“Supporting Refugee Children –Strategies for Educators,” by
Jan Stewart. 2011. University of Toronto Press, 348 pp.
The world is full of conflict and wars of many types in many
places. Such conflicts leave large
numbers of refugees in their wake. Through a complex process largely outside
the scope of this book, many of these refugees are resettled in western nations
with a history of accepting immigrants. In nations that accept refugees,
educators who teach refugees would improve their efficiency and understanding
if they had a better understanding of refugees and specifically the special
needs of children who have been exposed to war who they will be called upon to
educate.
The U.S.A. is one nation that
accepts large numbers of refugees from around the globe. Canada is another.
Although this book was written by a Canadian and uses Canadian examples, there
was nothing in it that I felt would be inappropriate if applied in an American
setting.
The author, a Canadian educator,
discussed the needs of immigrant children who are affected by war. Although
immigrant children generally have a wide variety of special needs, such as
language help, cultural adaptation assistance and the complex issue of
assimilation versus cultural adaptation, and issues of struggling to obtain an
education while working through the need to adjust to a new country and often a
new style of education, refugee students often have even more and often very complex
issues to deal with, and these issues often affect teachers or require the
understanding and active intervention by a teacher if the student is able to
receive the help they need.
For instance, it is not uncommon
for refugee students to have very limited English and interrupted formal
schooling. Often they come to school both older and less prepared than most of
the local students. Their expectations or stated goals are often grossly
unrealistic. For example, according to this book, it is not uncommon for a
school that serves a refugee population to be presented with 16 year old
students who read and write at a 3rd grade level and have never had
a science class, but who enter school announcing that their goal is to study
hard and become a doctor. Such students also often come from a badly broken or
stressed family support network (often due to the casualties of war and the
refugee experience) and are required to work long hours at a low paying job to
support their family. The drop-out rate among them is high, and after dropping
out many get into trouble with the law.
And these are the practical
concrete issues. The emotional needs of
such students are often complex, draining, and difficult. At times just reading
this book was difficult. There were several references, for instance, to
children who either experienced or witnessed other having their hands chopped
off by child soldiers in African war zones, as well as rape and human
trafficking. However, these subjects form part of the reality of life for many
people in our world and nation,
In the first portion of the book,
the author provides background and facts, and then mixes them with personal
examples, the experiences of others, as well as offering academic theoretical
frameworks for understanding the needs of these students. I thought the author
did an excellent job of mixing theory and experience in a single narrative.
In the second portion of the book,
the author offers a variety of classroom activities, often of an arts and
crafts sort, to encourage and help students to share and process their
experiences and pave the way for better integration into school and society.
These projects, exercises, and activities were well presented although they tended
to be of the sort that would be supplemental to a standard education instead of
an integral part of it
All in all, I felt this book,
although lengthy and at times emotionally draining was well worth reading and
helped make me a better teacher.
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