Abstract
Safe Passage by Douglas W. Ota is a beautifully crafted and written book. The enormous strength of this book is the unique pairing of research and the human dimension, and its application of psychology to the field of transition. Grounded in research, neuroscience and attachment theory, it is a compelling and passionate call to action for international schools to establish comprehensive Transitions Programmes to meet the needs of their school communities. Ota refers to transitions across cultures as a ‘democratic stressor’ that affects everyone regardless of age, role, position or gender, whether they leave or stay behind.
In Visible Learning, the largest study of achievement in educational history, Professor John Hattie (2009) found that moving has the most disruptive influence on student learning. Ota argues that ‘mobility emerges at the very bottom of Hattie’s list because comprehensive school-based programs for handling the challenges associated with moving rarely exist’, and he offers an alternative. He contends that moving and particularly moving across cultures does not have to adversely affect learning and our ability to form healthy identities and relationships, but ‘can be one of the richest sources of learning and personal growth life has to offer’.
We need to understand the impact of international mobility with both its transitional and cultural aspects, and develop ways to manage its challenges, such as grief and loss, so we can benefit from its rich opportunities. Ota also emphasizes the importance of positive leave-taking. With heart, empathy and strong conviction, Ota argues that we have a moral and ethical responsibility to help the children in international schools to form healthy attachments, identities and relationships. We also have a shared responsibility to create caring and compassionate school communities, committed to the wellbeing of children and each other, where everyone feels safe and has a sense of belonging.
Ota rightly asks why there are so few comprehensive Transitions Programmes in international schools. He suggests several reasons, including a lack of awareness of the issues, and fear and avoidance of the powerful emotions involved. Ota’s purpose in writing this book is to motivate a broad range of readers from all walks of life in an international school community to become involved in establishing comprehensive transitions programs at their respective schools, and to empower these readers with the tools to develop programs that both work and last.
In addition to a compassionate response to the challenges of moving, Ota sees the potential for Transitions Programmes to help develop empathy and intercultural competence, and to help the globally mobile Third Culture Kids (TCKs) who attend international schools to use their unique experiences to make a positive difference in our world. Through memoir, story and illustrative examples, Ota helps the reader understand the social and emotional impact of international mobility on all members of the school community – students, parents and staff, including administrators – who are at different times leavers, stayers and arrivers in the transition cycle. He skilfully weaves the key concepts he addresses throughout the work, and returns to them to reinforce their importance and their impact on human lives and emotions.
Ota takes us on a personal journey through the world of international mobility. As we travel with him, we are given the unique opportunity of sharing in his life experiences while we are invited to reflect on and understand our own, and those of others in our school communities. He draws on his knowledge, expertise and personal and professional experience as High School Counselor at the American School of The Hague, and currently as a psychologist in private practice, to guide us in establishing comprehensive and sustainable Transitions Programmes to support all members of the school community. In an engaging, accessible and personal style, Ota uses a nautical metaphor to illustrate the effects of transition and the safe harbour schools can provide for all to thrive in transition.
Transition and international mobility are distinctive features of international schools, and a body of literature and research has grown up around the topic of TCKs since the last part of the 20th century. Dr Barbara Schaetti (1998) first proposed the idea of forming Transitions Resource Teams in 1996. Doug Ota was one of the pioneers in starting Transitions Programmes in international schools in the late 1990s, and his work and that of his colleagues in establishing the Safe Harbour programme at the American School of The Hague is an inspiration to us all.
The book is divided into three distinct parts. Part I presents compelling reasons to establish a comprehensive Transitions Programme. Ota suggests that attachment theory provides a positive framework for the issues involved in viewing and talking about mobility across cultures. Attachment theory posits that we seek attachment to trusted individuals in order to feel safe and secure. Ota asserts that adults as well as children need safe attachments to a community, and that people in transition are looking for a community to attach to. He suggests that international schools become the ‘transitional objects’ for those in transition, and he highlights the importance of their role in helping children develop healthy working models of attachment. Through neuroscience, he describes the physiological effects of mobility when it is not well managed. He discusses the importance of authoring and sharing our life stories, as well as our human need for connection, and the need to be seen and understood.
