Partnership between schools and families: the family

project
In April 2008, in the middle of the European Year of the Intercultural Dialogue, the
teacher training department of KaHo Sint-Lieven, campus Waas, organised an Intensive
Program (IP) on diversity: CoDiME (Coping with Diversity in Multicultural Europe).
Participants from seven countries shared their opinions on diversity in society and education.
A central activity in the program was the family project, which had the purpose to promote
informal learning and creativity in dealing with diversity and to increase the partnership
between school and parents.
After an outline of the vision on diversity at our teacher education department we will
zoom in at the IP CoDiME, and more detailed at the family project. With different examples
we will try to make this text vivid.

Growth of a vision on diversity

Our Flemish society is truly a diverse society, even more than ever. People with
different histories, cultures and languages are living together in a dynamic, pluriform and
democratic world. This diversity is not only a fact, it also holds expectations for education.

As a department of teacher training KaHo Sint-Lieven, campus Waas, wanted to take

a stand in this matter. We can’t stay on the sideline but have an important task in preparing
the students for a diverse class group in a diverse society. Within this train of thought
intercultural education deserved a place in the curriculum. Having an inquiring attitude, a lot
of value is attached to projects in which learning from experiences is the central point. If our
students learn to cope with diversity in a positive way, they will be able to pass this along to
their pupils. Before we start with giving the concrete activities concerning this matter, we will
clarify what we mean by intercultural education.

As we see it, an identity is always plural: it changes constantly under the influence of
interaction and holds a glimpse of the past and the future. This means the identity of a
person is seen as a puzzle which can fall in different ways depending on the context. One
time a certain piece will play an important role, another time another piece will come to the
fore. When the Portuguese student plays soccer with the children on the playground, you
know that this interest in soccer and the soccer qualities are very important pieces of her
puzzle at that time. When she is talking about Portugal in the class room, her country will
become more important. This means it is to simplistic to isolate certain characteristics, like
religion, and judge people based on just that one characteristic. People shift between
different characteristics and differences aren’t only interpersonal but also intrapersonal. This
implies that in each situation two people can look for connection between them, instead of
focusing on the differences which separate them from each other. Interculturalism means we
can get to the space in between people through dialogue. Talking about each other changes
into talking with each other. An intercultural conversation is also interpersonal as well. You
don’t talk with a culture, but with a person (Jans, 2006). Interaction and interrelatedness is
core business in the intercultural society. We conclude with a definition of Piessens (2000, p.
68) who sees interculturalism as a “concept in which people try to formulate an answer on
the questions being asked by the multicultural condition and in which everyone tries to come
to a way of interacting which leaves more space for diversity and variety. (free translation)”.

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 We like to go a bit deeper into this intercultural dialogue. In this dialogue we do not
need to prove who is right or wrong. Listening to each other and appreciating the different
viewpoints is the core element. Looking through his window, every one sees different things.
You can not see the same things, but this doesn’t mean someone doesn’t see very well. It
also doesn’t mean you have to hurry to catch a look through the window of the other. You
don’t have to check the information of the other or to imagine you can see everything he
sees. You just have to listen genuinely. This dialogue is interesting and shows us that we
need the other to see the world in many different ways. 1 We do not need to stick to facts and
figures, we can share our experiences and the way we feel about them. The content and
purpose of the dialogue is important, as well as the way we communicate. Sometimes it is
difficult to really reach the other through the spoken word. Then, creative means can help us
to break the ice. Creativity gives us the opportunity to meet in another way. Everyone can be
creative if he wants to be open and genuine because it is just an expression of yourself.
There are no rules, there isn’t only one truth, you just have to listen to your heart and the
other.

If we follow our vision, what does this mean to education? First of all, diversity is
normal and every class is diverse in different ways. Every school can start from its own
diversity. Children get in contact with each other each day in vivid, creative, enthusiastic,
genuine … ways. It ‘s in their own class group children learn how to deal with diversity. It is
obvious that you can not solve every struggle answering the question who’s wrong and right.
Most of the time there are no right answers and people just have to come to a joint solution.
If you start from an open, respectful dialogue, you will start a journey together in which you
make decisions whereby everyone feels safe and understood. It is not a matter of discussing,
but most of all it is a matter of sharing experiences, viewpoints and feelings. You don’t have
to agree with everything, you just have to recognize that the other also has his right to his
own story. These are important things to give attention to at school. And again, creativity is
an important language: children feel very comfortable using this language. It gives them the
opportunity to express themselves, to feel at home and makes it more possible to share
meanings. Intercultural education asks for a creative teacher who is happy, vulnerable,
spontaneous and enjoys the world which surrounds him. He opens himself for the
impressions and the feelings he experiences. Meeting people in their otherness enriches his
world of experiences which he can share again with others, like his pupils. This means a
teacher recognizes that the school is only one place the children learn in. Therefore it is
important to have this same deep relation with the parents of the children. When we sum this
all up, we see that we are just talking about good education: intercultural education is just
good education.

