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.
​
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 and schools, KOSD supports refugee learning and belonging in San Diego through civic engagement, coalition building, and economic development programming.
The Summer Program
Every summer since 2021, TLC and KOSD have partnered together to develop education-based summer programs for youth in KOSD’s community of refugees from Burma (Myanmar). Supported through the San Diego Unified School District’s Level Up initiative and the San Diego Foundation, the program offers TK–6th grade students (4-12 year olds) the opportunity to explore science, technology, reading, engineering, arts, and math (STREAM) through hands-on and culturally-sustaining projects. KOSD members and high school interns provide the cultural and linguistic knowledge needed to support these youth, while TLC Teaching Consultants and Program Assistants contribute their experience in student-centered, inclusive pedagogy. Together, they co-create community building programming and curriculum that center heritage languages and cultures.​
​
Each summer centers a specific theme— past years have explored … [give examples]. In every case, the classroom transforms into sites of shared learning, where refugee youth are able to advance their learning in STREAM subjects while centering the knowledge, cultures, and communities that they come from.
The Family Table Theme
In the summer of 2024, the program included a cooking and gardening component that turned out to be very popular with the youth and their families. The organizers decided to build on this success by centering their 2025 summer programing around a “Family Table” theme.
​
TLC teachers worked alongside students and KOSD members to consider and develop projects around the following questions:
-
Who is at your family table?
-
What is on your family table?
-
What do you eat at your family table?
-
What other activities do you do at your family table?
-
How do you welcome people to your family table?
TLC teachers facilitated hands-on activities that focused on familial, culinary, community, and school-related activities that happen around the family table. “The direct connection to the students' experiences at the Family Table was very meaningful. Traditions, lineage, history, recipes, and more emerged organically from the hands-on projects,” says Caren Holtzman, Executive Director of TLC.
​
This year, the program was hosted at The Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans (PANA) in City Heights. “It was a true collaboration between TLC, PANA, and KOSD to transform the space into a learning environment for youth and to bring together such a rich and meaningful program. The program was a striking example of how "education" and "community" can come together to do powerful, beautiful work,” she adds.
​
The students’ work came together to form one long community table at the culminating celebration (see right). This table acted as a visual centerpiece of collective learning and multigenerational storytelling.
The Culminating Event
​Alongside this programming, KOSD staff also facilitated language and cultural classes for students. This programming is especially important for young refugees, many of whom were born in refugee camps or outside of Burma. It helps sustain their cultural and community connections while navigating displacement. During these sessions, students learned about Karen and Burmese languages, songs, dances, traditional clothing, and games.
The culminating event was intergenerational, bringing together students, parents, grandparents, members of the Karen community, and broader refugee community members connected to KOSD.
In addition to the Family Table installation, the exhibit featured performances by the students based on the Karen and Burmese traditions that they had learned about with KOSD organizers. “Parents and grandparents were extremely moved by seeing and hearing their youth carry on the language and culture” says Holtzman.
The celebration demonstrated how learning, culture, and community are inseparable in refugee-centered educational spaces.
Why It Matters
“It was a striking example of how education and community can come together to do powerful, beautiful work,” Holtzman told us.
The summer program, and the Family Table theme in particular, is a powerful model for community-centered education. The theme could not have occurred without iterative feedback from the community that the summer program aims to support. It also illustrates what becomes possible through collaborative infrastructures for education. Teachers, families, community organizers, and youth from the Burmese community all worked together to make it happen. The teaching expertise of TLC educators, alongside the cultural and linguistic expertise of KOSD staff and insight from student families allowed them to create culturally responsive curriculums for STREAM subjects by integrating home languages, home stories and histories, recipes, and community practices like art and dance all in the same environment. By honoring this knowledge, the program demonstrates what Critical Refugee Studies called “refugee teaching”: recognizing refugee students and their families as sources of knowledge rather than problems to be solved. The learning in this summer program occurred through community-building activities rooted in the daily lives and knowledge of the community itself, rather than outside of or despite the community. Even PANA offering the program a space when existing infrastructure was cut demonstrates the importance of collaborative programming, particularly for marginalized communities whose funding and support is often at risk. The culminating family table made up by the community at large signifies that learning is a shared practice, not an individual one.
This program can also help us expand our understanding of where and how education happens. These powerful learning moments did not need to happen in traditional school spaces or through textbooks. They occurred in intergenerational community spaces. The Family Table demonstrates that education can happen in community centers, kitchens, gardens, and even gathered around a shared table.
Refugee communities carry deep knowledge shaped by movement, memory, and community. When programs make space for that knowledge, young people become teachers as well as learners.
