 Years in Education: 4-6 Middle Eastern Male Heterosexual Immigrant Film and Mass Media Community College Instructor Q: What do you have in common with your students? A: I am a product of the community college system. I emigrated to the US in 1994, and ended up in upstate NY. I was 19, nervous about being in a new country, and had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. Community college was instrumental in my life. It introduced me to many academic fields that interested me (and some that didn’t). I enjoyed philosophy, and sociology. But it was theatre that won my heart and soul. It was theatre, and the teachers who taught it, that made me believe in myself, and pushed me toward success. It is a rare occurrence when I get a student in my class who’s from the Middle East, so I don’t usually have any ethnic similarities with my students. But I have so much in common with my students. Some of them are international students, and I recognize their difficulty in navigating a system they might be unfamiliar with, a culture that may seem alien, or a language that they haven’t quite mastered yet. Some of my students don’t know what path they want to take in life, and may lack the confidence it takes to be successful. I know that feeling, and lived through many uncertain times in my life where I doubted myself. I’ve failed again and again on my way to success. Some of my students go through these times of self-doubt. I know what that feels like. I had a full time job while going to college, and I took out student loans. It was difficult to make ends meet, and pay for college at the same time. Some of my students are juggling college work, full time jobs, and kids. I know what that feels like as well. I’ve lived it. I also share a love of culture with my students. Listening to music, (event though we may listen to very different things), watching films, playing video games, watching sports, reading books, and listening to podcasts. There is so much that I have in common with my students. Community college is a wonderfully diverse arena that brings people from all walks of life together. It is a manifestation of what America looks like. If we listen hard enough, the similarities are deafening. Q: Does it matter that students and teachers have things in common? A: This question gives me pause. Because we all have things in common with our students and teachers. The question is how much are we willing to look for them? It’s important for a student to see part of themselves in their teacher. It strengthens the personal bonds, and make it easier to succeed. The best teachers I remember where the ones who truly cared. I had a teacher in grad school who took the time to read Thomas Friedman’s “From Beirut to Jerusalem” in order to understand my background, and what I and my family may have gone through before arriving in the US. That meant the world to me, and made me want to work harder. Because I knew that she cared. She showed me that even though we come from very different backgrounds, we both shared a sense of curiosity, empathy, and that longing for human connection. A racial similarity with my students is an easy one to find. But I like to look for other similarities. And once I find them, learning and teaching become more enjoyable, and more meaningful. In addition to being a teacher at Everett Community College, Zaki is also Humanities Washington's Program Director where he oversees the Think & Drink and Speakers Bureau programs which are held across the state in partnership with libraries, museums, schools, historical societies, bars and wineries, and more. Connect with Zaki on Twitter @ZakiSeapod and find his Humanities Washington events at Humanities.org. Photo (c) 2017 Kristin Leong 
0 Comments
 Years in Education: 20+
Black + White Straight Male Former K-12 Teacher Current Hip Hop, Sports Culture, and Intercultural Communications Professor Q: What do you have in common with your students? A: One commonality I share with my students is the relationship of learning that flows freely between us. The student-teacher dynamic is sometimes viewed through a didactic, one-way lens which suggests classroom learning runs in a single direction: from teacher to student. As someone who has literally taught all levels from kindergarten to graduate school over the course of 25 years in the field, I can say without hesitation that I’ve learned far more from those students than they could have ever learned from me. Being a black male kindergarten teacher in the 1990s, I may have seemed like a unicorn to public schools, but at Zion Preparatory Academy I was just one of a number of African American men working in K-5 classrooms. Lessons from both the personal and pedagogic relationships with those 5 and 6 year-olds, which included the intentional building of “academic self-esteem,” have helped make me the teacher I am today. Another thing we have in common is a desired outcome of success. While I have seen very few, if any, students who truly did not want to be successful, I have come across a number of teachers who, either by theory or practice, express expectations and a professional cynicism which amounts to removing the wings from an airplane then expecting it to fly. The argument that these negative attitudes on the part of the teacher can be subconscious does not minimize the damage done, and in fact only emphasizes the need to practice rigorous and regular professional introspection. A genuine expectation of success, even if it is not achieved by all, still allows students to operate within a context of authentic teacher investment. Q: Does it matter that students and teachers have things in common? A: Yes, it does. The follow-up question is: What are those things? For example, much has been made about the relatively low numbers of teachers of color in the United States. However, I’ve seen firsthand that being a person of color is not an automatic qualifier to be an effective teacher for students of color. On the flip side, I have also witnessed proof that being white does not automatically disqualify one from effectively educating students of color. In all cases it is the educational professional’s responsibility to initiate and nurture ties with students, which then can provide the proper foundation for relationship scaffolding. Daudi Abe is a Seattle-based professor, writer, and historian who has taught and written about culture, race, gender, education, communication, hip-hop, and sports for over 20 years. He has appeared on national media such as MSNBC and The Tavis Smiley Show. His forthcoming book is Emerald Street: A History of Hip-Hop in Seattle. Learn more about Dr. Abe at drdaudiabe.com. Photo (c) 2017 Kristin Leong |
ROLL CALLHumanizing the gaps separating teachers and students. Archives
October 2019
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed