The children of these adult refugees don’t struggle as much with technical skills as their parents do because they attend American schools with access to technology.
Access can be a barrier to inclusion
Lack of digital access can hamper refugees in many ways. An Australian study found that the lack of tech skills and access to technology affected refugees’ ability to integrate into their new communities.
Communication comes in many varieties
There are many slang terms, acronyms, idioms and confusing words like “mouse” rapidly thrown at these new arrivals.
We found a universal language using memes. Often dismissed as trivial and silly, memes can communicate across cultures. The image paired with a caption can immediately convey a message or feeling.
Creating global collaborators
Many refugees have lived in multiple countries, speak many languages and have family members living overseas. A hallmark of being a global collaborator, as outlined in the ISTE Standards for Students, is using digital tools to connect with learners from a variety of backgrounds and cultures, engaging with them in ways that broaden mutual understanding and learning.
Resources for teaching refugees
If you have refugees in your classroom, here are some organizations that offer resources you can incorporate into classroom settings.
The Wonderment. This nonprofit connects students from all around the world in collaborative service projects.
UNICEF. This global organization has up-to-date reports on the refugee and migrant crisis as well as ways you can get involved.
International Rescue Committee. This nonprofit helps refugees resettle in their community as well as provide both international and local resources.
Carrie Rogers-Whitehead is an ISTE member and CEO of Digital Respons-Ability. Her company teaches digital citizenship to refugees and she plans to publish findings about this work
“The reason we are inundated by culturally alien [kulturfremden] peoples such as Arabs, Sinti and Roma etc. is the systematic destruction of civil society as a possible counterweight to the enemies-of-the-constitution by whom we are ruled. These pigs are nothing other than puppets of the victor powers of the Second World War….” Thus begins a 2013 personal e-mail from Alice Weidel, who in this autumn’s pivotal German election was one of two designated “leading candidates” of the Alternative für Deutschland (hereafter AfD or the Alternative). The chief “pig” and “puppet” was, of course, Angela Merkel.
Xenophobic right-wing nationalism—in Germany of all places? The very fact that observers express surprise indicates how much Germany has changed since 1945. These days, we expect more of Germany than of ourselves. For, seen from one point of view, this is just Germany partaking in the populist normality of our time, as manifested in the Brexit vote in Britain, Marine le Pen’s Front National in France, Geert Wilders’s blond beastliness in the Netherlands, the right-wing nationalist-populist government in Poland, and Trumpery in the US.
Like all contemporary populisms, the German version exhibits both generic and specific features. In common with other populisms, it denounces the current elites (Alteliten in AfD-speak) and established parties (Altparteien) while speaking in the name of the Volk, a word that, with its double meaning of people and ethno-culturally defined nation, actually best captures what Trump and Le Pen mean when they say “the people.”
Like other populists, Germany’s attack the mainstream media (Lügenpresse, the “lying press”) while making effective use of social media. On the eve of the election, the Alternative had some 362,000 Facebook followers, compared with the Social Democrats’ 169,000 and just 154,000 for Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
Tiresomely familiar to any observer of Trump, Brexit, or Wilders is the demagogic appeal to emotions while playing fast and loose with facts. In Amann’s account, the predominant emotion here is Angst.
For eight of the last twelve years, Germany has been governed by a so-called Grand Coalition of Christian Democrats—Merkel’s CDU in a loveless parliamentary marriage with the more conservative Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU)—and Social Democrats. This has impelled disgruntled voters toward the smaller parties and the extremes. The effect has been reinforced by Merkel’s woolly centrist version of Margaret Thatcher’s TINA (There Is No Alternative), perfectly captured in the German word alternativlos (without alternatives). It’s no accident that this protest party is called the Alternative.
Libraries supporting social inclusion for refugees and immigrants
UNESCO emphasizes the importance of social inclusion for international
migrants and encourages cities and local governments to “ensure social rights
for migrants to adequate housing, education, health and social care, welfare
and decent standard of living according to basic needs such as food, energy
and water.” Libraries can play an important role in helping new arrivals
acclimate and thrive in a new community.
Do you have a story to share about how your library, on its own or in
collaboration with community organizations, is providing social services and
support for refugees and immigrants? Do you have advice on creating successful
programming to support refugees and immigrants?
Proposal to the SCSU library administration:
Good afternoon,
I will be submitting a proposal about my individual work in that area:
In the fall of 2015, I organized a campus-wide meeting, including St. Cloud community members, on refugees and migrants, by inviting one Syrian and one Somali refugees:
I also reached out across campus (e.g. Dan Wildeson with the Holocaust Center, Geoffrey Tabakin, Stephen Philion).
I organized also the online presence by delivering the personal stories of three refugees:
I also maintain a FB group for the class and in conjunction with the blog (you need to request permission to enter the FB group): https://www.facebook.com/groups/hons221
I am formally proposing / requesting to transition my individual efforts and offering the library to support me in expanding my acitivies on this topic
Here is my rational:
If not on campus, at least in the library, I am the only refugee and for that matter an immigrant. I have the understanding and the compassion of someone, who personally have experienced the hardship of being and immigrant and refugee.
I have amounted information and experience presenting the information and engaging the audience in a discussion regarding a rather controversial (for St. Cloud) issue
I have the experience and skills to conduct such discussions both F2F and online
Based on my rational, here are activities I am proposing:
The library supports a monthly F2F meetings, where I am taking the responsibility to host students with refugee and/or migrant status and facilitate a conversation among those students and other students, faculty, staff, who would like to learn more about the topic and discuss related issues.
Library support constitutes of: e.g. necessary information willingly and actively shared at Reference and Circulation desk. Library faculty and staff willingly and actively promoting the information regarding this opportunity when occasions arise.
The library supports my campus-wide efforts to engage faculty, staff and students. Engagement includes: e.g., proposals to faculty to present in their classes on including refugees and immigrants but related to their classes; assisting students with research and bibliography on their papers related to refugees and immigrants; assisting faculty and students with presentations including refugees and immigrants etc.
Library support constitutes of: e.g. necessary information willingly and actively shared at Reference and Circulation desk. Library faculty and staff willingly and actively promoting the information regarding this opportunity when occasions arise.
