THE FAMILY TABLE
Hosted by the Teaching and Learning Collaborative (TLC) and the Karen Organization of San Diego (KOSD), The Family Table was a STEAM-centered (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math) summer program that brought together refugee students and families from Burma (Myanmar). Facilitated hands-on work students did during this summer program resulted in a culminating exhibit that celebrated learning, heritage, and the everyday acts of connection that happen around the family table.
Teaching and Learning Collaborative
A team of professional educators committed to transforming education through equity, creativity, and community collaboration. TLC designs programs, learning spaces, and professional development opportunities that center marginalized students’ brilliance and honor the knowledge families and communities bring to the table.
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TLC partners with schools and community organizations to create culturally sustaining, asset-based learning experiences that empower newcomer, refugee, and housing-insecure youth to thrive not only academically but socially and emotionally.
Karen Organization of
San Diego
A grassroots community-based organization founded by Karen refugees and allies, KOSD supports refugee families from Burma (Myanmar) as they build new lives in San Diego. Rooted in cultural preservation and mutual care, KOSD advances educational, civic, and economic opportunities while honoring the traditions and histories of its diverse community.
Through language and culture classes, youth programs, and partnerships with local organizations, KOSD nurtures intergenerational learning and belonging, ensuring that refugee knowledge and heritage remain central to community life.
The Summer Program
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TLC × KOSD partnership over 5 years.
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Focus on STEAM themes, hands-on projects, and language/culture classes.
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High school interns as mentors and cultural/linguistic bridges.
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Through language and culture classes, youth programs, and partnerships with local organizations, KOSD nurtures intergenerational learning and belonging, ensuring that refugee knowledge and heritage remain central to community life.Through language and culture classes, youth programs, and partnerships with local organizations, KOSD nurtures intergenerational learning and belonging, ensuring that refugee knowledge and heritage remain central to community life.Through language and culture classes, youth programs, and partnerships with local organizations, KOSD nurtures intergenerational learning and belonging, ensuring that refugee knowledge and heritage remain central to community life.
The Family Table Theme
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Who is at your family table?
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What is on your family table?
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What do you eat at your family table?
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What other activities do you do at your family table?
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How do you welcome people to your family table?
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The kinds of projects students made...
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the exhibition culminated in one long community table- a literal and symbolic space of belonging :')
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Through language and culture classes, youth programs, and partnerships with local organizations, KOSD nurtures intergenerational learning and belonging, ensuring that refugee knowledge and heritage remain central to community life.Through language and culture classes, youth programs, and partnerships with local organizations, KOSD nurtures intergenerational learning and belonging, ensuring that refugee knowledge and heritage remain central to community life.Through language and culture classes, youth programs, and partnerships with local organizations, KOSD nurtures intergenerational learning and belonging, ensuring that refugee knowledge and heritage remain central to community life.
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Program logistics/pedagogy
How were the themes developed collaboratively with KOSD?
How do the teachers at TLC prepare for working in multilingual, refugee-centered classrooms?
What kinds of STEAM or arts-based projects did students create?
How does TLC assess or reflect on learning outcomes (academic, social/emotional, cultural)?
The Culminating Event
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Held at PANA in City Heights.
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Included performances, songs, dances, traditional clothing.
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Families, elders, and children together
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Why It Matters
Make CRS connections​ clear / goals for this page
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Family Table as a model for community centered and refugee rooted/oriented education
How/what happens when learning, culture, and belonging can intertwine for refugee youth and families.
The collaborative infrastructure (teachers, interns, families, and organizations) that makes this possible.
Frame:
Refugee epistemologies
Intergenerational learning
Education beyond the classroom
Caren quote: “It was a striking example of how education and community can come together to do powerful, beautiful work.”
Follow up Q's for Caren:​
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High school interns:
Who are the high-school interns?
How are they recruited? Are they trained?
What do they gain from this experience?
Any memorable stories from their mentorship of younger students?
How does The Family Table challenge traditional boundaries between school and home/community?
What forms of knowledge (recipes, memories, language, art) circulate in these spaces that are often overlooked by formal schooling?
How do youth and families teach each other? What intergenerational dynamics emerged?
​How might programs like this exemplify refugee teaching (teaching that emerges from refugee life rather than simply being about refugees?)​​
