Season 1, Episode 4: Francine Fishman, LCSW, discusses what it means for educators and schools to create a culturally responsive classroom for adopted students. She provides lessons learned from her own work in training teachers and working with students and shares practical resources. for schools.
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Routledge Handbook of Adoption
Transcript
Dr. Emily Helder: Welcome, I’m Dr. Emily Helder and I’m here with Francine Fishman who’s the author of a chapter in the Routledge Handbook of Adoption called Awareness of Adoption in Schools. She received her masters of Social Work from SUNY Stony Brook in 2004 and has been a practicing school social worker for over 15 years. I really first became familiar with your research, Francine, back when you wrote a chapter for the different edited volume on adoption back in 2009. So when we were putting together this updated Routledge Handbook, we were so grateful that you were willing to contribute, just given your long standing work in this area. So thank you. So why don’t we start? Why don’t you give us a bit of a background on how you originally became interested in pursuing this area of clinical work and how that’s evolved over your career.
Francine Fishman: Sure actually, when that publication came out, it was shortly right before that, that I really did become interested in the dynamics and all the different facets about adoption.
So as an alumni of St John’s University I got the newsletter and the newsletter had an ad in there for an adoption conference, which I had never seen or attended one before. And it was hosted by the St. John’s Psychological Center and I attended and was just so moved really by what I was hearing in the conversations and the research that was going on, that I almost had no idea about.
So it was really enlightening and it was then that I asked if I could be part of the adoption planning committee and it was Dr., I approached Dr. Amanda Baden and she said, of course, and became part of the planning committee. And during that time is when this publication, the first publication was going to come out.
So knowing that I was working in the schools, Dr. Baden and Dr. Javier asked if I would be part of that and contribute. So it was very interesting for me at the time. And I was extremely moved that they would even ask. So at that point still working in the school, whatever I was learning, I was able to bring back and impart to the educators and school professionals.
And I’m still working in schools. And as the, as adoption is evolving and we’re learning more. This is even more than I get to bring back to schools and it’s just been wonderful. So that’s really how it started.
Dr. Emily Helder: Oh, that’s great. Great. So the chapter that you wrote for our Handbook has a lot of different, really important themes about how adoption becomes relevant in that school context.
And when I was working on editing it with you, one of the things I thought was really interesting was how you positioned the chapter really in the broader context of culturally responsive teaching, trauma informed education, both of which I think are really important themes that are getting more attention.
Why don’t we start by having you say a bit more about that, what you mean by the culture of adoption and why you see this as a really valuable context for educators?
Francine Fishman: Sure. And when, when, when we typically think, and, and in some of the trainings that I’ve done with some of the teachers and school professionals, we’ll start by asking their, their sort of conception of adoption.
And when they talk about it, typically the culture of adoption is “there was a child who needed a home. And there was a family who wanted a child, so it was really a win, win. And being that it was a win, win it was a wonderful thing. It was a wonderful solution.” However, it’s not always that simple. So I think that was a piece that they were missing is that there is, there was a proceeding loss there.
So being that adoption was sort of shrouded for decades in secrecy though. It wasn’t always, it wasn’t always talked about or brought to the forefront so that the loss or that, that part is not really talked about. So an important fact to remember for students at school, is that even though the teacher may or may not know that the student is adopted it’s important for them to be culturally responsive to everyone in the room. So in other words, they may not have to know that the student was adopted, but they need to know that they need to consider that not every family is born biologically. So I wouldn’t suggest that the teacher start the year off by saying “is anyone in the room?
Is anyone in the room adopted?” I wouldn’t suggest that, but what I am saying is that just an awareness, that perhaps not every family has come together the same way. Okay. So, to be culturally responsive, it’s really twofold. So what it does is it allows for the educator to gain knowledge of the students.
And that knowledge then will guide their beliefs and behaviors into best practice. So it’s really twofold to know who you’re, to have an awareness of who your students are or who they might be. So unless that, that notion is considered, we really risk marginalizing the students, or even perpetuating the one dimensional idea of adoption. So it’s fair to say that there’s not one size fits all for students touched by adoption and some students would be willing to share, and some students might not be willing to share, and it might not be public. However, it is important for them to feel that there’s a safe space in the classroom, that if they want to talk about it, we can normalize it.
