Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds

by David C. Pollock

  Lessons from the TCK Petri Dish

  In all transitions, we gain as well as lose. While all CCKs may not have the international mobility that TCKs know, everyone alive goes through big and little transitions all the time. Perhaps one more paradox of the TCK experience is that learning to deal in healthy ways with the losses of transition can become a great asset in a TCK’s life, both for themselves and for others. Having language and concepts to understand this basic process gives further clarity to situations that would otherwise seem completely unrelated.

  ATCK Latasha told us that during her bout with breast cancer, knowing about the transition cycle was key in helping her deal with it. She realized with the initial news of the diagnosis that she was in the “leaving” phase—moving from life as it had been to life in the world of chemo and radiation cycles she didn’t yet know. As she faced the prospects ahead, she saw how she needed to deal not only with her potential loss of life, but the many hidden losses also entailed in such a time as this: the loss that she could not be involved in the day-to-day activities of life with her friends as she was used to doing; the loss that her record of near-perfect health was now forever gone; and the loss of her sense of identity—that when others saw her bald head, they would see “cancer patient” rather than Latasha.

  She found this insight extremely helpful as she went through the different feelings of her treatment phase of chemo and radiation. She could name this as the transition stage—the old world was gone and what lay ahead remained unclear. Survival was the goal for each day, knowing another stage was coming. At the end of her treatments, she realized she had moved into the entry, or perhaps reentry, phase. Life had gone on without her in her former world; how would she find her way back in? “With intentionality,” meaning it was up to her to reach out to others as well as expecting them to reach out to her. She did so and feels totally reinvolved at this stage.

  Latasha’s story demonstrates what we mean when we say learning to deal constructively with the challenges of the TCK experience can translate them into strengths for our lives as well. As not only TCKs but also others continue to understand this basic human process, we can understand why we no longer have to shut down our emotions or shut out relationships. Instead, all of us—TCKs, CCKs, adults of all backgrounds—can risk the pain of another loss for the sake of the gain that goes with it, because we know how to get from one side to the other. Learning to live with this kind of openness affects all areas of life in a positive way and does, indeed, turn this challenge into one more strength.

  CHAPTER 15

  Meeting Educational Needs

  By the time I was nine, I was already used to going to school by trans-Atlantic plane, to sleeping in airports, to shuttling back and forth, three times a year, between my parents’ (indian) home in california and my boarding school in England. Throughout the time I was growing up, I was never within 6,000 miles of the nearest relative—and come, therefore to define relations in non-familial way.1

  —Pico Iyer, from “Living in the Transit Lounge”

  THIRD CULTURE FAMILIES FACE A VARIETY OF CHOICES when it comes to deciding how to educate their children, and every option has distinct advantages and disadvantages. How can parents know which one is best for each particular child?

  Unfortunately, parents often face this major decision with little or no awareness of the different types of opportunities available for schooling in a cross-cultural setting, let alone the pros and cons of each method. Yet, for many TCKs, their experiences in school dramatically shape how they view their childhood and whether they look back on it with joy or regret. Because making the right choice for schooling is so crucial for TCKs, we want to look at this issue in depth.

  As we mentioned earlier, before parents accept any cross-cultural assignment, it’s important they ask the sponsoring organization about its current educational opportunities and policies. These can vary greatly from one group to another. Few, if any, agencies now require families to send children to a boarding school as in the past. But there may be other written or nonwritten expectations: Are parents expected to homeschool the children? Are all children required to attend the local international school? Are they likely to attend a local school?

  Once parents know the answers to these questions, they must decide whether the organization’s policies will or won’t accommodate their children’s educational needs. If a family feels that an agency’s policy won’t work well for them, they are generally better off to seek a career with another sponsor or corporation rather than try to force the organization to change its policy—or perhaps worse, to compromise the family’s needs.

  If parents discover an organization gives complete freedom of choice to its employees regarding their children’s schooling, there are still important questions to ask: What, in fact, are the available options? What language and curriculum do local national schools use? What language and curriculum does the local international school use? Who will pay for the extra costs of schooling (including travel expenses for children attending school in other countries to come back for vacations), since some options are very expensive?

  Making the Best Choice

  There is no perfect schooling formula that guarantees a happy outcome for all TCKs. There are, however, some underlying principles about the educational process that can help parents make the best choices possible.

  Some parents fear taking their children into a cross-cultural setting because they believe their children will miss out on too many educational opportunities offered in the home country. But the educational process for any child includes more than school; it includes all learning, in every dimension of a person’s life. Everyone acquires information and masters skills by a variety of formal and informal means.

