This is part 4 of a series about family tree assignments. Beth Waggenspeck, a communications professor at Virginia Tech, an adoptive parent, and a writer about adoption issues, kindly gave me permission to repost something she wrote about the problem with family tree type assignments.

For years, I have offered those resources to teachers and will append some of them here. I will not let the teacher say "Well, your child IS part of your family tree" as the "excuse" for such an assignment. Of course Sasha and Will are mine, and the Waggenspack family history has been traced back to 1540. They're proud of their name, and the fact that they added to our family, just as people who married into it did. I have 84 first cousins, and they welcomed my kids with open arms. At the same time, Will did a report in second grade on Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, who is from his birth city, Yaroslavl. His stories are always populated by peole named Ruslan and Miska. Sasha in sixth grade took in a culture box that had Ukrainian items, words in Russian, and an Ohio State flag. Sasha took his certificate of citizenship in to 8th grade civics class. My kids know what information is private and what is public, and they're very, very aware of who they are.

But personal history assignments, especially in elementary school, usually are poorly designed, lacking sound educational objectives, and are objectionable for me on many levels BEYOND my own family situation.

As for resources, here are some. Adoptive Families is always the place to begin: http://www.adoptivefamilies.com/school/ In particular, you may want to look at the various pieces about "tricky school assignments"

I have bought copies of the Educators' Guide to Adoption (http://www.adoptioninformationinstitute.org/education.html), which is a guide to assignments, sensitivity, etc.

Here are others that I have bookmarked:

http://www.adopting.org/adoptions/of-interest-to-educators-about-
adoption-and-foster-care-children-adoptees.html
Provides several links to share with educators

http://www.kidsource.com/education/adopt.child.early.ed.html
(includes good bibliography)

http://www.adoptioninstitute.org/proed/educators.html

If you wish to contact Beth, here is the information she's shared with me:

Beth M. Waggenspack, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Director of the Undergraduate Program
Department of Communication, Virginia Tech (0311)
147 Shanks Hall
Blacksburg, VA 24061
e-mail: bwaggens@vt.edu

Here's part 1 of this series.
Here's part 2.
Here is part 3.
This is part 4.