Book Review

After reading the book do the following:

(No cursory responses – Table expands to accommodate your thinking.)

New kid in school: using literature to help children in transition

Debra Rader and Linda Harris Sittig
2003

Debra Rader - Educator, Author, Transition Specialist

Debra Rader has worked in international schools as a teacher, administrator and educational
consultant for over 25 years. She was a teacher and principal at Southbank International
School in London, Junior School Principal at the International School of Florence, and was
most recently the Founding Director of Teaching and Learning at the Bilingual School of
Lucca.
Debra developed a model for transition education and has become a specialist in this area. She
is co-author of New Kid in School: Using Literature to Help Children in Transition (Teachers
College Press, 2003) and was a contributing author (‘Addressing Transition and Mobility
Issues with English Language Learners in the Early Childhood Years’) in Welcoming
Linguistic Diversity in Early Childhood Classrooms: Learning from International Schools
(Multilingual Matters, 2011).
Education has been a lifelong passion and Debra is a strong advocate for Third Culture Kids
(TCKs), and supporting them and their families through transition. She has presented at
numerous conferences, and works with students, parents and faculty on developing transition
education, transition programmes and international-mindedness in schools worldwide. Debra
lives in Tuscany with her husband and is currently writing a new book on developing
international-mindedness in children.
 Linda Harris Sittig

Born in Greenwich Village, in lower Manhattan, and later raised in northern New Jersey, She
grew up listening to my mother’s stories of her Irish ancestors and my father’s fascination with
local Jersey history. As a child, Lad, a Dog, and Nancy Drew, Girl Detective lured her into
reading. Strong women would come later.
An attraction to history and a bit of wanderlust led her in her twenties to study in Lausanne,
Switzerland. Then she returned stateside to earn a B.A. in History from Grove City College. A
Masters in Reading soon followed from Bowie State University. She finally settled in Virginia
and put down roots.

Her zeal for history, geography, and storytelling is interwoven in her writing, and especially in
her blog: https://www.strongwomeninhistory.com. Readers in sixty-four countries follow her
blog stories of strong women. KinderBooks, her fifteen-year weekly newspaper column, earned
two coveted awards from the Virginia Press Association. And both of her novels, Cut From
Strong Cloth and Last Curtain Call have earned 5-star ratings from Amazon. Published by
Freedom Forge Press, the books are available in print and Kindle.

She is an often-requested speaker for book groups, history workshops, and women’s
conferences. Each June you can find her teaching at the annual Shenandoah University
Children’s Literature Conference in Winchester, Virginia. Other summers, she has shared her
stories on both sides of the Atlantic. Linda lives with her husband in western Loudoun County,
Virginia, where the Blue Ridge Mountains are the first to greet the dawn.

Task Response
Select 2-3 key Point 1
areas or points It is important to establish a balance between affirming your students’
made by the past experiences and focusing on helping them adjust to the new place.
author that add to Children need to have opportunities to share their backgrounds in a way
your professional that honors and respects their past as an important part of who they are.
learning and This contributes to build a sense of community, which is essential for all
synthesize the children, especially those in transition. It is significant for children to be
ideas by making seen and known by their teachers and classmates, and for educators to
connections to take an interest in who their students are and where they have been,
other relevant which can affirm their sense of self and gives them a sense of security
research and that will help them settle into the new place. Educators play an important
current role in helping children understand and develop the skills necessary to
information to ease the transition of a move and help them adjust to the new place. It is
support the necessary to address concerns that children may have and to let them
validity of the know that others share their feelings.
book content.
Concepts featured in activities
1. There are both benefits and challenges to moving to a new place.
2. People who move have some of the same worries and concerns.
3. “Home” can mean different things to different people.
4. Our special memories of people and places are part of us.
5. People learn new skills from moving to a new place.
6. People who move often may develop certain characteristics.

Point 2
Our identity is form by our own individual combination of personal
characteristics and life experiences; our personal identity and cultural
identity are inextricable linked. Children first learn about culture from
their families and the communities in which they live. Culture is a shared
way of life that includes values, beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, and customs,
and is passed on from one generation to the next. It is important to help
children learn to take pride in their cultural heritage and see that value
and richness in the cultures of others as well. The important thing is to
teach children to observe difference and foster an openness about learning
how and why people do what they do. Children who move are influenced
by the cultures of places they live or even visit; experiencing life in
another place gives them an understanding of another way people live.
Their cultural identity may or may not coincide with their national
identity if they have grown up outside of their home county. Children
who have lived in different countries may see themselves as multicultural
if they have internalized the practices and values of two or more cultures.
Educators need to provide opportunities in their classroom to create self-
awareness, so children can begin to experience and develop their own
identity. Also, they need to provide opportunities that allow children to
learn more about themselves, strengths, weaknesses, learning styles,
interests, passions, what they are curious about and what is important to
them. Helping students be aware about their feelings will help them
develop inner confidence and positive self-esteem, and will enable them
to fully develop their potential and lead meaningful lives.

Concepts featured in activities

1. Culture is at the core of our being.
2. We bring of knowledge and understanding of other places we
have lived with us wherever we go.
 3. The experiences we have had are part of who we are.
4. Our cultural identity frames our personal identity and helps shape
our thinking and perception of the world around us.
5. There is great value in learning about other people’s cultures.
6. Understanding and accepting cultural differences is an important
life skill.
7. When we experience other cultures, we come to understand our
own culture more deeply.