  One great advantage TCKs have is the wealth of learning opportunities available to them from their travels, cross-cultural interactions, and the third culture experience itself. When TCKs move through the suk in Sanaa, eat in an Indian friend’s home in Mumbai, or watch a murky brown river flow through the greenery of a Brazilian or Vietnamese jungle, they are learning in the most dynamic way of all—through the five senses. This hands-on education in geography, history, basic anthropology, social studies, and language acquisition is a great benefit of the TCK experience and more than replaces some of the deficits in equipment or facilities that might be present in an overseas school.

  Parents must also remember that in terms of preparing their children for life, they themselves are the primary educators. Schools can’t substitute for the home in building values, developing healthy attitudes, and motivating children in positive directions.

  Brian Hill, professor of education at Murdoch University in Australia, suggests seven basic outcomes parents in cross-cultural settings should look for from their children’s educational experience. The experience should enable them to maintain a stable and positive self-image while learning new things; acquire survival skills appropriate to their own culture; identify and develop their personal creative gifts; gain access to the major fields of human thought and experience; become aware of the dominant worldviews and value orientations influencing their social world; develop the capacity to think critically and choose responsibly; and develop empathy, respect, and a capacity for dialogue with other persons, including those whose primary beliefs differ from their own.2 Note that this list is another way of looking at how a child can develop a strong and healthy sense of personal identity. Parents should evaluate a school in terms of how well it will help meet these larger goals of the educational process.

  EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHIES DIFFER AMONG CULTURES

  Parents must examine the total approach to education in any system of schooling, not merely the academics. Styles of discipline, teaching, and grading can vary widely from one culture to another. These differences can have an enormous impact on children. Those who always make straight As and a few Bs in one system are devastated when they suddenly bring home mostly Cs with only one or two Bs after
they switch school systems. In Britain, 50 percent is passing, 70s and 80s are considered great, and scores in the 90s are practically unheard of. In the United States, 50 percent is failure, but As are given to those with 94 percent and higher. An American child going to a British school can panic when she sees these lower marks. She knows if her transcript is filled with 70s and 80s and it is sent to universities in the U.S. Without interpretation, she may never be admitted.

  Corporal punishment is a common practice in certain places, while it would be unthinkable in others. Some school systems stress learning by rote. Others use only problem-based learning, where students must personally seek out the answers to each assignment. In some cultures discussion and other forms of student participation are encouraged, or even required. In others, this type of behavior is considered disrespectful.

  In one Western-based international school, Asian children told their parents the American teachers didn’t know anything about the subjects they were teaching. The parents asked to talk with the principal about his incompetent staff. In the end, it turned out that when the Asian students asked questions, the teachers would often ask them in return, “What do you think?” or “how would you work this out?” The teachers believed they were trying to teach their students how to think, not only to give rote answers. The Asian students and parents felt if the teacher knew the information, they wouldn’t have asked the question. After all, it was the teacher’s job to impart knowledge. For them, amassing information was the key ingredient required for a good education. When teachers asked students questions, it seemed to the Asian parents that these teachers were playing games rather than educating their children.

  Ways of motivating students vary from culture to culture too. In some places, external methods are emphasized. Homework is assigned and graded each day. Every six weeks parents are notified of their child’s progress, or lack thereof. Instant rewards and punishments are the major means of encouraging students in these systems. Other school systems rely far more on internal motivation. Students are assumed to be responsible for their own learning, daily homework is neither assigned nor checked, and class attendance is optional. Only the final exam matters.

  We have seen this single difference between motivational philosophies cause great consternation for TCKs and their families. When a student who is used to doing homework assignments every night goes to a school with no daily assignments, he or she often has trouble knowing how to organize the study time necessary to cover the assigned work before the end of the semester. Parents may wonder why their child seems to go out socializing every night with seemingly little regard for school work. Since, however, no reports come home to tell them otherwise, they presume all is well. Only when the final exam comes and the TCK fails do they—or their child—know something is wrong.

  Conversely, a student who is used to working independently may see no reason to do the daily homework assignments; they seem trivial. Perhaps he or she also sees no reason to attend class regularly; studying in the library seems more important. Only when the first reports come home with failing grades does it become clear that things like homework and class attendance matter in this new setting.

