Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

Welcome, advocates, to another episode of the Leading Equity podcast, a podcast that focuses on supporting educators with the tools and resources necessary to ensure equity at their schools. Today's special guest is Miss, is it doctor or Miss? I should have asked you that before.

Abeer Shinnawi:

Miss.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

Okay.

Abeer Shinnawi:

I don't have my doctorate yet. My mom is hounding me for it.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Right. Well, I should have asked you that ahead of time, but today's-

Abeer Shinnawi:

That's all right.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

... special guest is Miss Abeer Shinnawi. Without further ado, Abeer, thank you so much for joining us today.

Abeer Shinnawi:

Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

Well, I'm excited to talk about this. We have a lot of stuff happening within various countries. There's a lot of, I would say, there are new Americans coming in to our country, which means a lot of our young folks, our students are coming into our schools as well. So I wanted to talk about immigration and some stats that I've come across with you sharing the Reimagining Migration. But before we get into that, I would love for you to share a little bit about yourself and what you currently do.

Abeer Shinnawi:

Okay. Again, thank you for having me on the show, Dr. Sheldon. I'll give you that one. There was an interesting Twitter conversation that was on yesterday. So I had that in mind. So I'm actually a child of immigrants. I'm first-generation. A lot of people don't know I was actually born in Virginia, but I don't claim it, but I grew up on the South Side of Chicago. If anybody knows anything about the south side of Chicago and its suburbs, it is, I think, one of the largest Palestinian populations in the country, they also call it Little Palestine. So I grew up there. My family still lives there, one of six kids, very typical Palestinian family. We actually have three boys and three girls. I'm the second girl, so I don't know if you'd consider me a middle child, and I grew up there.

               It was a great place to live and to explore, but at the same time, it felt very sheltered. So that has its pros and cons, especially like me going to an all-girls Muslim school, which was equivalent to a Catholic school, but it was for just girls. I think it was the first of its kind in the country. I grew up there, but then got married and then moved to Maryland. I'm in Maryland right now for over 20 something years, and I have a background in education. I love middle school, always taught middle school social studies. People think we're special people, and we are, but it's special place to be. That's where kids, you can really get them and it's really the crossroads. I always say people spend either way too much time on their kids in elementary school, and then a lot of time in high school, because they want to go to college, we neglect the middle school people, and that's really where it's at.

               I taught there, been a teacher for 18 plus years. I loved it, and then went into the office of social studies and did curriculum writing. So my background is really all in education, which I love, and I love teaching. I still do. I still love being around students, and currently my role is associate director of program for a non-profit located in Boston titled Reimagining Migration, been with them for about a year plus. Right now, loving the job. I'm in charge of all things programming dealing with our organization, which does focus on immigrant migrant youth origins, but also the history of immigration migration in this country, which a lot of people think they know how to teach about, but don't really know how to teach about it. It's either they hyper focus on particular groups or ignore other groups or get really scared of how to teach it. I like how you said new Americans coming and that's always the topic of the question, what makes an American as well? So that's my life in a nutshell.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

Well, okay. Okay. I like this. First of all, I'm a secondary dude and I was history/social studies, middle school, that's my bread and butter.

Abeer Shinnawi:

Isn't it?

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

I love middle school-

Abeer Shinnawi:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). yes.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

It does get neglected. I remember I'm used to telling people, "Yeah, I teach sixth, seventh and eighth grade geography, social studies and history," and all that stuff and people are like, "Oh man, I don't know how you do it," but I loved it, because the kids weren't taller than me and the relationships were just, to me, they were a lot easier for me to connect with a lot of the kids at the middle school level as opposed to high school. I love high school too, and I spent time in a classroom there as well, but middle school, if I had to choose it would definitely be sixth, seventh and eighth grade. Those are my favorite kids to be around.

