday? I feel that as small a sampling of adoptive parents it is, the results are still significant.

Ethics in international adoption is usually a concern for adoptive parents after the fact. After the parents have returned home with their child. Perhaps they begin to read stories on Internet newsgroups, of families who have lost forever the true identity of their child. They read the stories and think “that could have happened to me…” Perhaps there are discrepancies in their own official documents. Something doesn’t seem to fit. Or, worst of all, maybe they have had their own nightmare with the unethical forces in the world trying to cash in on the big bucks to be had in the international adoption industry. My point is not to make the claim that international adoption is overwhelmed with unethical individuals and agencies, but to state that those negative forces are out there, and the people who need to know this most are those beginning the adoption process…those who are least likely to know what questions to ask and where to ask them. Too often people blindly respond to an ad or to the website that paid the highest ‘per click’ amount to be the first to pop up on the search engine. They assume that somewhere there is a regulatory agency that watches and makes sure that behavior of all parties in an international adoption is ethical. They do not know that there is no such agency.

If you are researching international adoption, the best source of information about agencies is to be had from the community itself: go online to the newsgroups for the countries you are considering (you’ll find hundreds in Yahoo! Groups alone) and ask the members there which agencies they used, or ask for comments on the agencies that you are considering. Trust me…you will get responses. We in the international adoption community know that for the time being, we are our own greatest defense against the unethical individuals out there only too willing to take advantage of children, parents and families in exchange for a piece of the $400,000,000+ pie that is the industry of international adoption.

Click HERE for resources to help you investigate adoption agencies

Get Ready for The Year of the Rat: Planning an Event For Your Child's Class
By Ellen Fitzenrider
(resources and links are listed at the end of the article)

Feb. 7, 2008: Welcome to the Year of the Rat! Last year, I coordinated with my daughter’s preschool, and we had an entire morning’s event that the children loved. The director said that it was the best parent-initiated event that they had ever had! With a little planning and creativity, and not too much money, you can pull it off too. There are lots of places online to get ideas, and I think that a good formula for a morning is to plan a story, a craft, food for a snack and a parade. I spent about $65, but many items are left over to use again this year, and included extra books for the school to keep for their library.

Wearing my Ao Dai, I began by holding a globe and showing the children where Asian countries were in relation to where we live. I told them that Asian countries had different holidays than we did, and about the Asian zodiac and how each year is represented by a different animal. Then I read two books to the children. The first one was about Chinese New Year. Katherine is Vietnamese, so I called it ‘Asian New Year’, and at the end I substituted ‘Chuc Mung Nam Moi!’for ‘Gong Xi Fa Cai’ and I had all the children shout it out too. The second book was called ‘Ten Mice for Tet’, and is specific for Vietnamese New Year. I bought additional copies of the books to donate to the school for their resource library. I then gave a traditional red envelope to each child, with a tiny fake gold bar in it to symbolize good fortune.

If you sit down with your child’s teachers beforehand, you can come up with lots of great ideas for how to incorporate a craft with the supplies that they have with the theme of Asian New Year. Since the class had fourteen children, we chose two crafts, with two workstations of seven children each, with the children spending about ten minutes at each one. We chose to make a dragon mask (last year’s animal) out of craft foam (we cut them out ahead of time from a simple design drawn by one of the teachers and had pre-glittered some designs for sparkle), which the children decorated additionally with markers. We then attached an elastic string that made them wearable. The second craft was a simple, large card-stock circle that the children decorated with anything from their craft supply box. These we punched a hole in and tied to the top of our Cay Neu tree, along with empty pie pans I had brought in from home. The bamboo pole for our ‘tree’ I bought at Pier I (three for $10). As an alternative craft, you can also do something as simple as coloring pages, available at some sites listed in resources at the end of this article.

At snack time, I covered the tables with red plastic tablecloths from the dollar store, and had the children help set out chopsticks and red plastic plates at each place setting. The centerpiece was fruit from the Asian Market: bunches of those little bananas, oranges, a pumelo, persimmons. The children loved eating the tiny bananas that only took three bites! The oranges, pumelo (a super-size grapefruit-looking citrus fruit that’s not quite as tart) and persimmons we cut into wedges on a separate table and put on trays (the persimmons are eaten like a little piece of watermelon, leaving the skin). At home, I had prepared spaghetti tossed with soy sauce, and short-grain rice (it sticks together better than our usual long-grain rice) mixed with some sugar and raisins. This was where they all had fun trying to use their chopsticks! I’ve heard of some parents planning this kind of event and giving the children cupcakes and Twinkies and calling them Asian names, but you would be surprised that when the children get into the spirit of the day, most of them really will open up and try new things. Virtually every child gave everything a try. I taught them how to say ‘thank you’ in Vietnamese, ‘cam on’, and we all practiced saying it at the table.

While the children helped clean the table up, one teacher and I prepared for the parade. I had tiny lanterns on sticks that lit up for everyone, we pulled out instruments…all the noisiest ones…from the music box, and I taped down on the floor in the hallway a long strip of bubble wrap for the children to march on, simulating firecrackers. You can get this cheap, $23 for 175 feet, from an industrial supplier, ULINE, and have enough left over for next year. Everyone donned their masks, and two boys carried our Cay Neu Tree down the hall, followed by the rest of us stomping and clanging all the way. In front of the school, I had left a Christmas tree stand, and when we secured our Cay Neu Tree, we all shouted Chuc Mung Nam Moi! On the way back to the classroom, the remaining unburst bubbles were sought out and destroyed.

At the end of the morning, each child got to take home their pair of chopsticks, their mask and their little lantern. They also brought home a note for their parents explaining what we had done that day (see note at end of article: the parents all told me later that they enjoyed the information). The Cay Neu tree has found its way to our living room as a reminder of the day.

Links to additional Asian New Year sites

Supply List:

Crafts: school materials
Plastic tablecloth, red plates: dollar store
Bamboo pole: Pier I
Fruit, short-grain rice, chopsticks, red envelopes, ‘gold’ bar: Nearby Asian store
Books, lanterns: China Sprout
Bubble Wrap: item number s-1012 at ULINE

My note home to parents:

Hi Moms and Dads of Shining Stars!

Today we had a special day to help celebrate the Asian New Year. Chuc Mung Nam Moi! (Vietnamese for Happy New Year!)

We learned about the countries that celebrate New Year by the Lunar Calendar (China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam and Thailand, among others) and we saw that these countries are on the other side of the world. Each year is represented by one of twelve animals, and this year is the year of the Rooster. We read two books about Asian New Year traditions, made dragon masks (dragons are good luck in Asian culture), had a parade down the hall walking on bubble wrap to simulate firecrackers (making lots of noise with instruments too, and roaring like dragons) and planted our Cay Neu tree in front of the school. In Vietnam, a tall bamboo pole decorated with colorful objects is ‘planted’ in front of homes to invite good and friendly people into our homes and to keep away those who don’t have good intentions. Your child may have brought home some items : A little red lantern: lanterns are traditionally carried in parades; Chopsticks: at snack-time we had fresh fruit, sticky rice and Chinese noodles, and everyone got to try out eating with chopsticks; and a red envelope (called ‘xi li’): Traditionally, red envelopes (red is a lucky color) are given by elders to children with wishes of good fortune for the coming year. A small token amount of money or pretend money (our envelopes had a ‘gold bar’) symbolizes good fortune. The children learned how to say ‘Chuc Mung Nam Moi’ and ‘cam on’ (‘thank you’) in Vietnamese. We all had a great time!