Having established compelling reasons why international schools should establish comprehensive transitions programmes, Ota devotes Part II to building and sustaining such a programme. He describes the process of planning the programme, creating and successfully launching the team and sustaining the team, and explains the structure and best components of the Safe Harbour programme. Ota presents four visual metaphors, which when considered together help us understand the complexity and dynamics of the transition cycle. Collectively, they represent the three populations (students, parents, staff), the three ‘emotional vectors’ or states (arriver, stayer, leaver) and the three phases of the academic year (beginning, middle, end) that need to be considered in planning a Transitions Programme. Ota stresses the importance of making sure that schools support their members who arrive or leave at non-traditional times during the school year.
The book provides comprehensive guidelines for successfully creating and launching a Transitions Team, ensuring that the team is representative of the cultures and constituents of the school. A separate chapter is allocated to sustaining the Transitions Team, which underscores the importance of planning for the longevity of the Transitions Programme. The reasons Transition Teams falter and often fail after an enthusiastic start are outlined, and here, we benefit from the breadth of the author’s experience. Ota presents the exemplary Transitions Programme, Safe Harbour. He describes the structure of the programme and ways in which the school provides for students, parents and staff in the arrival, staying and leaving phases. He presents its best components. Of particular note are Student Ambassadors, Food For Thought, the Culture Committee and Empty Nesters. He has intentionally chosen not to provide specific protocols as he recognizes that the culture of each school is unique, and that when people shape their own programme, it will not only reflect their school’s culture; they will have greater ownership and investment in it.
Admittedly, Ota’s work reflects Western/US American culture, and it seems that responses to the challenges of international mobility in collectivist cultures would be an interesting and important area of research to explore in order to ensure we are meeting the needs of all cultures within the school. I believe that a natural extension of Ota’s work is for teachers to integrate transition education (Rader and Sittig, 2003) into their existing curriculum in the classroom, and for schools to go beyond events such as International Day to embed the languages and cultures of the school in all they do. When teachers and administrators see transitions as valued, students will see them as important as well.
Part III explores three ways of assessing the effectiveness of comprehensive transitions programmes. Ota applies the construct of cognitive-behavioural therapy and has designed a Transitions Passport that could be used to help individuals assess their actions, feelings and thoughts through all phases of the mobility cycle, as a self-assessment and assessment of the school. He provides a useful rubric for the Transitions Team to use in assessing the Transitions Programme overall, acknowledging that further work needs to be done to establish evaluation measures for Transitions Programmes and suggesting these as a good place to start. He encourages the development of a network of international schools with established comprehensive Transitions Programmes which would ensure that we are sending and receiving students, parents and staff with the knowledge, skills and attitudes they need to thrive in transition. According to International Schools Consultancy (ISC, 2014), the number of international schools will increase from 7200 in 2014 to over 12,000 by 2024, suggesting an even greater need for establishing comprehensive Transitions Programmes. The book’s appendices include eloquent and moving Messages in a Bottle. These are personal letters Ota has written to each constituent of the school community and model the language we can use ourselves when discussing transitions issues within our schools. He also includes Council of International Schools (CIS) Accreditation Standards and proposed additions that address Mobility Across Cultures.
In this book, Ota has succeeded in taking the complexity of human emotions and the dynamics of international mobility and helping us to understand them, their impact on our lives and the ways we can help each other and ourselves to thrive in transition, and in life. As we consider current and future trends in international schools there are however a number of important considerations. In The Changing Landscape of International Schools: Implications for theory and practice, Tristan Bunnell (2014) notes two significant changes in international schools which have implications for developing Transitions Programmes. An increasing proportion are now for-profit schools and growing numbers serve a largely local (as opposed to globally mobile) community. Further investigation is therefore needed for international schools to consider the needs, roles and recognition of long-term stayers, the Educational Cross-Cultural Kids identified by Ruth Van Reken (Pollock and Van Reken, 2009), who will not be the leavers one day. One challenge we face in international schools with high numbers of local students is finding ways to integrate these students and their parents into the life of the school so everyone benefits from the international school experience. It is also important that the increasing number of commercial groups and proprietors have an understanding of and commitment to addressing the issues of international mobility.
I recommend this book to all school stakeholders and to human resource managers. It is also a valuable resource for pre- and in-service teacher training programmes and school-based professional development, and could be helpfully integrated into the secondary school curriculum for students. Safe Passage is essential reading for any school community as we seek to increase human empathy in our world.