Abeer Shinnawi:

I agree. Yeah. I still in a relationship with some students that I've taught for the very first time. It's nice to see them leave a couple years and come back, you're like, "Are you the kid who blah, blah, blah, and now you're doing ... ?" So it's great to see their growth.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

So I used to do some PE stuff with the kids. So I used to beating them in basketball and-

Abeer Shinnawi:

I think it's ego for you more than anything else.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

Yep.

Abeer Shinnawi:

I had kids who were taller than me, so I couldn't beat them at any of that, but it couldn't get me, the sarcasm and the wittiness. When I would tell them I'm from South Side of Chicago, it was done for them by then.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

Oh yeah.

Abeer Shinnawi:

They're like, "Oh, shoot. We can't mess with her." I'm like, "Nope."

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

Yeah, those are good times. Those are good times.

Abeer Shinnawi:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

It definitely fed my ego. I thought I was really good in all kind of sports, and then someone called me, "I was like, bro, those are kids. You're a grown ass man. What are you doing? Come play me in basketball and let's talk."

Abeer Shinnawi:

Yeah.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

So you shared the reimaginingmigration.org website, and I jumped on there and the very first homepage, there's a stat in here where there's actually a couple on stats, but one, I think, stood out to me the most was this statistic here says, "Children of immigrants are 27% of school-aged youth. They are mostly invisible and often misunderstood." That one really stood out to me. So I wanted to start the conversation with, what does that mean for our educators when we're thinking about 27% of our school-aged youth, what are your thoughts?

Abeer Shinnawi:

That's rapidly growing, knowing what's going on in our school system, and what's going on around the world in general, where America becomes the beacon of the place for people to want to start a new life. It's eye-opening when you say 27%, that's a pretty hefty number, and when you're seeing at the changing demographics of a school, especially when it was once all what's the word? Homogeneous, it was one particular group and the teachers reflected it, and then all of a sudden you have this change in the demographics with students who don't reflect the school community or the teachers and vice-versa, you're at a crossroads at what the school has to do and what they want to do in order for it to become a successful school environment for all students. So our focus is to make sure that teachers and administrators and the community really dig deeper into addressing what the changes are, how they can meet those needs, and what is it that's causing them A, either not to be able to make those changes or B, how can they work around those particular changes as well?

               Because we all know, especially that the statistic you said about them being invisible or misunderstood that's very common. I think even with all of our Black and Brown kids, whether they're immigrant origin or not, they're constantly misunderstood. A lot of that comes from sometimes implicit bias, and sometimes very explicit bias. I could only speak on behalf of say, personal local immediate as a child of Palestinian immigrants, a Muslim female hijabi. When people see me, you can see the wheels turning in their head as to the perception they may have had. Then when they get to know me, it goes out the window because it's already built in, thanks to media, thanks to their own lived experiences or their lack of getting to know people who are of that background.

               So we see that it's very familiar. It's it could be very detrimental to achievement for students, especially if they're misunderstood, because when we have students who are considered newcomers, we automatically ding them because, excuse me, the deficit mindset, "Oh, they don't speak English, therefore they can't communicate." "Oh, they don't speak English, so they can't read and write." "Oh, they can't speak English, so they can't really be put with all the other students," where we don't see what those students were like in their home country. We have seen students who have been reading different philosophers and have been taking all of these chemistry classes or something that would be considered AP here, but because they don't speak "English," like that's the identifying marker, we automatically identify them in the deficit mindset.

               So what we do for Reimagining Migration, especially if people look at our learning arc, the middle piece is the most important piece because we're talking about honoring their journey, but what was life like for them prior to them coming? Did you get to know what their life was like? A lot of kids come from middle class as backgrounds, their parents are doctors or engineers, or they come from very well-learned backgrounds. Then they come here and the powers that be don't allow their parents to practice in the particular profession that they have. So when you use language as an equalizer to determine a student's status, I think it's detrimental, because you're really losing on what the students can offer in a school, which creates to the school climate and also really builds a school community.

