Teacher Training - Pictures tell the story

For three days in March 22 refugee teachers attended training. Here is what the trainers saw.

Teachers breaking the ice and a positive mood for training

Trainer having a discussion with the teachers

Trainers providing the teachers opportunities to identify and express their emotions

Teachers engaged in a fun-filled activity to monitor their signs of stress. Teachers were made aware of their stress levels through the visual and explosive effects of the balloons. The popping balloons served as a wake up call for more SELF-CARE,''

Teachers blew into balloons if trainer mentioned a source of stress that applied to them

The training ended with the awarding of certificates and a group picture

22 teachers proudly waving their certificate,

With gratitude they expressed “Training was oh so great!”

It was all smiles (and tears) for trainers and trainees,

As we reflect and appreciate each other’s journeys.

The teachers’ passion and commitment humbles us,

To see how much they pour out to the children inspires us!

We look forward to closer partnership ahead,

Knowing the continuing work ahead will be just great!

                                                                          Su Chen

Training is over - Looking to the futture

Visiting a Refugee School in Kuala Lumpur

This is an adaption of the blog entry posted at lizdoug.blogspot.com on 6 December. 2012. This posting gives a history of the project from the point of view of a project participant (me), who was asked to be on the team that submitted a proposal to the Alumni Engagement Innovation Fund (AEIF). The proposal was to implement an "intervention" to "help empower the refugee teachers and improve the emotional and academic future of their students." Our project was selected and funded (just under $25K). Then reality set in. The majority of team members are not currently living in Malaysia. Only one team member in Malaysia, Wai Sheng, is a psychologist. The State Department disallowed paying a principal investigator/project manager. Wai Sheng jumped in as coordinator and (unpaid) project manager. 

With the focus groups over, the major challenge was how to recruit and train 100 teachers. In December the effort to identify potential trainees began in earnest. Wai Sheng, two of the trainers, and I met at Malaysian Care. The conversation at Malaysian Care focused on logistic issues - how many schools, where were they located, the number of teachers in each school, and possible formats for each school. At the end of the conversation a small group of us headed out to visit a refugee school in Puda, a section of KL that houses several refugee schools. 

Shop Houses in Puda

Malaysia has not ratified the UN Convention relating to the status of refugees; therefore, they have no legal right to be in Malaysia. (This linked article summarizes the history/summary of refugees in Malaysia.) The refugees live and blend into cities and towns, where they may crowd into small apartments. They are largely invisible to their neighbors.

The trainers and a refugee teacher

The partners - our team, refugee schools, Malaysian Care
A psychologist, a teacher, a community organizer

The sign on a school wall reminded refugees (potential con artists as well as victims) that UNHCR services are free. A UNHCR card, based on a case by case analysis of a refugee's case, allows one to work - it does not necessarily prevent police harassment and intimidation.

A consequence of government's lack of a refugee policy is that the children of refugees cannot attend government schools. Refugee communities have pooled their money to open and staff community schools. Because of the ambiguous situation of refugees these schools operate under a cloud, i.e., what happens if a school is discovered, raided, and the status of the children, their parents or teachers checked? The school we visited has 80 students from 3 years old to 16 and three teachers. Volunteers teach English. They normally come once a week. As is true of volunteers everywhere - they don't always come each week.

It may be a refugee school, but it still has rules

Team members in a classroom/meeting room

The Library

The center piece of the kitchen - the rice cooker

The school we visited is part of the Chin community from Myanmar. They tend to have more resources than other refugee communities. We spoke with a young teacher whose command of English was excellent. He largely taught himself English. In addition to teaching he is working with Malaysia Cares to develop a youth center for teenagers and young men - the group that is most prone to act out their boredom. Prior to teaching he had a job as a clerk. He was promoted because of his English abilities, but this drew unwanted attention and threats from other refugees. He was then removed from a dangerous situation and hired as a teacher.The community can only fund three teachers, so he was at risk of losing his position if a more qualified person applied for a teaching position.

We asked the teacher for his opinion about the need for training on children's mental health needs. He recalled how helpful it was when a group from UNHCR pointed out that one child was too quiet and needed special attention. We asked our logistic questions - the first discussion of many other similar ones to follow Among ourselves we debated reaching out to other communities, while recognizing the constraints of available time and money. Even working with a well organized community takes time - contacts have to be made and we have to convince agencies and schools that we are offering something of value.

Fulbright New Leaders Group Award for Refugee Teacher Training Intervention Research

January, 2013

Dr. Colleen O'Neal, the co-leader of this AEIF Fulbright alumni refugee teacher training project, received an award for the promotion of mutual understanding between the US and Malaysia from the organization that runs the Fulbright program - Institute of International Education. The award was in support of the refugee teacher training intervention research pilot she did in collaboration with Dr. Wai Sheng Ng and Harvest Centre from 2010-2012.

Here's Dr. O'Neal's award for mutual understanding speech:

I feel really honored to get this award. But, as a social scientist, I was confused about how to define mutual understanding or how to judge when this project actually achieved mutual understanding. I had concerns that this refugee education research project might not promote mutual understanding between the US and Malaysia where the project is based. Malaysia is a country that is unsafe for the 90,000 Burmese refugees who have fled to Malaysia over the past 20 years where they are educating their refugee children, themselves, in classrooms hidden in kitchens, basement garage storage rooms, and small, overcrowded apartments in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. My guess is the New Leaders Group also had their doubts about how this project would lead to mutual understanding. 

But, now, looking back, I think my doubts were wrong. I think I had made the superficial assumption that mutual understanding is like having your first boyfriend: You idolize him and only see the good, he can do no wrong. I think I, and this project, went from holding hands with Malaysia to a real marriage, for both good times and bad, in a deep mutual understanding involving brutal honesty. We were able to develop a program that could be used by the Malaysian government, when they are ready to open school doors to refugees, to help refugee students better prepare for and slowly transition into government schools over time. 

How did I use the New Leaders Group award? First, before I received the New Leaders award, I tested a pilot research program during my 2010 Fulbright Scholar Award to systematically help refugee teachers with their classroom management of refugee students’ behavior, attention and emotions so that students could better engage with their studies. Teachers who were Malaysian citizens trained refugee teachers. Second, in 2011, I used this New Leaders Group award to make the refugee teacher program more sustainable and local. I partnered with a Malaysian Fulbrighter, who’d gotten her doctorate in the US, and I partnered with a Malaysian NGO who implemented the program. Third, we then partnered with a large team of US and Malaysian Fulbrighters to recently win a Fulbright Alumni award which will expand the New Leaders Group program to study refugee teachers training other refugee teachers deep in the hidden refugee schools in Malaysia. 

How did this award change me? It was not only an awakening to how the global is personal – in how the Burmese government’s continued maltreatment of ethnic minorities (despite recent Burmese government promises) has a global impact and it has a personal impact on refugee kids in Malaysia – but it gave me a taste of real academic freedom where I could do international research and education that I loved.

I am also a mom. My amazing husband and children were such a supportive and necessary part of my ability to work abroad. My kids were the real passport for this research in Asia – getting us access to Burmese government schools, hidden refugee schools in Malaysia, and playing soccer with refugee students, as you saw in the slideshow. I learned that families living abroad can get entry for a project that no researcher, alone, could get entry for. I am also a daughter-in-law of inspirational, intrepid Asia travelers. I am a daughter too and it changed my life completely after my academic parents took our family to live abroad for a year when I was 8, giving me the courage to take my family to Asia for a year when my eldest child was 8. 

Now that President Obama has taken a strategic pivot towards Asia, I’ve come to realize that our honest, mutual understanding with Asian countries will only deepen our relationships and humane treatment of our most vulnerable even more.