School is a place where there’s all eyes on you. There’s all your peers are looking at you, your, your teachers are looking at you and it can be an overwhelming experience.
Dr. Emily Helder: Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate what you said about this idea that the teacher doesn’t necessarily have to know that a child is adopted to have a culturally sensitive classroom in terms of adoption related themes or things.
Yeah. Yeah, because I work with a lot of teens who are adopted and many of them you know, “I just want to be like other teens and I don’t want to talk about it.” many of them, and so I could see them maybe not bringing it up, but also feeling that sense of marginalization depending on how culturally sensitive the classroom is.
Francine Fishman: Right. And, and of course it’s not with intent sometimes it’s marginalizing, of course. But, and that’s the, that’s the wonderful part about these trainings is that they just impart this knowledge that it’s, it’s almost like a light bulb goes off.
Dr. Emily Helder: Yeah. Yeah. And let’s talk about the trauma informed aspect of it.
How do you see, you know, that the broader discussions about trauma informed education being relevant for adoptees, especially?
Francine Fishman: Oh, sure. Sometimes when, if we just think about trauma. It, it conjures up very sort of negative connotations, right. It’s negative. And it feels that it might be catastrophic or something so intense or debilitating, but it doesn’t, trauma doesn’t necessarily have to look like that.
So, like we said before, there is loss and separation inherent in adoption and that’s considered a traumatic event that loss and separation. However, you know, the one, the one point I always want to make is that despite that trauma, students are resilient. And they can come past that trauma and they’re loved and they’re in a nurturing environment and they’re understood.
So just because they have that, there’s an inherent trauma in the loss and separation doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re doomed. Okay. So having said that, I think it’s very important though, that, coupled with the trauma of loss and separation. Sometimes there’s there’s, there may be abuse or there may be neglect or there may be disrupted adoption.
So there’d be moving from home to home and then it becomes a complex trauma. And this is the part that I think is important for educators to understand what, what does complex trauma look like? And then how do we approach that and what, how might it manifest in these students? So, the lack of understanding complex trauma sometimes it can lead to various implications in schools. And what I mean by that is there’s misinterpretations sometimes of the behaviors, or because there’s a misinterpretation of behaviors, then there are disproportionate consequences, whether they be expulsion from school or a suspension.
So when they, when adoptees display these behaviors as a result of this individual trauma experienced, they may be punished, right? So they’re getting punished for what they’ve gone through or even ostracized. So it’s important when we talk about trauma and trauma informed schools. When we do it, it really is, you can see just a real paradigm shift in thinking, so it doesn’t take much to even say, let’s look at it this way, and then it makes sense.
Dr. Emily Helder: Yeah. And one of those paradigm shifts that you talked a bit about in the chapter, is this language in trauma informed approaches, where we move towards saying when we see this disruptive behavior, for example, we’re asking more “what happened to you?” Rather than “what’s wrong with you?” You know, cause the “what’s wrong with you” piece, you know, is more connected with maybe some of the more punitive consequences. Talk, talk me through, you know, how you go about encouraging educators to make those kinds of paradigm shifts.
Francine Fishman: Right. And believe it or not, the shifts are, they’re not so hard to make because the language, language is so important. So if someone was to say to see something and say, well, why is that happening? I want to learn more about what, why that’s happening, what might’ve happened to you that led you to this point, other than what’s wrong with you?
So “what’s wrong with you” sort of is, that itself is sort of insensitive or, again marginalizing to the family. So to say “what happened to you” shows a great, greater deal of respect for the student and for the families. So the good news is that in these trainings, preliminary evidence does suggest that it really does make a difference.
There’s a, there’s a great, once there’s a change in knowledge, there’s a change in beliefs and there’s a change in approach. And so the trauma informed approaches take a different look and take a, take a different avenue to, to a better resolution. Um, even in the behaviors, it’s important, you know, we sort of take this avenue as well sometimes. If you see a behavior, every behavior, if you consider that every behavior is really serving a function for that student and to really understand what it is that that student might need or what they’re really trying to say to you. If you have a student, perhaps that’s traveled from home to home and they come to school and now they’re oppositional or they’re argumentative.