               So I think those things are really things that have to change. I've experienced it myself when we moved to Maryland. We speak to languages at home, Arabic, and when my oldest daughter applied, they wanted to put her in L classes. For me, I was furious at the fact that they didn't want to dig deeper. They just saw another language, boom, automatically, they put them in these boxes until I really had to have an argument with the school and tell them, "You're not making any sense as to why she has to be put, because now you're also holding her back for being able to achieve." So those are all the underlying factors that people really need to look into as to what are we doing to really dig deep and get to know these newcomers and what do they have to offer, which is a lot? But just, again, we don't dig deep enough to see what they have to offer and what they can do to help build the school community.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

It's an interesting point that you brought up earlier and I'm a big person that says, "We should never penalize our kids for stuff that's out of their control." Right?

Abeer Shinnawi:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Correct.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

When we think about a lot of our, our new Americans coming in, that let's say, for example, they are escaping some sort of a traumatic event or trying to seek a better way of life. So they already have those background stories, and then they show up here and then they continue to deal with a different maybe set of trauma or a different set of feeling invisible or misunderstood, and again, looked at as less intelligent. But I think you brought up such a great point when you discussed, some of these kids, a lot of the kids come from wealthy families or at least middle class families, and then not only do the kids have to experience these type of things at this new school that they're at, but then their parents, their degrees aren't being honored.

               Their practices aren't being honored, and so they're starting over as well. So as a family unit, you're seeing kids experiencing all type of challenges and they're being misunderstood. I want to know basically what would be the starting conversation for educators who are in these situations. Again, as we're seeing more new Americans coming in, what are some of the foundational things that an educator may be a school leader, maybe a teacher who has students in their classrooms like that, what would be some of your initial things that we should consider when we're establishing a inclusive environment for our kids?

Abeer Shinnawi:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Climate surveys are always the go-to for schools, but you really have to review the climate survey and see are they asking the right questions. A really good example would be Arab students, although Arab is not a race, it's technically an ethnicity, they don't have a marker on a lot of these applications, so they come off as white.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Abeer Shinnawi:

Okay? So if they're identified as white, what happens when you have a student who may have an issue that needs to address his needs or her needs culturally, religiously, but you don't have it coming up as an identifying marker, it becomes overlooked. So climate surveys are great, but you have to ask the right questions about lived experiences, how students identify, what their backgrounds are all about. I know we're very big in schools about privacy, but we also need to humanize the factors that really make schools, that really for a lot of immigrant students and their families, the beacon and the haven of the reason why they came to this country to provide them with a really good and strong education. So if you're doing any type of climate survey, if you're doing any type of survey to get to know your students, you need to be asking the right questions and they have to be reflective of your student body.

               If you're neglecting those particular groups of student, then you're really not doing the work, it's really just checking off the box. So you need to also have the right people who know what questions to ask and how to ask the questions, and are these people willing and able to be reflective of your students needs? We're not saying every single school has to have every single teacher that identifies as their students, that would be wonderful, but in reality, it doesn't. But that doesn't mean schools and teachers can't learn more about their students. Why aren't you allowing your students to teach you? We're no longer the schools that need to be gage on the stage. You need to be that facilitator. You really need to have that reciprocal piece where you and I were talking about middle school and how much we love it, but because we've learned so much from our students, right?

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

Yeah.

Abeer Shinnawi:

So when you develop that relationship, then you're able to sit here and say, "Okay, this is the real problem that we need to tackle. How are we going to tackle it? How are we going to bring in the right people to do the work that we need to do, and how are we going to track the progress and see where we're doing really well and where we're not? Then you can continue with that growth. I think those conversations are hard for schools to have sometimes, because you have a community that may not be willing to address those needs, to admit that their demographics are changing.

               "Oh, crap. There goes to the neighborhood," all of that. So there are a lot of factors, but I think schools need to center themselves back again as the community piece that holds everything together. So I would say definitely starting with the right questions, using the right organizations, because there are a lot of them out there. Since the murder of George Floyd, we've seen all of this talk about equity, but how far have we gotten, because sometimes we're not using the right people who know how to do the work to actually do the work?

