Promoting Positive Classroom Climate

This is actually another question, but along the same lines... Our story in Sunday School (2nd grade) next week is about the birth of Samuel, and one of the projects that we are given to do is to have the children "make" birth certificates. They only have to put their name and birthdate and "make" footprints on the sheet, but I was wondering if this could be awkward for an adopted/foster kid?? I'm not really sure why it would be, but part of me still felt uneasy when I first saw it... Might it stir up bad memories for them?? Any advice would be great. Thanks!

My 7th graders were given as first day assignments to write an autobiagraphy(my 7 was abused, lived in several different homes, and was 10 at the time of his adoption). When I spoke to the teacher about his inability to complete this assignment do to his desire for privacy, I was told he had no other option. I told him he could skip the assignment and not worry about the F. My other 7th grader was told to go home and ask his parents how they chose his name. Gee, since I didn't pick it...(and the reasoning for his name wasn't exactly a pleasant memory)He made up a story and turned it in. I talked to his teacher and she said-well, he solved the problem(never mind that it upset him) Bring your baby pictures for kids whose earliest pictures are at age 8 or 9 Family tree, which you mentioned, where teachers tell the kids just forget your other family that lives elsewhere and use your adoptive or foster family. Easy for them to say. I did have a teacher pull this project when we discussed it's impact on children just entering foster care. Genetics-who do you look like-mom or dad? Where did your eye color come from? ...... Statewide testing for 11 graders-How did your parents impact your life. Biased question for a kid who was abused and moved around most his life. While he could answer the question, it caused a lot of anger to surface and it was not anyone's business. He chose to write about how unfair the question was. As for the birth certificate-since it's only the child's name and foot print it should be fine. All of us were born and I'm guessing the church is trying to teach that all of us are a family in God.

Check with your state Social Serives office here in Oregon there is a Post Adoption Resource center and several states got together a few years ago and created a Video and Traning program called: Adoption sensitivity training for school personnel. It is designed to be used on a teacher training day and covers MANY issues such as bringing in baby pictures, family trees and other things related to adoption and sensitivity. It also gives teachers ideas on how to answer other non-adopted children's questions in a healthy way... As a parent of an older child who was adopted I have to make an aggressive stand on some issues with my child. I have learned to use eamil and to address my concerns to the 'general' people involved in my children's lives instead of right at a teacher. Our daughter started Kindergarten a few months before the adoption was final--and we had a very difficult time getting the school to use her future last name--instead of her soon to be ex last name--some school districts are better about the co-operation but, we found ourselves in a horrible situation where they refused to delete the old name from the roll sheet and records...and even after it was final it took several months to delete..... We ended up going to the State Superintendant--and our caseworker even dropped by the school---but, the district was unbending.... There is a wonderful Family tree project that shows a tree with branches in the air to represent the adoptive family but there are ROOTS in the gournd to show the biological family and even if we don't have names the words birthmother and birthfather can be used.... There are also other ideas about teaching geneology that aviod the tree idea all together---most schools have become more willing to teach other forms of families given all the single parents, and blended families we have today....

There is a wonderful Family tree project that shows a tree with branches in the air to represent the adoptive family but there are ROOTS in the gournd to show the biological family and even if we don't have names the words birthmother and birthfather can be used.... This is still not o'kay with kids in jr. high. They do not want to be different at any way at that age.