  In considering a particular school, parents must ask for an explanation of the philosophy of education, the methods of teaching, and the policy toward discipline and then decide if this school is a good match for their child. Even when an educational option seems like a good one from the parents’ view or has been great for other children in the same family, some of these differences in the philosophical or psychological approaches to education can cause enough stress for a particular TCK that a change to a school with a different method of teaching is justified.

  SCHOOL TEACHES MORE THAN ACADEMIC SUBJECTS

  School is one of the principal means whereby one generation communicates its culture and its values to the next. As long as everyone comes from the same culture, we hardly notice this process and what’s taught is accepted as “right.”

  In international schools the transmission of cultural values and expectations takes place as it does in any other school, because there is no such thing as value-free education. The difference is that teachers and peers, who come from many countries and cultures, along with the curriculum itself, may represent value systems that vary markedly from that of the parents of any given TCK. Parents who forget this are often surprised to discover that the cultural values and behaviors of their children’s teachers and peers have influenced their children far more or in different ways than expected.

  One Korean father told us how shocked he was during an exchange with his son. The son had attended an American-oriented school in an Asian country. As the Korean community in that country grew, they started their own school. The Korean parents believed the American school wasn’t preparing their children to take the exams necessary for them to continue school in Korea. They also felt their children were forgetting Korean culture.

  When the father told his son he would soon be changing schools, the son refused. “No, I’m not. I’ve attended the American school all my life, my friends are there, and I’m going to graduate from there.”

  This conversation distressed the father—not because his son refused the improved educational opportunity, but because he dared to disobey. “When I was my son’s age, I would never have considered resisting my father,” he said. “No matter what I felt, I would have obeyed without question.”

  For good or ill, educating this Korean student in a school based on the American values of independence, free speech, and individualism had deeply affected a family’s cultural heritage.

  SCHOOLING SHOULD NOT MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR THE CHILD TO RETURN TO THE HOME COUNTRY

  Many children, particularly those whose mother tongue is not English, face even more cultural influences and differences in curriculum in their educational process than the historical Western-based international school student of the past. In those days, most TCKs were Westerners from English-speaking countries attending English-speaking schools. Now this has changed. The new degree of cultural layering can make it extremely difficult—or even impossible—for some TCKs to return to the educational system in their home country. But it isn’t only the difference in school systems or curriculum that can pose problems.

  Judith Gjoen, a Dutch tck from Indonesia, was educated in American schools in Malaysia and now lives with her Norwegian husband in Oslo. She is a practicing counselor who has expressed particular concern about TCKs who return to their passport culture wanting to continue their education but lack proficiency or confidence in using their mother tongue. A young woman from a Nordic country observed that her speaking, reading, and writing ability in her mother tongue was fine for home and social use, but her school language was English, the language of her high school education. She finally had to pursue her university education in the United States. This, of course, further alienated her from her home country.

  Parents, educators, and agency administrators have a responsibility to provide the opportunity for TCKs to learn their native language so that they have the option of returning to their passport country for further formal education and settling down there, if that’s what they choose. As mentioned earlier, the International School of the Hague has begun special after-school groups for many of the mother tongues represented in their multinational school population. After they have identified the various languages present in their school and faculty population, they pair up teachers or other students with new students who share their language to help during their orientation and transition into the school community. Other schools are beginning to take more proactive roles in trying to help students be able to return to a local school when they repatriate.

  However, there’s another potential barrier to TCKs acquiring fluency in their own language. Sometimes the TCKs themselves resist. Children want to be like their peers. If everyone else around is speaking French, why take more time away from socializing or be labeled as different just to lear
n another language? School-age children are not able to look ahead to long-term consequences. Most don’t think about life after secondary school. Parents and educators need to be sensitive to this possibility and try to help their TCKs see how learning their own language is an expansion of their world rather than a limitation. One added bonus for the mother tongue program at the International School of the Hague is that this approach makes learning a mother tongue not only something to be valued, but also something that is normal.

  Different Schooling Choices Are Available

  Having said all of this about what education is, one fact remains: school is, in fact, important; it’s the place where we learn things that can’t be assimilated by pure observation. We do need to learn how to read and write; we do need to know the history of our world and country if we are to learn from and build on the past; we do need to know how atoms and molecules work if scientific research is to continue. The question then is, “Which type of schooling is best for my child?” The next question is, “Which of our options best fit those criteria?” Answering these questions usually results in a pretty good fit for the student’s needs. Parents can then make intelligent, informed, and sensitive decisions about the schools, and then monitor the school experience and decide if it is a good one for their child.