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

So there's a lot to unpack there.

Abeer Shinnawi:

Right.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

It sounds easy. I'll say this. As a former school leader myself, it sounds easy. You just need to ask the right questions, but we're living in a political climate. If you're in the United States, you're living in a political climate, but just even talking about race, talking about ethnicity, talking about any of those things, that can be a challenge. A lot of folks, or a lot of proponents and legislators and parents' boards are big on, "Oh no, no, no, no, no. Let's just stick to academics. Let's not talk about anything beyond that, because it's making my child feel bad or feel guilty and all these type of things. So it sounds easy on paper, "Oh, just ask the right questions," but then we're getting push back on those right questions, what kind of, I don't know, suggestions maybe do you have to individuals who are in those positions that could ask those right questions, but still getting pushback when it comes to having these talks about race?

Abeer Shinnawi:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). That is the question everybody always gets, right? What is the golden ticket that will get you out of that whole conversation? So what we do at Reimagining Migration, which I think is a very good start is the first question we always talk about, because people don't want to talk about immigration or migration or, "I don't have an immigrant story. I've been here 10 generations," or whatever. What is your migration story? Everybody has a story, because migration is human movement. For me, for example, moving from Chicago, just to the East Coast to Baltimore was a culture shift for me, that's a migration story. So trying to find that place where you get people comfortable enough to start the conversation, but then you start pushing them.

               Ali Noorani, who's well known for doing work in areas like Idaho and Iowa with immigration, his motto, which I love is, "We'll start where you're at, but we're not going to keep you there." That's exactly what we need to do is "Okay, we'll start where you're at. You don't want to talk about this. You don't want to discuss it. Okay. We'll start where you're at. Let's open the conversation. Well, let's talk about how addressing these needs creates those civic-minded citizens that makes our democracy strong because they're the next generation that are going to be running this country. They're the ones that are going to be the movers and shakers of this country. But also, a scoreboard don't lie, as they say. The stats are right there, the demographics are changing.

               So even if you're going to push back, how are we creating an inclusive environment as a country for everyone that makes it, because people aren't talking about, "Oh, I want to do this, because I want to make you feel bad, or I don't want to do this, because I'm pushing you out," those are the negative naysayers who are trying to push that agenda. If people really dig deeper, they'll see that when we have these conversations and when we talk about them, we're creating those civic-minded students that we really need for the next generation. It's enough that they've been through COVID. Let's talk about how they can take this and move with it where we do have a generation that's so empathetic, so sympathetic, but also they're doing things, but they also are going beyond what adults are seeing and saying, "We don't need what you're talking about. We're just going to do our own thing." So how are we also really helping people see that mindset? Again, we'll start where you're at, but we're not going to keep you there.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

We'll start where you're at and we're not going to keep you there, and I think that's a really good, important mindset to have because that's an asset-based approach as opposed to the deficit mindset where folks are like, "Oh, well, English language needs to be part. You need to be tested here ... " and was it TOEFL, or whatever, all these other different tests that are out there to work with students, which brings me to my next question, because you talked about inclusivity. Often what happens, I've seen and it's again, best intentions. We'll just assume that educators in schools are having the best intentions. But what happens when you get an influx of new students that are not part of the dominant culture, you have this thing of othering, right?

Abeer Shinnawi:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

So you have the dominant group, the main demographics, and then you have a small pocket here and there of different cultures in that ethnicities and how that impacts the kids. Again, some kids are being looked at as spokesperson. So it's like, "Oh, well tell us about your background story," and then they are the model, if you will, of anybody that's has that same identity.

Abeer Shinnawi:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

When we're talking about being inclusive, what are some ways that we can create an inclusive environment for our students without making them appear as the other, or that group of people or those kind of [crosstalk 00:20:24]

Abeer Shinnawi:

Tokenizing them, all of that.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah.

