Transcultural Sensitivity and Parental Involvement

Following these previous successful workshops, the Myanmar government, together with UNICEF, had requested a new workshop, this time to explore the place of parental involvement in education, and to help care-givers develop sensitivity to the cultural background of the preschool child and his/her parents.

Michal Finkelstein, an Israeli social worker, joined Janette to make up the team. Although this was Michal's first MASHAV mission, she can claim to be a "second generation" MASHAV worker - her father, water engineer Elisha Kally (see article in Shalom 1995-1), has also represented MASHAV abroad on many missions!

The new workshop was offered to trainers, day-care centre heads, parents and health workers and touched on very basic issues related to human development. Unlike most child development programs, this one centred, not only around the child, but around "the other two angles of the triangle" - the parents and their development needs, and the care-givers and their needs and expectations.

Before leaving Israel, Janette and Michal sent preliminary questionnaires to the participants and went to Myanmar with an outline scheme flexible enough to be adapted to the reality they encountered. The whole workshop was highly experiential, using drama and art "to get the message across." An additional session was held with high ranking NGO officials to make them too aware of the issues.

On the basis of this successful workshop in Myanmar, Janette and Michal put together a definitive Manual for Parent Education. Since then the team has presented similar workshops twice in Israel to two quite different cultural groups, once to a group of kindergarten teachers in private kindergartens in the Arab sector and once to a group of Ethiopian immigrants living in a caravan park which Michal can see from her window in Haifa!

These workshops were highly successful with very positive feedback and, funding permitting, will be repeated in the future. Looking at the elements which have enabled the same program to work so successfully with three such different groups, it is clear that its basic structure has universal validity.

The program develops unique methods which enable participants to raise sensitive issues. It builds channels of communication and cooperation between parents and care-givers. It provides a framework within which knowledge may be acquired, feelings may be clarified, and changes in child-rearing practices may be enhanced. In so doing, it also raises awareness among the adult parents and care-givers of their own developmental needs.

The Arab kindergarten teachers' program began by helping them to express their own needs before moving on to look at the needs of the children and their parents. It concentrated on communication between parents and care-givers, a facet sadly lacking in programs concerning parental involvement in education. The teachers were really aware that this was the first time an in-service training program had been oriented to their feelings rather than their skills.

Similarly, the Ethiopian immigrant parents' workshop (in reality mothers - fathers may need to be catered for separately) was based on validating feelings. These families needed help in adjusting to Israeli society, but, even more than that, needed to appreciate the value of the cultural wealth they had brought with them and to build their self-esteem. They were encouraged to talk, draw and make models of parenting in Ethiopia (all through an excellent Amharic and Hebrew speaking translator) and above all, validate their past and their own upbringing through childhood memories, songs and lullabies. The use of collage building, movement and drama helped them to express their feelings and attitudes toward bringing up young children.

In the second phase of the course, as group cohesion developed and the women began to feel comfortable with the team and their methods, they were asked to bring their babies and toddlers with them. The emphasis shifted from remembering their childhood to bringing up their own children, and helping them to balance the cognitive, social emotional and motor skills the "whole" child needs, according to the expectations of present-day modern society.

Janette and Michal also gave a complementary one-morning workshop to community workers, welfare and education workers, psychologists and Hebrew class teachers who worked with the Ethiopian immigrant community. Here they concentrated on the issue of what happens to people in the move from traditional to modern societies. At the same time, the workers had the opportunity to meet their counterparts and express their expectations and pool their experience.

They met four times with the day-care givers. Slowly, through role play and art, feelings were expressed, expectations and problems emerged. From the positive feedback it was clear how pleased the carers had been to have the chance to express their feelings, difficult though this was for them at the outset. They expressed the desire to create communication between parents and themselves in order to build mutual understanding and knowledge which would improve the common educational environment of the children, and they were surprised to learn that the parents in actual fact had expressed the same hope for easier communication.

Janette and Michal will present their program again in March this year, at MCTC in Haifa, to an international group of early childhood educators, nurses and social workers. The four-week course will focus on communication between the three angles of the parent-child-carer triangle, and will include visits to kindergartens in areas where parent involvement programs are running.

Israel began its statehood by gathering in Jewish people from all corners of the earth and adopted an initial "melting pot" philosophy. Fifty years on, the issue of ethnic identity and transcultural sensitivity is much discussed here. Janette's own experiences as a young new immigrant coupled with her many years of Early Childhood Education work at MCTC have made her very aware of different cultures. Michal has been on the other side of the fence, living in different cultures on a temporary basis, as her father's work took her from country to country, and now, as an adult, researching populations in transition from traditional to modern societies. Both professionally and personally they make a formidable team!