Students Who Learn Differently
What follows are parts of a letter that was sent in response to an article about Students that appeared in a FAWCO club magazine:
While I spend most of my time parenting my two children, I am also looking for ways to pursue my interest in child development. Prior to moving to Europe, I used to be a developmental and educational psychologist, doing teaching and research at both Teachers College and Hunter College in New York City. I became very excited this morning when I read your article, and heard that FAWCO was addressing some issues, which I believe to be very important to the international community.
These issues are important to me, both for professional and personal reasons. Before moving here, our family lived in Switzerland. There, at the age of five, my son was diagnosed with Attention Deficit /Hyperactivity Disorder. Although we did all the things families confronting this problem should do (put him on Ritalin, zealously adhered to behavior modification systems and worked closely with his teachers), his international school decided to kick him out after first grade because he was not meeting their academic standards. He had been tested many different ways, and all of these tests showed him to be a bright and intelligent child. The teachers also said that his behavior was no longer disruptive since he had been on the medication. But because he was not reading fluently at the age of six, they believed that it would be better for him if he pursued his education elsewhere.
Given my background, I felt that not only was this conclusion unfair, it was based on a rigid definition of optimal learning and development. The school's philosophy of instruction was for six-year-olds to sit still and learn from the board, and then do work sheets all day. The children were also expected to have learned reading in kindergarten, and if they did not read in first grade, they did not receive any additional reading support. This school admitted that over 30% of the students there were having difficulties, but did not wish to change their teaching practices in order to accommodate these students. Their attitude was that these students should go elsewhere.
But the fact of the matter was, there was nowhere else for them to go. German Swiss schools are taught in a non-written dialect for the first three grades, so if my son could have made the transition to German, it would not have been a form that I could understand, nor would it have been any use to him down the road. Although we had a number of conversations with the school about their policies, and how a minimum of 4% of any given population is going to have attention problems, they did not see it as their role to educate these children. It was their goal to attract the quickest and brightest learners. After all, this is what attracts the majority of parents to schools, and the minority of families with children with learning problems "just need to go elsewhere."
But Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Dyslexia, etc. occur at a reliable rate, even in normal populations, which include families on overseas assignments. Ultimately, I ended up taking my son and daughter back to the United States, to the public school district where I grew up, and our family had to live separately on two continents. Fortunately, I was raised in a very good public school system (it has been consistently rated in the top 100 nationwide), and they were able to identify my son's problems and help him immediately. Their philosophy of education was one of inclusion rather than exclusion, and they made it their policy to teach to different learning styles.
During the first two months that we were there, his improvement was miraculous. First, the school noticed that he was a phonetic reader, and therefore would benefit from learning phonetic and word attack strategies. He also had a wonderful teacher who respected him as a learner and as an individual. Within two months, he was reading fluently (he no longer qualified for their reading support program) and he was a motivated and enthusiastic contributor in class.
After we were able to understand our son's needs more fully, we wanted to be once again reunited as a family. But there were still no options for us in Switzerland. So my husband persuaded his company to move us to England. After reviewing six international schools, we finally chose one where the teaching methods were most similar to those practiced in the US.
Since we have been here, our son continues to do as well as he can. On his recent standardized tests, he was in the 80th percentile for reading comprehension. Unfortunately however, the time we can spend with my husband is limited, because he still must be in Switzerland two to three days per week. While we have found a way to make our situation work, our compromise is costly to us in terms of the time we have together as a family, as well as to my husband's company, who has to take on the additional financial burden of flying my him back and forth from Switzerland, reimbursing his hotel expenses, and providing him with two offices instead of one.
On a more positive note, the school that my son now attends is making every effort to accommodate the learning needs of its students. This past January, the school helped the parents form a support group for families with children who have attention deficits, and they are also investing a great deal of money in a curriculum designed specifically for considering individual differences in learning styles. Unfortunately, however not all international schools share this commitment, since special needs generally do not attract the majority of families or funding. It is my hope that FAWCO can help other schools recognize the need for helping all children. When schools adopt standards that consider individual differences, the entire student body benefits - not only those with special needs.
I believe that FAWCO can play a very important role in helping families facing the problems outlined in your article. Based on my experience, I believe the problem we encountered with the school in Switzerland stems from two fundamental aspects of small independent overseas schools. The first is that these schools simply do not have the resources to attract and support their faculty. Unlike schools in the US that subscribe to outstanding inservice support programs, the overseas teacher is often poorly trained, poorly paid, and poorly informed. As I stated earlier, I also believe that this kind of support is often a low priority for these schools, because financial attention to these issues is not considered important for attracting families.
Secondly, the children who attend these schools are generally there for only two years (sometimes less). Quite often, these families are so busy orienting themselves to the new environment, they don't have the energy to address the school in the consistent manner that is sometimes necessary to get them to consider the non-traditional learner's needs. Therefore, these independent overseas schools are not consistently held accountable for their practices, as schools with more stable populations are.
This is where I see FAWCO's role as crucial. In defining standards for these international schools, and creating a "bill of rights," FAWCO is in a position of applying on-going pressure on these schools to become better informed in helping the non-traditional learner. FAWCO can be the consistent voice when the parents themselves cannot.
Overall, I agree with all of the important points made in your article, and I applaud FAWCO's effort in taking on this challenging problem. The only assertion that I question is that there are reliable methods for identifying non-traditional learners before kindergarten. Assessment is an expensive and timely process, and its' predictive validity is limited until the child has entered primary school. I believe that one way that FAWCO can help parents in this process is to identify competent physicians and psychologists within each local community, who can be a potential resource for families confronting many of these issues.
I'm sure that you did not expect such a long letter when you wrote your article. It's just that I'm so excited to see that FAWCO is tackling these issues.
Another reader wrote:
I don't know how things are for Belgian citizens living abroad, but the Greek government has Greek, state-supported public schools for their citizens abroad, i.e. in Germany. I know the French government does the same thing for their French citizens in Greece. Isn't it a shame that the strongest economic power does not do this for its children? An economist parent at the American Community School here recently figured out that he is paying $18,000 for his child to attend elementary school if you factor in salaries, cost of living, etc. I do feel it would be very beneficial to the US to have these bi-cultural children educated in the American system.
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Students Who Learn Differently
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10/31/99 EvE. Last updated 04/07/00 EvE
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