Abeer Shinnawi:

Yeah. So what we have at Reimagining Migration, which I think is a really great starting point is one of the foundations is our moving stories curriculum.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Abeer Shinnawi:

It goes back to the fact that we've had educators saying exactly what you were saying. We have an influx of Yemeni students, or we have an influx of students from Central America. We don't want to tokenize them, and we really want them to feel included, but where do we start?

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

Yeah.

Abeer Shinnawi:

So our moving stories, curriculum is a great way, and I'll send it to you for sure-

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

Sure.

Abeer Shinnawi:

... is it's a list of questions of how to get to know your students, but it equalizes the playing field because you'll pair a student who's say, a newcomer to a student who's been in the community forever and getting them to know each other. What ends up happening with students is they find a lot of commonalities, but also they appreciate their differences. So when people are able to learn from each other through dialogue and through asking, again, the right questions and you have a starting point, it really opens up the floodgates. We've worked with schools that are either small communities where the demographics of the teachers are three, four generations of predominantly either Irish or Italian teachers in that community. But now they have an influx of people who are Portuguese-speaking, Central American and Middle Eastern, but then them using our curriculum, they're able to learn from their students and their students from each other. We worked in larger cities like New York where they've used it for some of their Yemeni students. So there is a way that you could start very small.

               I think sometimes educators get in their own way by thinking, "We have to create this grandiose activity and these amazing culture fairs or something," No, start off with having those conversations and having those kids talk about what they would like to talk about and maybe things that they don't want to talk about, because there's a lot of trauma, like you said, that they do bring in. We don't want to have that resurfaced, but also allowing other kids to learn from their peers is a very powerful experience. Once that barrier is broken, then you've opened up the doors to sit there and say, "Okay, what else do we need to include?" And it's baby steps. We can't change everything overnight, but definitely starting with some sort of conversation in order for people to get to know these newcomers or this influx of people in the school, it's been a very powerful experience.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

So what is that conversation? Set up the environment for me. Is that something that it's some entrance process for new families that are registering for your school? Is that something that a teacher does in the classroom and at the beginning of the year?

Abeer Shinnawi:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

What does that landscape look like, and what kind of capacity? When do we do this type of activity and in what capacity?

Abeer Shinnawi:

So it really depends on the school.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

Uh-huh.

Abeer Shinnawi:

What we do with some schools is we tell them, "This is the program. This is our curriculum. Where does it seek to fit? Again, we're going to start where, where you're at, but we're not going to keep you there." So what schools have done is, okay, they've taken the curriculum and they've created and created it based on their school environment and their community environment. You have large districts where one school is totally different than the other. Although, they may have the same demographics, socioeconomic or whatever could be totally different. So we go in as more of a facilitator and a consultant, sit there and say, "Okay, what are your needs? We go through those needs. What are they really looking to gain from this experience?" We help guide them, and then we don't like to dictate how people do it, because again, we're not there 24/7. We're not part of the community, but we lean on the educators and those who are willing to create those projects, some of them do in the beginning of the year and some of them do it in the middle of the year. Some of them do it as a school-wide project. Some do it just for a classroom. It really just depends on what the school is looking for and what they hope to gain from the experience.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

Got you. Okay.

Abeer Shinnawi:

Yeah.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

Thank you. I was curious, right?

Abeer Shinnawi:

Yeah.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

Because I'm like-

Abeer Shinnawi:

Oh, absolutely.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

The thing about it is you got students coming in at all times of the year, right?

Abeer Shinnawi:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

So some people say, "Oh, let's just wait till August, and we'll do our student inventory," and all that jazz. But what happens when a kid comes in middle of February or March?

Abeer Shinnawi:

Right.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

We got stuff happening right now in various countries. It's basically the countries that the media chooses to highlight, but there's global conflict all over the place.

Abeer Shinnawi:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Correct.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

So you have kids coming in at different points of the school year and we don't want to limit it to just one or two times a year, but we want to make sure that that's a process that we understand. Again, I love that you brought in each school is different and geographically, you might have more kids coming in on the East Coast versus coming in on the West Coast, right?