IP CoDiME
Based on our vision on the intercultural society and intercultural education, we try to
create meaningful learning activities for our students. The Intensive Program CoDiME
(Coping with Diversity in a Multicultural Europe) is one of those activities. It consisted of a
two weeks-program in which students of The Netherlands, Lithuania, Spain, Portugal, Italy,
Turkey and Belgium grew to an own vision on diversity in an active way. All those students,
each of them bringing their own country, history, language in a suitcase, contributed to a
(boeiend, interessant leerrijk) program. We present to you two activities.

1
Colpaert, M (2007), “Tot waar de beide zeeën samenkomen, Verbeelding, een sleutel tot intercultureel opvoeden”; Lannoo,
Tielt.

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 Feel welcome: you are a part of it all

“In one way you put yourself in the picture, through the frame, but in another way you
can hide behind a character by choosing a hat. To some of us the threshold is high, to
some it was a careful step in the right direction and to others it was a piece of a cake.
Important was the fact that people could be themselves.” (Karen, Michiel, Niki)

“Because that is the beginning of everything: do you feel welcome or not? An open
environment is very important. The secret is in the creation of this environment.”
(student IP CoDiME)

“I have liked this activity because it was an icebreaker for everybody”. (student IP
CoDiME)

In the beginning of a project like this, people come in a new and unfamiliar
environment. Introducing rounds are very popular at that time of a program, but sometimes
feel quite artificial. It is not easy to lay oneself open immediately. The students got the
opportunity to present themselves when they felt ready for it, stepping inside and outside a
frame and using different hats. They could go stand behind the frame and say: “Look this is a
portrait of me, I’m …” and so on. They could also use one of the hats to describe themselves.
People could easily choose the amount of information they wanted to give and felt
comfortable. Everyone is appreciated for his own input. This creates an open, warm
atmosphere.

Tell me your story

A man lives in a white, grey house. A bird is passing by, carrying a can of paint. At a
moment, the bird looses some paint and it falls on the house of the man. In the
beginning he is angry, but in a way he likes it. He continues by painting the whole of
his house, he plants palm trees in the garden,… The other houses in the street aren’t
that beautiful. The neighbours see the beautiful house of the man and start copying it.
They also want their houses to be that colourful. (story?)

Imagine you have big colourful drawings of the scenes of this story. Imagine people
get the opportunity to organise the cards themselves and tell their own story in their own
language in a multilingual group.

“You don’t have to listen to words only, you can also listen to (and look at)
somebody’s body language. (…) Wanting to listen to the other, is a sign of respect.”
(Karen, Michiel, Niki)

“For the students it gave a good feeling to talk in their own language.” (NIki)

This activity was really beneficial for the group, giving everyone the opportunity to talk
in their own language. Each group could make up their own story, felt encouraged to bring
something of their own. Storytelling is a simple activity, but it is something everybody knows
and by which everyone feels home.

From experience to vision

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 Starting from these experiences students work on their vision on diversity. Simply
beginning with the frame, not telling why, lets people learn from this experience. The students
evolve without teachers telling them how or why, learning in a very natural way. This
inductive way of learning, alternating learning from experiences with sessions of theoretical
input and reflective sessions, relates to our vision in which we point out the importance of
learning by talking with people and experiencing instead of learning about people.
As you can notice in the activities and the statements of the students, we attached a
lot of value to the language of creativity. Different creative ways are used to approach the
theme of the IP. This implies everyone can feel involved with the group and the issue. The
students notice that this was important to create an open atmosphere in which everyone
feels safe enough to share their thoughts, feelings and experiences.

