ADDRESSING A REFUGEE PROBLEM

In the last posting, I left you with an assignment.  I suggested a situation in which you are teaching in a school that has been designated to accept a number of Syrian refugee students.  Now this has not happened, to my knowledge, but it can happen in the future.  Why a particular school district and school is chosen for such a designation is beyond the concerns of the assignment, but let us say the school is noted for being located in a tolerant and liberal community.  Yet the situation, as I presented it, does pose a challenge.  Before addressing the problem directly, let me focus on a few factors that are contained in the situation as I presented it, but need further emphasis.

One important factor in this scenario that bears special note is that the change I described is not emanating from an in-house observation of a problem.  The change is coming from the district and reflects an up-down decision.  Perhaps the district has been ordered to accept the refugee children by state authorities, but that in itself is not relevant to the conditions the school community faces.  The point is that the school has been given this challenge by legally designated authorities and whether such authority should or should not be able to issue such mandates is a subject for another posting.  Before you dismiss this factor as something I am making up, I will tell you that all of the major change efforts I experienced in a twenty-five year teaching career came from the district – some originated at the district level; some originated from the state.  So, for purposes of this assignment, let us accept that the school is going to get the refugees and now it is up to the school personnel to make the best of it.

As I described the situation, one can assume the principal is disposed to be inclusive in her decision-making.  She called the teacher-parent meeting in order to hear from the community.  The meeting, she feels, also allows members of the community to have some say – or, at least, feel they have some say.  It is at that meeting when a parent stood up and voiced the following (paraphrased):  who is doing all the bombing?  It’s not the Christians; it’s not the Jews.  It’s the Muslims.  Then the man looked at the assembled group and asked: did you get that, sport?  In what he said, one could easily see that he was speaking for a sizable minority of the audience as they, in turn, voiced, loudly, their approval not only for the content of his concern, but for the tone in which he voiced it.  There is “attitude” behind this objection.

Your assignment, if you chose to accept it, was to recommend to the principal what she should do next.  In doing so, I invited you to apply the change strategy elements I have described and explained over the last series of postings.  I didn’t expect you to sit down and write the principal an email, but perhaps you could have given this challenge some thought.  I promised that I would, in this posting, give you my take on this situation – here goes.

First, the situation to this point calls for defining and thinking of what I, as a teacher, and possibly the principal, don’t know.  For example, are these new students going to be here for a transition period or are they to become a regular part of the student body?  What are the language requirements of these refugees?  What is the employability status of these children’s parents?  What are their living accommodations?  In other words, what is the scope of the challenge before this school and community?  Then there is the extent of the opposition.  Does the voiced opposition represent negative beliefs in the community or is it contained within the group who showed up to the meeting?  How deep-seated are these misgivings and how apt are those who harbor negative feelings willing to act on them?  In other words, while these negative notions reflect an espoused theory, is it strong enough to generate an active theory-in-use?  And if it is that strong, how much congruence will there be between their espoused theory and their theory-in-use?  Are there within these people, contradicting espoused theories?  Are their assumptions firmly imbedded in their beliefs?  There is obviously a need to talk with those members of the community who are put out by the idea of accepting these students.

Now this is not an exhaustive list of things to consider, concerning this situation.  What I am presenting is a notion of how the factors of successful change can be used.  What I just described relates to the environmental factors of the situation; there is also the individual level concerns.  Let me add some questions that can be asked of the individuals involved, both in the community and in the staff.  By the way, one should not assume that everyone on staff is on board with this change.  A lot of what the principal needs to deal with will be obstacles presented by staff members.  An important difference with this latter group is that due to their employment status, these individuals might not be so open and honest about their feelings, but can be even more undermining of an attempt to implement a successful strategy.

Of course, when knowing about those with whom you work, this comes in handy.  That knowledge, on the part of an administrator, should be one he/she actively seeks on an ongoing basis.  For a school principal, this is not only a concern for those who work under his/her authority, but also for the leaders of the community.  Why?  So when a challenge as the one I am posing arises, and they do, the principal and the other administrators don’t have to start from scratch.  All schools, like any social entity, have to accommodate change.  This often calls on affected people changing their behavior and that usually means, at least to some minimal degree, changes in their beliefs, feelings, attitudes, and values.  So, a smart administrator seeks these types of information about those he/she is in charge of and those with whom he/she has to interact.  Hopefully, that is the case of our principal.  Be that as it may, here are some questions she might ask of those involved:

·        Does this person exhibit a reaction to problems which can be described as being idealistic, realistic, or visceral?

·        Does the person tend to maintain an even keel over problematic situations or does he/she tend to become emotional?  (Of course, this is a matter of degree, so the principal might want to gauge this observation.)

·        Does this person tend to be demanding of the school and its staff or does he/she offer support for what the school is doing?  (Again, this is a matter of degree.)

·        In the choices to act, does this person see his/her self-interests in a short term perspective or take more of a long term perspective?  And are those interests sought after by acting in isolation or is the person an organizer or joiner of collective action?

·        What tenor does this person adopt in expressing his/her knowledge, attitudes, values, plans?  That is, does this person offer an authoritative, a reasonable, or an overemotional tenor?

And, in terms of this particular situation:

·        For those agreeing with the protesting parent:  how truly are the expressed objections to the refugee children a concern over safety issues (bombings and killings) or how much are they a reflection of cultural biases against this particular minority?

With clear answers to these questions, our principal can go about devising a strategy.  Given the long-term nature of the situation – these students are going to be around for a long time – this principal would be wise to have good information regarding these factors.  This might prove difficult, but the more information she can acquire, the better off she will be in meeting this challenge.  She would also be assisted if she could count on a supportive faculty and other staff members who are equally prone to being subjected to the factors these questions reflect.  One last thing, in all of this: our principal would be well-served in being as honest in what she is doing as possible.  And this is my take on the assignment.