Abeer Shinnawi:

Right.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

Those type of things are stuff that we had to keep into account. Now here's a question I want to ask next, because let's say we've done the moving stories. Let's say we've got some background information. I want to know what are some that you may have when it comes to making sure that our students that are coming in have the same opportunities as others, such as gifted and talented, advanced courses, honors courses, let's say the English is not their first language, how do we keep kids from being in special education, or shunned because gifted and talented programs are gatekeeper programs. It's like the teacher recommends them. They have to take a test, and blah, blah, blah. How do we keep them from missing out on those type of opportunities just because of maybe a language barrier or some cultural understanding and just those type of things. What type of suggestions would you have?

Abeer Shinnawi:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Ooh, that's a big one because if I had that answer, I think I'd make millions of dollars right now, right?

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

Yeah.

Abeer Shinnawi:

What happens after educators are familiar with our learning arc or the moving stories is then they realize, "Wow." So I want to do the windows mirrors and sliding doors for our students, curriculum is the next piece, and once they get to know their students and an example would be, like I said, we're working with a small district in Massachusetts where the teachers are predominantly white, but they've been so invested in getting to know their students, and so invested in creating a curriculum that's engaging for their students now those light bulbs are going off with the teachers saying, "Wow, I never knew, Johnny for example, really liked blah, blah, blah, or was really good at this," because they were able to bring it out in their lessons.

               So curriculum is always the gatekeeper for everything when students themselves, and it doesn't necessarily mean every single lesson has to reflect every single student in your classroom, but when they feel engaged and they feel some attachment to the lesson, that's when you really bring out, and this very well as being an educator, you're going to get more bang for your buck. I think it does start out, and we need to listen to our educator lot more, honestly. We really need to give the proper tools to our teachers, for them to advocate for those students who are either invisible or not seen. Let me give you a really quick story, which I still use to this day, and it's a very clear example of what you're talking about. When I worked for the large county here in Baltimore, I was a resource teacher. I'd go into a school, we had a program, we were trying to help social studies with a lot of schools that were predominantly heavy with L learners or newcomers.

               So I asked the teacher to pair me up with two students whose English wasn't that great, but it was okay, I could get along. She pairs me up with two students, a boy and a girl. The girl's English was very limited, but then I realized that the boy's English, he was not a newcomer born and raised in this country, but she automatically assumed that because he was a brown kid of Latino descent, so I'm working on working with the kid and I'm realizing, "This kid really knows his stuff." So me, being that emotional person, I'm getting worked up. So I talked to the kid and I'm like, "Tim, have you ever been recommended for GT classes?"

               He said, "No." I'm like, "Tim, would you be interested?" His face lit up. "So I'm like "Tim, cool. I'll talk to the teacher." I speak to the teacher and she tells me, "Well, his work isn't really reflective, and blah," I told her, "Can I just tell you one thing? Just because the kid is of a particular ethnic race or whatever, doesn't automatically mean that they don't speak English." So that's why these conversations and these type of activities are important because again, whether it was implicit or explicit bias, this bias is one child was denied because of all the other factors that the teacher gave, all the other excuses. So we also need teachers to be the advocates because they're the ones who hold the key, whether a kid is going to go to GT or not.

               Especially in middle school, I always told teachers, "What's the harm in allowing a kid to try and feel like they can really succeed at something that they've never had an opportunity to do." Again, we need to break down those barriers of, that's another form of othering, those AP classes, the GT classes, all of those. So I think going back to the original to your question is once we do the moving stories and teachers really start investing in their students, that's when they sit there and say, "Okay, now I see my student, not just as this one particular box, I see this holistic approach of what the student is, again, not deficit, but really asset mindsets, and how can we really uplift them and take them to the next level?"

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

Okay. Thank you for sharing that. I think that's really important. I'm glad you touched on it.

Abeer Shinnawi:

Sure.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

Here's my last question before we wrap up.