Family project
The family project was the core of the IP. It is based on the need to make use of the
prevailing diversity in the class group. Children are all different, create their identity out of
innumerable experiences and shift between different kinds of behaviour according to the
context. This means education has to be open to these experiences. In this project the
emphasis is on the home of a child.
Paying attention to the pupils’ background is an important issue in education. It makes
all children feel welcome, accepted and involved with the class activities. A child spends a lot
of time with his family and in the school. This means a child will feel more secure when it
experiences that its home is appreciated. When there is a mutual understanding and respect
between the school and the parents, everybody feels more accepted and free to get to know
each other better. There is a base for a good and open relationship. Once you know each
other well, everyone will feel comfortable enough to discuss things that are more difficult.
There is space to talk about problems at home or at school, without hurting the other and the
relationship. It is only when we trust each other, that we are able to comprehend the meaning
of what the other is trying to say. Every parent is interested in their child. It is the professional
duty of a teacher to get into contact with parents, based on their common interest in the child,
and not just when he detects problems. In this project we want to work on an open and
genuine relationship between the school and the parents. We want the group to say: ‘I am
truly interested in you. May I be a guest in your home? We can work along and get to know
each other better’. The parents don’t have to come to the school, the ‘territory’ of the
teachers, but we will look for the diversity in what surrounds the school, in the homes of the
families. We will meet the families in their environment, in other ways.

This is me, who are you?

In this project we started with a session about diversity in the classroom, so the group
could familiarize with each other. This was important in our project, because students of
different countries would join the pupils. You don’t just stumble into one’s home, you take the
time to get to know each other better. In our programme students from around Europe
presented their country to the children and the children told something about themselves.

“Through this activity the children got the opportunity to see things in another way.
We don’t have to act like racists. People from, e.g. The Netherlands and Turkey, are
quit the same as us. Maybe we have other habits, but in general, we think, do and
look the same as them.” (Karen, Michiel, Niki)

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 “The children feel and show emotions without masks, their energy grows, decreases
and grows again. (…) They just want to grow, to have the body and the brain awake,
among diversity.” (student IP CoDiME)

“We can solve our differences with art.” (student IP CoDiME)

Like in the activities we already discussed, the students and pupils learn through
experiencing this meeting. They don’t get a lesson about diversity or about people living in
different countries. They get into dialogue with each other, through the spoken word, through
body language, through arts … We can see we have things in common and differ all in some
kind of way. We can also see that we sometimes have prejudices which do not match with
reality. We do not learn just about each other, but from and with each other. We play, we
draw, we sing, in other words: we experience, not only with our head, but also with our body
and our hart. Some children flourish, starting off quite insecure and feeling more and more
secure to talk in front of the group, to translate the Turkish, to show a special outfit … The
group tries to overcome difficulties in a creative way: it doesn’t matter in which language you
sing the song belonging to the game ‘drop the handkerchief’. We learn that the prevailing
differences are interesting. This implies that this activity is interesting for everybody. The
students like to present their own country but learn as well as they are challenged by the
questions and remarks of the children to think about what they have told. The teachers are
amazed about the knowledge of the children and the way they blossom because of the
recognition of their identity. Everybody feels involved and grows.

May I be a guest in your home?

The core of the family project is the visit to the family. This implies that the parents are
an important partner in this project and they are being recognized as an important partner for
the school in general. Children visit a family of a classmate (together with some (foreign)
students), play and work together and share their thoughts. There is time to listen to each
other truly. This means there is space for informal learning in the families. As a school you
say: ‘the pupils can learn important things with you as well, you are our partner’.

“’Do you know if …?’ She cannot find the right words. ‘Wait’, she says ‘I will draw’. At
that moment you can only think: mission accomplished! The girl was looking for other
means to get the message through, in this case it was through expressive means.”
(Karen, Michiel, Niki)

“The family which I was visiting has been very friendly with all the kids and I saw
them smiling around the painted door. I think that with these kind of activities they can
learn that everyone has something to give, even better if it is something different from
us.” (student IP CoDiME)

“I was surprised about the hospitality of the families. They were very friendly even
though we were strangers.” (student IP CoDiME)

“The pupils’ teacher was there as well and I found out that – as a teacher – entering a
pupils’ home and meeting the parents could be helpful to know the background of
those pupils and to understand why they behave in a certain way in class”. (student
IP CoDiME)

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 “They gave me a different kind of power because I remembered my own childhood
and I shared very good things with them although I don’t know the language.”
(Tuncay)

