It’s a small booklet–only 22 pages–but “An Educator’s Guide to Adoption” can change children’s lives.
The booklet is put out by Celebrate Adoption, a Wheaton, Md.-based non-profit volunteer organization that tries to promote a greater understanding of adoption through education and media advocacy.
“The main thrust is to normalize adoption and give the classroom teacher the tools to deal with adoption,” says Susan Saidman, the group’s executive director.
The booklet offers brief overviews of the history and the image of adoption, and gives the teachers ideas of what they can do in the classroom to help adopted children. (How many teachers have students research family trees? And children are often asked to bring in baby pictures of themselves. Assignments such as those can be impossible for children who were adopted.)
Saidman also points out that other ideas in the guide–the notion of acceptance, for example–can also be applied to non-traditional families.
Parents, teachers or schools can purchase the guide for $7.50 (less if more than 10 are ordered) from Celebrate Adoption Inc., P.O. Box 2213, Silver Spring, Md., 20915, or by e-mailing Saidman at susaid1@@aol.com or through the group’s Web site (www.celebrateadoption.org).
