This is Jennifer Gonzalez welcoming you to episode 185 of the Cult of Pedagogy Podcast.

In this episode we'll be talking about how we can do a better job of supporting Arab-American

students.

One November morning in 2015, Soeson Jaber was in her suburban Illinois classroom preparing

for a day of teaching.

As a Palestinian-American teacher in a district with an overwhelmingly white teaching staff,

Jaber already felt out of place among her colleagues.

That feeling was underscored by what happened next.

An ISIS bombing had just struck Paris the day before, which prompted another teacher

to stop by her room that morning to ask, how do you feel about what your people did in

France yesterday? That moment, the insensitivity and ignorance of that question changed the

direction of Jaber's career.

Although she was planning to pursue a PhD in English, she could no longer ignore the

urge to use her own experiences to look more deeply into whether Arab-American students

feel a sense of belonging in schools.

Her district had seen a massive growth in its population of Arab students, but had taken

no deliberate steps to learn about what unique needs they might have or how to meet them.

Those students became the focus of her dissertation.

Every student deserves to go to a school where they feel seen and included, where their

academic and emotional needs are met, and where they can proudly share and be accepted

for their whole selves.

Because this is not the reality in most schools, equity work is still urgently needed.

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