Key Points in Consulting with Multicultural Families, Part 1

Our guest blogger this week is Dr. David Brooks, who is semi-retired, works regularly with Interaction International, and once or twice a year with SEND International. He has been a TCK education consultant for 21 years, and a teacher and administrator for 30 years. He has lived and served in Taiwan, Europe, and former Soviet countries in Europe, Asia, and Central Asia. In his free time, he enjoys watching Seattle sports, working outside with his yard, flowers, and maintenance, and fishing. He also enjoys reading on his Kindle.

Multi-cultural families are everywhere in the modern expatriate world.  Helping such families deal with the challenges of educating children overseas can be a daunting task.  Although I claim no level of expertise in dealing with these challenges, I do have experience.  My experience has shown that misunderstood expectations are the primary cause of difficulty in working on educational issues with multi-cultural families involved in having their children educated overseas.

With that said, my experience has also shown that children from these families can get a good education and their parents can be a significant part of this process. With some trepidation the following suggestions are offered for consideration in consulting with multi-cultural families who are educating children overseas.

First of all a few key points for consultants working with multi-cultural families:

• Know something about the educational structures that the prime home schooling parent grew up in – rigidity, expectations, role of parent, role of extended family, etc.
• Assess the prime home schooling parent’s level of proficiency in the desired literacy language of the children – help the family understand that conversational and literacy language have very different degrees of difficulty
• Assess the prime home schooling parent’s projected level of success in home schooling or in providing instruction in the literacy language of the children – try to avoid situations that are doomed from the outset
• Understand that there will be exceptions, but that a home schooling parent with non-western educational expectations and limited literacy language proficiency will find it very difficult to home school their children
• Assess the non-prime home schooling parent’s expectations for children’s education as well the level of their dominance in the decision making process about what options will be used, how they will be used, how important the role of the prime schooling parent is in the educational process

Some ideas to consider in working through educational planning with multi-cultural families:

• Help them understand that they need a plan
• Help them focus on what are their expectations for children at age 18
• Help them understand that education is hard work for the parents as well as for the children
• Zero in on their expectations for post high school education – what that will include – where it will take place
• In all things, work for congruity and mutual acceptance of agreed upon outcomes for their kids

Some questions to ask in trying to help multi-cultural families develop their education plan

• Where would you like your children to be educationally at age 18?
• Do you understand each other’s educational expectations?  Are you in agreement on this issue?
• How will you develop a Plan B in case something happens to Plan A?
• How will your use of educational options affect your child’s re-entry into home country education?
• Are you (and your agency) open to locating your ministry in a geographic area that is conducive to meeting your children’s educational needs?

Part Two of this article coming next week!

What else would you consider in helping multicultural families create an education plan?

.

© 2012-2023 PACE
All rights reserved