I agree with Lucy some of the ideas that help the yonger adoptees will not be healthy or work for the older child..... And while my daughter may not be upset this year with a project she may be upset in the future..... I think along with educating the teacher about the general issues with adoptees we also need to individually approach them with the special circumstances. I was just sitting here thinking about the issue of where did your name come from----that one is going to be a hrad one for our family too..... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ info RE: the training package I have recieved I just recieved a FREE Package of information created to help the school personnel become more aware of Adoption and how they can help our children--especially the later placed and intercountry-- interacial adoptees grow up feeling normal about everything! There is a video (not too long) and some handouts...(not too many) along with a letter to us the adoptive parents asking us to present this info to our schools and if you are able to offer our service for questions and answers. The Index of Materials: 1. What all children need to know about adoption. 2. A Memo to my fellow teachers. 3. Adoption in the classroom 4. What the classroom teacher can do to support adopted children and teens 5. Recommendations for School LIBRARIES: Children's Books on adoption. 6. My familiy, my consellation, My family Rainbow (alternatives for the family tree) 7. Words can hurt 8. Growing up adopted. and the video that supports this material. The following sources contributed to this information: Arizonia Children's Aid Society The Center for Adoption Support and Education, Silver Springs Maryland. Adoptive Families Together, Boston Massachusetts The Center for Adoptive Families, Baltimore, Maryland Adoptive Families Magazine, New York, New York

Thank you so much for sharing your personal experiences. They were just what I was looking for. (I was hoping to hear from more people. I got very excited when you all responded within the hour of my posting!!) Could you share what you think the best solutions are to these problematic assignments? Thanks Again!

The best solution would be for these assignments to be given as elective courses in Jr. high and high school so the students would have a choice as to if they wanted to share this information.

chacoco -- I have no special expertise, but I have lots of teacher friends and have thought about some of the questions you raise with class assignments. The "autobiography" or personal writing assignments are generally given so kids can write about something they know. It's a problem when the personal information is so emotionally charged the child doesn't want to share it. If that was the case, I think I would let my child make up a story. It's just as legitimate as a writing exercise, and entirely justified in that situation. Generally I think adoption education for the whole class is the best approach, especially when a subject like heredity or family trees is in the curriculum. Kids may have the impression that everyone in the class is "normal" except for them, but the fact is that there are many different life and family experiences in every class. A good teacher recognizes that, and can make everyone feel accepted and valued. It's good to see that there are teacher training guides dealing with some of these issues.

Happymomana Where did you get the adoption packet to give to schools? I would like to get this for my son's school. I talked to my son's teacher last week about adoption and it was a pretty frustrating conversation. I told her during the conversation that I wanted to add to her class library and she said that she did not want to read an adoption book to the class and say that Zach is adopted. I told her that that was not my intention. However, if she has books about families that the children can look at, there should be books about families formed through adoption as well. I told her my intention was not to draw attention to his adoption, but help prepare her in case Zach talks about it and positive language that could be used. I think that some people are so determined to not draw attention to adoption, that they go overboard in the other direction. Are there parents out there that go to their child's teachers every year?

The following sources contributed to the package--maybe it is possible to contact one of them and get more...? The following sources contributed to this information: Arizonia Children's Aid Society The Center for Adoption Support and Education, Silver Springs Maryland. Adoptive Families Together, Boston Massachusetts The Center for Adoptive Families, Baltimore, Maryland Adoptive Families Magazine, New York, New York [url]www.orparc.org[/url] In Oregon some of the funds for Adoptive Families is used to fund a resource ceter which is apparently the first kind in the country.... and many other states are looking into doing the same thing. You might contact them to see if they will send a package out of state?

As a teacher, I thought I was all set to deal with my daughter's problems. I wasn't. For my daughter, even the typical drug abuse discussions and sexual education discussions in health class are hard on her.

As a single, adoptive mom, I have many of the same concerns. The other one that is hard is make Father's Day presents or Mother's Day presents. I talked to my daughter' preschool teacher in advance, to head off the issue and tell her options for my daughter. In her case, her grandfather or godfather. But, as she gets older I anticipate that one being harder. The Family Tree is very lopsided in a single parent home. The pre-school uses an apple tree theory. You put the names of your relatives on the apples and it can be a mix of anyone. I agree with the baby picture thing. I hate that now and that one carries into the work place. I don't have pictures of my daughter before 2. I try to save some of the pictures in which she looks particularly small for future use.

I am looking at schools and some of them, mostly private, talk about their Father/Daughter dances for the later grades. This seems hard for a lot of famlies. Long distance divorce, single parent etc.