Point 3
Developing competence in managing change, solving problems, making
decision, resolving conflicts, managing stress, and communicating with
others are essential life skills for everyone. Children who move are
adjusting to a wide range of new circumstances, and well-developed life
skills are a tremendous asset. Educators need to create opportunities to
practice this skill every day; because it will help them develop life skills
and it will help them figure out how to use them to help themselves and
other, which enables a sense of self competence in them. it is important to
provide opportunities for them to discuss some of the changes in their
lives, and help them identify times when they have manage change well
or made positive decisions. Children need opportunities to practice
decision making skills, because making life decisions helps them develop
a sense of identity and confidence. Also, they need to be able to share
their feelings with others, state their needs clearly, and listen to others.
With these skills they can learn to work their way through problems and
arrive at reasonable and fair solutions. It is important that children
develop effective skills to approach cross-cultural adaptation and to
communicate across cultures as well as effective leaving-taking skills.
David Pollock (1999) has developed the RAFT strategies which is an
useful approach to leaving.
Reconciliation
Affirmation
Farewells
Think ahead

Concepts featured in activities

1. Effective interpersonal and life skills can ease the experience of
transition.
2. Effective cross-cultural skills are necessary in our diverse society.
3. Appropriate closure is necessary for successful adjustment to a
new location.
Elaborate on these Idea 1:
key ideas (in Adjusting to a new place can be very difficult, especially for children that
previous task) by move around the world without considering their opinion for that matter.
evaluating the Helping them acknowledge and honor their backgrounds will help them
ideas and applying know where they belong and it will open the path to acceptance of the
the ideas to your new situation and it will begin a positive transition. As educators it is
understanding of important to pay attention to the verbal and non verbal messages that
intercultural children can be giving to express their emotions so they feel acknowledge
competence. and understood.

Idea 2:
Our cultural background is what defines us, this is why is so important
that educators help children embrace their cultural heritage as a way to
find their personal identity. Children that grew up moving from place to
place may become multicultural and it is important that they recognize
their various cultures as a unique part of who they are. Also, educators
need to help children learn how to respect the differences among cultures
and to learn about other cultures so they can value and understand their
own culture. There are so many aspects about a culture that we do not see
like values and beliefs that determine who we are and for children that
have experience various cultures through their life their attachments to a
specific culture can be very different from their parents. The classroom
can become the environment to transition and accept who they are,
recognize their fears, and take pride in their cultural heritage that they
identify with the most.

Idea 3:
Moving around the world whether by choice or not can make children
encounter with different unexpected emotions that can hurt them or make
them very happy. Most of the time these emotions are hidden and
sometimes express themselves in certain behaviors that can reflect
negatively in a child’s life. Learning how to deal with stress and
developing problem solving skills can be fundamental for this kids that
are constantly grieving what they leave behind with each move.
Furthermore, allowing children in their classrooms to make decision on
their own can help them gain the confidence they lose when their parents
make decisions about changing locations without considering their
feeling about it, this will help them learn how to share their ideas and
express their emotions with their families.

Evaluate the My beliefs, worldview and values are influence by the culture in which I
content in was raised, but it is also connected to the different countries I have grew
relationship to in, which makes my multicultural background and essential part of my
your belief life. As the book mentions, helping children identify and take pride in
system/worldview. their cultural heritage will help them know who there are and it will
Describe and strengthen their personal identity. However, for those that have
explain areas of multicultural experiences that are very different from one another it is
compatibility and difficult to recognize one as your own. Accepting the differences among
areas of cultures can help these children to determine which culture they feel
differences. stronger about; for example my family’s culture is Mexican, but I also
embrace my American culture and by fully understanding both of them
 their differences and similitudes I was able to make a connection with my
Mexican culture as the strongest one.
Link the book Cultural patterns are shared beliefs, values, norms, and social practices,
content to that are stable over time and that lead to roughly similar behaviors across
one/several of the similar situations.
theories we are Beliefs: an idea that people assume to be true about the world (learned
studying in this interpretations, what is or not logical and correct) according to this book
course. Provide a for many of the children that move to different countries these can be
comprehensive
influence by family or the culture that they identify themselves with and
overview of how
the content of this sometimes these are hidden due to the fear of being misunderstood.
book supports the Values: involve what a culture regards as good or bad, right or wrong,
development of appropriate or inappropriate, among others. As stated in this book
intercultural ‘values’ are transmitted through the family and become essential to
competence. successfully transition from one place to another. Children learn
important values in the school, and it is therefore important for teachers to
exemplify a genuine respect appreciation for all cultures.
Norms: social shared expectations of appropriate behaviors. These are
the rules that model the behaviors develop by children in different
cultures.
Social practices: predictable behavior patterns that members of a culture
typically follow. This is presented as the differences of social behavior
among cultures since the way in which they do greetings (do they kiss,
hug, or shake hands) to they form in which they eat.
How has this This book provides suggestions for educators that will help children
reading helped grieve their losses, transition in a positive manner, value cultural heritage,
you personally find their identity, maintain friendships, and learn problem solving skills.
develop a deeper The most important thing that helped better understand myself and others
conceptual is the fact that differences are good and we can learn from them as well as
knowledge for not to fear change because they will always be positive and negative
understanding aspects of depends on the way you look at it. Also, it remarked the
yourself and importance of allowing children to express their emotions, ideas, worries,
others in a and concerns.
culturally
competent
manner?
How has this I consider that this book gave the exact strategies to deal with various
study helped move situations that third cultural kids can encounter. I am more aware of what
you from novice ‘home’ means from different perspectives. I can understand the
to the expert difficulties that TCKs experience every time they move not only with
/professional level their families, but also with their friends and classmates. I can recognize
as a sojourner? differences among cultures and the importance of them when children are
trying to find their personal identity.
Attach any NEITHER HERE NOR THERE Teaser
additional https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5Gh_0Fx0B8
pictures, video
clips, web links or
resources that you
found that would
support the
content of this
book.