So the idea is, are they argumentative and oppositional or are they testing the relationship? Because that relationship with the teacher is a, it’s a, it’s a very close relationship. There’s a lot of hours. There’s, there’s the expectation you know, if you look at, sort of the effect size of different issues in education, one of the, one of the highest effect sizes, so in other words it gets the most out of a student, if a teacher comes in and expects that you’re going to, you’re going to perform. If they come in and there’s an underlying belief that, well, look at your behavior, you know, “I know that he or she was adopted, they probably have other issues,” then that expectation for that child is lessened and there’s, there’s nothing for them to meet. So they are definitely in behaviors, definitely testing sometimes the limits. So it’s important to look at the behavior, and to see what it is that they’re really trying to tell you. So in other words, what really happened to them?
What do they really want me to know?
Dr. Emily Helder: Yeah. Yeah. I’m so glad to hear these conversations more broadly moving through schools. It seems so crucial to a variety of things. I mean, even preventing some of the school to prison pipeline, you know, all sorts of things.
Francine Fishman: [00:14:06] Yeah. Restorative justice and restorative practices in schools. Again, the effect size of suspension rates kind of low on that totem poll, so we know that.
Dr. Emily Helder: Yeah. Yeah. Bringing it back around to adoption specifically, one of the next, kind of chunks of your chapter is talking about the process of adoption, adoption friendly language. There’s a really great chart in the chapter that has some suggestions for how to reframe things in a way that’s more accurate in terms of its description and also less marginalizing, you know, in that language, and just challenging these oversimplified or idealistic narratives about adoption. Uh, you know, why do you see some of that adoption friendly language, so important to emphasize? And how have you seen, you know, if you’ve noticed missteps where teachers maybe have, you know, have not done that, how do you see that negatively impacting kids?
Francine Fishman: Great. I think, you know, even in, this is what, this is why I’m saying, when you do this research in this field, you’re always learning. So when I was writing that part of it, and researching what language really means and what a difference it makes. Just “what’s wrong with you” and or” what happened to you” that language alone.
But I learned so much in, in when we say things, how it’s not what we say necessarily, right. It’s how it lands and how it lands for each one of us might be very different. So it’s very, it’s very important to be aware then. So again, I touched on it earlier the idea of adoption has been sort of a universally romanticized, right?
It’s a, win-win, it’s a perfect solution. It’s a noble thing to do. A student goes to school then sort of places a burden on that student because it’s a noble thing to do. My parents, they, they’re the ones that did a wonderful thing because the teacher, if the teacher is speaking to them and they’re, Oh, they’re watching that behavior of this behavior happening, they say, how “well don’t they realize how lucky they are that they were adopted there. You’re so lucky to have been adopted.” So the teacher says this, and now they’re, they’re sort of trying to they’re internalizing because again, it’s sort of shrouded in secrecy. So we don’t say everything that we’re feeling. Right. So the teacher says “you’re so lucky to have been adopted.” Let’s say the teacher knows and the student feels, “Hmm, I know she’s upset with me because I just acted out in the period before. So now she’s telling me that I’m so lucky to have been adopted because my parents are so wonderful for doing this because I’m not even worthy of being adopted because after all look at the way I behave”. So again, the intent may not obviously be harsh, but it’s the way it landed. And again, internalizing what they might be feeling a whole sea of kids and like you said before, exactly, they just kind of want to fit in. But now they’re hearing these words and they’re feeling them and it’s just all, Oh, to be a kid, right. It’s so it’s so confusing. And then all of this stuff is sort of bubbling up. Do they talk about it? Do they not talk about it? Um, so, again, “there must be something wrong with the child because they’re so lucky. How could they not see?”
Dr. Emily Helder: Yeah. Yeah.
Francine Fishman: These underlying beliefs sort of come to the surface when they don’t even realize that they’re there and that’s where the language is so important.
Dr. Emily Helder: Yeah. That expected gratitude narrative is so pervasive, especially maybe when the adoptee’s perspective isn’t as centered, in the conversation. So yeah, I’m glad that that came up. That’s so valuable. I think for people to really question
Francine Fishman: And that is not to take away from any of the, any parents, adoptive parents, because they are loving in their, in their quest to have a family is beautiful.