Abeer Shinnawi:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

A lot of our kids that are coming in, names, okay? They have their names, whatever their parents decided to name them for whatever reason. I'm seeing a lot of kids, their names are being Americanized or teachers aren't even trying to pronounce the names. I see your face, so I want to know what is your thoughts on the importance of making sure that we learn names as well?

Abeer Shinnawi:

I find this conversation fascinating, right?

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Abeer Shinnawi:

I also, at some point, find it insulting that we have to have a conversation about honoring students' names. Again, the famous actress, Uzo Aduba and hopefully I didn't mispronounce her name, her mother told her flat out, people could say Chaikovsky, Schwartzenegger, Why can't they learn to say your name? Also, I think people don't understand the cultural aspects that come to naming a student. In a lot of African cultures, they it's a ceremony. They take days or months in order for them to give their child a name because it's a whole honor practice. Then for somebody to come in and just call you whatever, it's insulting. I think people need to put more emphasis and people and educators really need to put more time in getting to know and pronounce their students' names.

               Now, if parents choose to, as we would say, Anglo-cize their names or Westernize their names, that's probably because they want to make it easier for their own children, that's fine. That's their choice. But if a student comes in with a name, it is your responsibility to understand how to pronounce it and how they want you to pronounce it. If they want to give you a nickname, that's fine. Don't be giving them no nicknames that they don't want. My biggest pet peeve is when I go to Starbucks and they give me Abby, I'm like, "My name isn't Abby. My name is Abeer," but I've got Amir. Like I said, I think we need to stop having this conversation. If a kid has that name, it is your responsibility to know how to pronounce their name and say it correctly. Don't give them a nickname. So that's my take on that.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

If your reasoning is "This is America, so you need to ... " you don't need to be in a classroom. I'm sorry. I will say that straight up. If your reasoning is like, "Well it's too hard," practice, man. These names are things that, again, they're so important to the families and we can start there. That's the least you can do.

Abeer Shinnawi:

Mm-hmm (affirmative). But if this is America, as people say, we need to start taking pride in this fact that we are one of the most, if not the most diverse countries in the world. That's what makes our country unique. That's what gives our country flavor, right?

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

Yeah.

Abeer Shinnawi:

Again, America, technically last I heard doesn't really have an official language. So if you ain't giving me an official language, I'm going to use my Arabic name because that's what I speak. But it doesn't necessarily mean it makes me less American because my name isn't what you want it to be.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

Shout out to my Indigenous communities out there-

Abeer Shinnawi:

Absolutely.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

... when we say this is America, but I think you bring up a good point. Abeer, listen, I'm so glad my BFF, Dr. Sosa, I got to shout out Dr. Sosa-Jabber. I'm so glad she connected us. I consider you as providing a voice on leading equity. What is one final word of advice that you can share with our listeners?

Abeer Shinnawi:

All I really want to say is get to know your students. They are there for a reason, they're there to want to learn, and they're there, they're willing. As long as you are willing to listen and learn from them, they are so willing to let you learn about them and they're such assets. So don't give up on that opportunity.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

If we have some folks that want to connect with you and your organization, what's the best way?

Abeer Shinnawi:

They can find me at Abeer, A-B-E-E-R, @reimaginingmigration.org, or they can go to our website at www.reimaginingmigration.org, and then just contact us. We'd love to chat.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

Okay. Are you connected on socials, Twitter or anything?

Abeer Shinnawi:

I am. You could find us, again, as at Reimagining Migration. I'm also on Twitter at Shinram1, a combination of my maiden name and my married name. So those are the best places. I think I'm more of a Twitter file than anything else.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. A lot of educators are and I'll leave links in the show notes and everything like that.

Abeer Shinnawi:

Sure.

Dr. Sheldon Eakins:

So Abeer, it has truly been a pleasure. Thank you so much for your time.

Abeer Shinnawi:

Thanks for having me on the show, Dr. Eakins.

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