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Erica Barclay, Sridevi Natrajan, Hemali Mehta, Radha Shivkumar & Payal Sinha


Third Culture Kids Action Research
--
Presented to the Department of Educational Leadership
and Postsecondary Education
University of Northern Iowa
--
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirement for the
Master of Arts in Education
--
by
Erica Barclay, Sridevi Natrajan, Hemali Mehta,
Radha Shivkumar, and Payal Sinha

The American School of Bombay
Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
July 1, 2014
--
Dr. Tammy Gregersen

TCK Action Research




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Erica Barclay, Sridevi Natrajan, Hemali Mehta, Radha Shivkumar & Payal Sinha


Topic
We know that ASB has a wonderful entry process for parents and students. We have
parent ambassadors, student buddies, orientation day for new students and parents,
technology training for older kids, parent reception for the whole community, and meet
the board night. We also have a solid process for exiting teachers to ensure that they are
appreciated and successful when they leave and go on to other schools. Leaving teachers
are provided a counseling session with the principal, exiting teacher workshops,
technology support to transfer important documents and emails, and a farewell party with
appreciation gifts. While there are certain components in place to help students who are
leaving school, there is no consistent procedure in place across all grade levels to ensure a
smooth transition to wherever they are going in their future endeavors. Therefore, we feel
it is worthwhile to pursue a proposal for putting in place a standard/consistent procedure
so all students can be successful after they leave.
TCK Text Connections
TCKs are individuals growing up in a culturally diverse world. While on the one hand
their lives are rich and abound in multicultural experiences, their mobility present
challenges of other kinds. Mobility brings with it physical moves from one place to
another. TCKs undergo chronic cycles of mobility. Due to the frequency of their moves,
each transition changes something in their lives. With every transition, there is loss even
when there is ultimate gain. TCKs have to leave people, places, good stages of life,
and things they have enjoyed and loved. They lose their normal support system. This is
hard. Repeated cycles of mobility can lead to repetitive losses and the grief that is
associated with it. Connected to the grief cycle, author David Pollock developed a model
of normal transition in the early 80s. He noted five predictable stages of transition:
involvement, leaving, transition, entering, and re-involvement (p. 66) that everyone goes
through. TCks are frequently running through these stages and sometimes do not even
get a chance to complete the stages before they are informed of another move and the
cycle begins again.
Leaving right is a key to entering right (p. 181). In order to do so, imagine building a
raft.
Reconciliation - addressing unresolved problems, reconciling broken relationships help
children from getting rid of festering wounds.
Affirmation - identifying special friends, significant adults in the school and the
community, acknowledging family members like grandparents etc are important to
children as it affirms and strengthens relationships.
Farewells - farewells bring closure when children are moving from one location to
another without feeling a sense of unfinished business.
Think Destination - sharing pictures of the new school, pictures of the new home, maps,
making contact with other families and their children studying in the same school can
create a sense of familiarity with the new location for TCKs.
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Erica Barclay, Sridevi Natrajan, Hemali Mehta, Radha Shivkumar & Payal Sinha


Objectives
All stakeholders in the ASB community want to work towards building a strong
foundation to help families deal with the entire process of transition. Building a RAFT
will alleviate the process and facilitate a healthy closure.
Hypothesis
We believe that putting in place a consistent procedure of transition for all students across
all grade levels will ensure that students are set up for success in their new school.
Method
We will send a series of surveys to current ASB students and parents, asking them about
the transition process at their previous school prior to coming to ASB as well as send
surveys to families who have recently left ASB asking about our transition process. We
will gather information about the processes and their opinions of how effective (or not)
they were.
Research
Using surveys and questionnaires to elicit responses regarding the transition process, we
reached out to students and parents (present at ASB and families who had recently
left). In addition, we also questioned our divisional counselors.
Questions for the parent survey:
1. Did your childs previous school have a process in place for a smooth transition in
order to ensure a successful transition?
2. Tell us about the process. What was it like?
3. What was missing?
4. What do you propose we put in place at ASB for our leaving students?
Summary of the parent survey results
Transition process at other schools involved signing exit documents for release of
transcripts and recommendation. The process was very business like. Some parents
shared that the advisory of the student coordinated all the documentation work and there
was one response saying that getting introduced to teachers at the new school helped the
student.

Information gathered from ex ASB parents reported that while coming to the school there
was a buddy system in place to make their child feel comfortable and a counselor
meeting. Upon leaving, parents noted the older students had videos created to honor
those departing and the videos were shared with others. In the elementary, a counselor
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Erica Barclay, Sridevi Natrajan, Hemali Mehta, Radha Shivkumar & Payal Sinha


came into classrooms to do a leaver ceremony and there were events such as peers
signing on a t-shirt for students to take with them.

Parents also expressed that they did feel some things were missing from the
process. They would have appreciated counseling sessions for to help with their childs
mental preparedness in the move. They did not feel like anyone checked in with their
child or kept in touch through the transition period and that support would have been
helpful to have.

Some suggestions made by parents were: During the transition process children and
families should have single point coordinators. They expressed a desire for alumni
information - contacts and knowledge of alumni in the area to which they were
moving. They really liked the videos created and leaver ceremonies and thought they
should stay and perhaps be extended to all divisions. Parent thought that a send off party
in Advisory or home rooms would be nice along with a memento such as a bag with the
schools logo. Some parents expressed a desire for the exit procedure to be even simpler
(we can only assume they mean from the business/paperwork aspect of the transition)
while others appreciated the detailed information they received about the process. A few
parents felt more counselor-student time would be helpful. One parent thought the
current school should review the new schools curriculum and help the students select
courses.
Survey results from alumni parents (The same questions as those for current ASB
parents were used but we asked parents to think specifically of ASB when responding.)
We categorized the responses into three areas (helpful, somewhat helpful, not helpful)
and found that nobody said the transition experience was helpful. People felt it was
somewhat helpful in most cases but every parent had a different experience. Many
parents also said that the transition was not handled smoothly.
Questions for the student survey:
1. Did your previous school have a process in place for a smooth exit in order to ensure a
successful transition?
2. Tell us about the process. What was it like?
3. What was missing?
4. What do you propose we put in place for ASB?
Summary of the student survey results
We surveyed students who had transitioned into ASB from another school - fifty percent
of the students surveyed felt they had successful experiences during transitions. The other
fifty did not have positive experiences - they felt there was nothing done to support a
students transition to a new school. Students would like the transition process to include
goodbye events, assemblies, and sessions with counselors to discuss hopes and fears,
recognition ceremonies, memory books and other such events to give them a good
closure.
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Erica Barclay, Sridevi Natrajan, Hemali Mehta, Radha Shivkumar & Payal Sinha


Information we gathered from ASB counselors
ASB counselors were contacted via email regarding the current transition process in place
at ASB.
Questions asked were:
1. What strategies are in place to make transitions smooth for our exiting students?
2.What are some other strategies that might be more effective in other school?
3.Do you meet students personally to prepare them for change?
Our counselors had this to say:
Elementary School
This counselor shared that she maintains a very regularly updated website
(http://escounselor.weebly.com/coping-with-change.html). She made a presentation about
transitions at our parent cafe (a regular meeting of parents and various components of the
school). She stated, I dont know of anything more effective from other international
schools. I did similar at my last school guidance units on transition, teaching about
change and coping with it, 1:1 check-in with all departing students, leaving circles, etc. I
did not do the transition luncheons that Im doing here I think students like those a lot
(grades 1-5). For EC3-K I do less, but I think they are less impacted by the change as
they are still more attached to family unit.

Middle School
I will be meeting with students in small groups to discuss their transition. For those
students who are struggling, I arrange one to one meetings and sometimes meetings with
the entire family. All of our departing students are celebrated during Advisory and are
also acknowledged at the goodbye assembly. There is also a video made by the SLT
(student leadership team) documenting special moments throughout the year.

High School
When students transition mid-year, we work with the students and their family to ensure
that they are leaving on a solid academic base. Because so many schools are small, often
times their schedules do not match up properly (as other schools may not be offering the
same courses). Usually the guidance department or the IB Coordinators are in touch to
ensure that students are placed in the appropriate classes upon arrival. I am not certain
what other schools do. I have met with students are who are transitioning out to ensure
that paperwork and coursework are at a place where they can transition into their other
school efficiently. However, I would say that considerable amount of time is spent on
students transitioning into our school than out of our school. This would be typical in the
sense that you would want to make to ensure that you are providing as smooth a start as
possible.

This document contains all the hard data from the surveys we sent.
https://docs.google.com/a/asbindia.org/document/d/1ha9NTIm3QVtsvs0CY2l0hdMD_F
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Erica Barclay, Sridevi Natrajan, Hemali Mehta, Radha Shivkumar & Payal Sinha


VRWoPlkzAc-rvBhDw/edit

Conclusions
Student mobility is a defining characteristic of most international schools. It is not
uncommon for 30% of any given student population to turn over every year. While
faculty and staff mobility may be less extensive, regular turn-over there too is common.
What does this mean for an international school like ASB?
More and more international schools are accepting responsibility for facilitating student
transitions into and out of the school community. Parents are beginning to expect it.
Administrators, teachers, and counselors are recognizing it as intrinsic to an international
school's educational mandate. Indeed, some schools, recognizing that student adjustment
depends on family adjustment, are also addressing parents' transition support needs.

Consider the impact on a learning environment when on average one third of the
population is in the midst of pre-departure anxiety, another third wound-up in post-arrival
uncertainty, and the final third busy trying to keep it all sorted out. It quickly becomes
clear that addressing transitions is an international school imperative!
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Erica Barclay, Sridevi Natrajan, Hemali Mehta, Radha Shivkumar & Payal Sinha



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Erica Barclay, Sridevi Natrajan, Hemali Mehta, Radha Shivkumar & Payal Sinha


We would like to suggest the following protocols to address and support the children who
are leaving ASB:

1) Transition Resource Team:
Consisting of a small number (710) of committed teachers, administrators, and
counselors, parents and student. The teams helps develop in-house expertise, provide an
ongoing resource throughout the school year to students, faculty and staff alike, and serve
as liaison to any transition work being conducted for families through the schools' parent
associations. Transition resource team members work with teachers in the classroom and
with counselors school-wide to encourage and support transition activities.

2) Alumni support:
Use the alumni network to see if there are any ASB families in the next city and/or school
to offer support.

3) Language support:
If the move is to an international country that has educational instruction in another
language then language support would be given.

4) Parent Transition Team:
This team will offer support to families on how to deal with the entire transition process
so they can work proactively with their children in navigating the complexities of a move
and regarding their losses, which are inherent in any transitional experience.

5) Farewell team:
Will organize farewells where students have a chance to say goodbye to their friends,
teachers, and other members of the community. They will identify and acknowledge
people who have been an integral part of their stay at school. Thus allowing students to
rejoice and mourn their friends leaving. Taking the time for rites of passage gives us
markers for remembering meaningful places and people and directly addressing the fact
that we are saying farewell. (pg. 184)

6) Social media connection
The school can ensure that once students have left the school they can still stay remain
connected with their friends on a social media site designed by the school which is safe
and secure (specifically those under 13 and not yet legally able to use Facebook or
Twitter).

At ASB we propose the following transition steps:

STEP 1: Parents inform the admissions office they are leaving - As soon as the admission
office gets notified. A typical withdrawal packet with all necessary forms/documents is
given including two articles, Leaving Well: 10 Tips for Repatriating with Dignity and
Why Expats Hate June and the TCK book in hard form.
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Erica Barclay, Sridevi Natrajan, Hemali Mehta, Radha Shivkumar & Payal Sinha


STEP 2: Once the forms and documents are submitted, the concerned teachers and the
Transition Resource Team are then notified (the office will specify if this move is known
to the children or not).

STEP 3: Once children are aware of the move - admissions office notifies the transition
resource team who then approach the appropriate counselor for them to begin transition
counseling - in ES teachers prepare memory/autograph books and give to students to
gather signatures/numbers/email and in MS HS students are given the books directly and
ensure that teachers and friends have the appropriate opportunity to say farewell (hugs,
photos, goodbyes).

STEP 4: Parents are given immediate connection to ASB alumni network for families
specifically highlighting contacts (if any) in the country/school to which the family is
relocating. The Parent Transition team gets notified as well and extends the needed
support to the family.

STEP 5: The Farewell Team needs to ensure that the students and the family have had
opportunities to day goodbye and the students have been farewelled properly.

The impact of our childhood experiences shape us as adults and helps us in understanding
who we are and where we belong. If our students (who are TCKs and CCKs),
experiences have been positive, an awareness has been inculcated, interventions and
support have been given from the home and school environments, then we help them
develop better strategies to deal with transitions and they end up having enriching life
experiences. Schools everywhere are making changes to their curriculum and approaches
to teaching that will help students from any country fit back into their school
system. The key to making a successful transition is preparation, intervention, and
care. As an education institution whose mission is to serve the needs of our students, we
aim to fulfill those needs by ensuring we do everything in our capacity so that students
feel cherished and valued and their departure is made as special as their arrival. This
would help TCKs become more confident and increase their ability to navigate through
the various social systems more easily, knowing they can still keep in touch with their
friends and family they have left behind. Parents also have a responsibility in this
teamwork and should be focused on their childrens emotional need and be supportive at
a difficult time of their lives.











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Erica Barclay, Sridevi Natrajan, Hemali Mehta, Radha Shivkumar & Payal Sinha



References

Jones, J. (May 22, 2014). The Culture Blog - Leaving Well: 10 Tips for Repatriating
with
Dignity Retrieved from http://www.thecultureblend.com/?p=1383
Jones, J. (June 22, 2012). The Culture Blog: Why Expats Hate June Retrieved from
http://www.thecultureblend.com/?p=11
Pollock, D. C. & VanReken, R.E. (2009). Third Culture Kids: Growing Up

Among Worlds. Nicholas Brealey Publishing: Boston, MA. ISBN: 978-1-85788-
525-5