And I don’t mean to take away from it.
Dr. Emily Helder: No, no.
Francine Fishman: It’s the silence culture of adoption. That’s all going on internally as a student is sitting in the classroom,
Dr. Emily Helder: Right. Well, it’s just one of those dualities where there’s, there can be deep love, affection, and commitment, and at the same time loss and grief and holding both of those things is challenging.
Francine Fishman: Well, absolutely. And that’s how, um, I can tell you working with some educators, what has happened when you talk about understanding the complex issues in adoption? Sometimes I’ve been working with, um, educators, and like I said, we’ll do a pre-understanding and then a post-understanding. And, one of the very pervasive themes is not only are they lucky if they are adopted from another country.
I mean, that is, and again, I’m not taking away from what it takes to be able to do that, to travel, to, to really long for this family, to, so what they say typically is a that’s, that’s the really lucky child. I mean, they were taken from their country and it doesn’t take much to see that paradigm shift just to remind them that yes they are happy to be here. Perhaps they are in a very loving family, but they have left behind their language, their culture, their traditions, their families. So that’s, it, that’s a whole other sense, even physically of what they’ve, what they’ve lost. So, I mean, before this, they spent, they would spend 10 hours in school.
I mean, you figure. All the hours in school, the traveling to and from, and the homework. I mean, this is a little bit different now, but that’s a tremendous amount of time to be in school. And if, if the belief or if the, if it’s not welcoming or if they don’t feel welcomed or they feel ostracized, it’s a hard place to be for a lot of hours.
Dr. Emily Helder: Yes. Yes. So true. And, and really a lot of that time is contributing to the students’ own narratives about themselves and their identity development. And so, yeah, so crucial.
Francine Fishman: Absolutely.
Dr. Emily Helder: So the last section of your chapter is excellent. It’s very practical. I think it provides a number of applied resources for schools, to become more adoption competent to address some of the things that we’ve been talking about.
I’d love to hear from you, you know, have you seen, do you have some examples for us about how you’ve seen utilizing some of these resources, like library resources or family centered projects or assignments, you know, been used successfully, yeah in the school context.
Francine Fishman: Yeah, absolutely. I can tell you a situation that I was in and it kind of, the beginning of the chapter, it was kind of born from this experience.
I was observing a science class and it was fifth grade science class. They were, it was an integrated class. So we had special ed students and we had general ed students. So I was observing the class and it was a topic, a science topic, about inherited traits. And it was a very sort of benign topic.
And it was very interesting. It’s a very interesting topic. And the teacher went around the classroom and sort of randomly picked on, on students and remember so they’re fifth grade. So I don’t know they’re were about 10. So all this subtle changes are happening in your body. That things are changing. You becoming a little bit more aware of who you are.
So I thought to myself, it didn’t seem to be a problem as she went around and some kids were, everyone was answering and they might say, you know, like, my hair or whatever it might be. And I thought, well, what, what would I have done as an adopted person in fifth grade? If the teacher called on me and all of a sudden I became a fifth grader sitting in the seat and I thought I felt the anxiety.
I mean, clearly she wasn’t about to call me, but I did feel the anxiety of what, and I wondered what would I have said? I don’t know, actually, if I would have, I’m thinking probably I would have made something up. Sure. And it would have stayed with me and I would have thought, um, I didn’t tell the truth, you know, and I can say the same thing for having brought home of family project.
And I brought it home to my mom and dad and we sat down and we did the project and I never would have said anything at the time, but we did the project filled out with all of my extended adopted family. And it’s, it’s extremely thought provoking for a young person to be doing this and to be putting it together because why is it still a secret?
And where is everybody else that’s supposed to be in the picture? Um, so that’s definitely one of the things. So I’ll, I’ll go back to the science class, but what I was able to do, it’s kind of, we sat with the teacher and it was such a productive conversation because I never would have come at her like “you never say that” I, you know, that’s absolutely very unproductive.
And I just wanted to explain that in a class of 28 students, if she had three of those classes, that’s a lot of students, it’s almost 90 students that you’re going to see in one day. So in other words, if every, it might be that 90 of those students were born biologically to that family, but it might not be, there’s a good chance that it might not be. And if it’s not, just let’s consider, it might not even be adoption. You may have foster children or maybe broken families, whatever it is, let’s just, or, or maybe, you know, they don’t even know who, who one of the parents are. So let’s, um, let’s just be sensitive going in and I don’t want to say “so what do we do not teach what inherited traits are?” Oh, no, absolutely we do. But what we do, and then we met with the science department about how we can sort of make it more creative.
Maybe we can pick in fifth grade, you have your famous athlete and we can do, we can sort of research their family and see where they came from.
So that, because at the core of it, what are we really trying to understand? We’re really trying to understand what an inherited trait is.
Dr. Emily Helder: Sure.
Francine Fishman: Yeah. It just provokes us to then think, okay. Now let me think about my family, but it doesn’t put us sort of on the hot seat where if we happen to call on that one student, we’ll put them sort of in an awkward position.
So, so for the family tree, now we sort of have the family web, or even if we have the roots of love, it becomes the student in the tree and then the roots are the people who keep you grounded. So, or, or keep you where you are, or this is where I’m born from. So it’s okay to put them down there and say, this is how I’m rooted.
So it’s just a different way to look at some of the traditional assignments that have been long standing in schools.
Dr. Emily Helder: Yeah. Yeah. And I, I’m glad that we broaden it just to this idea that there are so many complex family forms, adoption being one way to form a complex family form. But, that these kinds of ideas are valuable for kids from a broad range of backgrounds.
Francine Fishman: Absolutely. And that’s why also it’s, it’s very encouraging to see in libraries, different, different books at different developmental levels so that they can see themselves. You need to be represented and be able to see yourself and be able to relate to that. And again, create that safe space in schools.
Dr. Emily Helder: Yeah. Yeah. So just as we’re concluding, do you have any new projects or future projects that you’re excited about? New initiatives that you’re working on?
Francine Fishman: Well, you know, it’s interesting now because some of the children that I might be working with who have been adopted in the world that we’re living in right now, it’s extraordinary.
So we’re living in a global pandemic. Right. So it’s very interesting how the students or, or children that I work with now are asking questions. “Like, do you think that they had COVID or do you think they might have died from COVID?” This commonality that that is affecting all of us is somehow making them feel more connected.
It also is a little bit anxiety provoking for them because they, I’ve heard things like, well, what about if they wanted to come visit or they wanted to come find me? And now they can’t. They’re not allowed to come. So wow, what anxiety and so thought provoking for, for these kids. And it’s sort of that underlying, you know, we’re in therapy, it’s a safe space.
But it’s this underlying thought that they kind of close their eyes with at night and you say, wow. Okay. But it, it really it’s affecting them. Or they’ll say, I wonder if my biological mom like wears a mask, like I have to wear a mask now. So here we are in this situation that makes it so, so common for everyone.
So this curiosity, right, has sort of propelled into like, people are maybe more inclined to do a genetic search and I’ve even heard of adopted parents now doing a genetic search for their families using those searches 23 and me search or Ancestry. So those stories that I have heard are just sort of, it was fascinating and yet, it’s so new, it’s relatively so new that it’s definitely an interest, an area of interest for me.
Dr. Emily Helder: I think I would love to see more research in that, especially both the, you know, direct to home genetic testing stuff, as well as the impact of social media and connection with, with search efforts. Those two things just are so new, but so rapidly changing the experience of adoptees I think.
Francine Fishman: Yes. And then again, and then it keeps changing. Now we have a New York state, we just opened the birth records. So just when you think this is the research I want to do, there’s a whole other facet of research that you might want to do, but it really is, it’s been a very thought provoking time for students.
So as we, as we sort of prepare to enter school again, it’s a tough time for them.
Dr. Emily Helder: Yeah. Yeah. I know. I’m so thankful that there’s individuals like you and other school social workers who are attuned to this that can support kids in the midst of all this. Well, thank you so much for your time and talking about the chapter and of course, in writing the chapter for the book initially. So thank you so much.