When the families are visited, everybody is welcomed with open arms. People are
proud of their homes and spend a pleasant afternoon with the visitors in an open
atmosphere. Certain rules and values come to the front: shake hands or not, working in a
table or on the floor outside, running around in the house or not, … The children learn from it
and compare, mostly without noticing. Parents and teachers see their children in another
way. At home the child feels much more at ease or with his friends he is braver. Children get
to know each others home environment and grow towards each other.
Again the focus is on experiencing not only with our head, but also with our heart and
body. We can just talk about who we are or who we think the other is. But we can also work
together and try to express these feelings in other ways. The language of creativity makes
free space for feelings, silence … The school and the families choose together between
several creative activities. All the activities are based on making your home your own. How
do you want your door to look like? Very colourful, like you? With a lot of flowers, because
you like to work in the garden? How do you want the mailbox to look like? In the shape of a
cow, because you are fond of milk? How do you want the name tag to look like? Even with
the names of the pets on it? The outer layer can tell us something about the inside. It also
can deceive us, so we always need to communicate to get to know the other. Knowing that
we are visiting a family, they are the starting point. Just like you adapt yourself to the rules
and values in the family, the group listens to the wishes of the family and tries to work
together to create something that carries a bit of everyone and meanwhile fits the family.
All groups have chosen to work on a door. A door is our passage to the world, to the
other. It symbolises the connection between our private and safe environment and the outer
world. We can show something about ourselves, we can open it, to let the other into our
world. We can also open it to meet the other in his or her world, but we always can go back
to our own safe home environment. The door is our connection, we can move anywhere we
want to and need to. For us, the choice of a creative project was obvious. Differences are
approached with our brain too much. It’s time we also use our body and heart. Just working
together, experiencing things together, makes that we can get closer to each other. We do
not need to chat all the time, just be there. It is out of these experiences that we can reflect
on what we have done, how we feel about the diversity in the class and how we can cope
with it.

Looking back and seeing we have learned a lot

The project is ended with a reflection on the family project in the classroom. The
children get the opportunity to look back on their experiences. This activity reaches further
than an evaluation of the different activities and focuses on what they have learned about
each other and diversity in general. The students make use of pictures taken at the activities
to keep the conversation concrete. It has no point to talk about diversity far away, when it’s
right under our nose. It’s in the class group that the children, each with his own backpack,
have to get along. This means the children do not need general information, but can learn
from the experiences in their daily life. They talk about similarities and differences. Off course
there were differences, they could be small or big, but there were also ways to cope with
them.

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 “We felt the happiness in their eyes, their affection and friendship in their hugs in the
school, recognizing us two days after that afternoon.” (student IP CoDiME)

“The children were so enthusiastic and they really enjoyed it. They also learned a lot.”
(Niki)

“Speak with the language of arts. (…) You can be creative through images, gestures,
sounds, music, dance, drawings …(…) In the project it looked like a bomb of arts
exploded. A girl was very shy, almost didn’t dare to present herself in Dutch.
According as we gave more and more explanation about the project, the people who
were involved, the things we were going to do in the families … she flourished more
and more. She spoke loudly in front of the class, told us about her home, laughed
together with the others, showed what she had learned spontaneously …” (Karen,
Michiel, Niki)

“Dare to look further, it’s not because you don’t know someone’s culture, that you can
make a judgment. No: get to know them, explore, experiment …” (Karen, Michiel,
Niki).

“Talking about diversity is not easy, it takes a lot of time (…) Make it a theme for your
life.” (Anne)

Also the students reflected on this family project. This project had a deep impact on
their personal and professional growth. They talk about the open atmosphere, being with the
children, seeing the children grow … The core of the project, the visit, spoke to them
especially. They mentioned the hospitality and the enthusiasm of the children. They were
moved, truly sharing with the children and remembering their own childhood. The students
also mentioned the opportunity to get to know the children better: family is an important part
of their lives that deserves proper attention. During this project family and schools meet in an
open, informal way in a setting where the family is at ease. This opens doors to a well-
founded relationship in which people can talk about the shared responsibility of the pupil. It’s
something the schools, the families and the students have experienced and something they
will hopefully take along. The students obtained insight in the importance of creative means
in the interpersonal dialogue as well. Seeing children grow, using creative means
spontaneously, … showed everybody the value of creativity and arts. There is always a way
to communicate with each other and maybe the children are the best example of who to do
that.