Roberto Germán [00:00:01]:
Welcome to Our Classroom. In this space we talk about education which is inclusive of but not limited to what happens in schools. Education is taking place whenever and wherever we are willing to learn. I am your host, Roberto Germán, and Our Classroom is officially in session. Welcome back to Our Classroom. Today I'm joined by Yacoub Aljaffery, who is an assistant professor of ESL education at Augsburg University where he teaches future educators to see multilingual and refugee background students through an asset based and humanizing lens. He's a former refugee who lived in a refugee camp and arrived in the United States as a teenager. His personal journey is closely connected to his scholarship and writing.
Roberto Germán [00:00:57]:
His research and teaching focus on refugee education, translanguaging, belonging, and cultural and linguistic wealth students bring with them to schools. He is the author of Narratives of Success and Resilience of Students from Refugee Backgrounds in United States Schools. From Invisible to Valuable, a book that combines research, student narratives and his own lived experiences to offer a powerful rethinking of how educators understand support students from refugee backgrounds. Welcome. Welcome. Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:01:36]:
Thank you, thank you for having me today.
Roberto Germán [00:01:39]:
Oh, my pleasure, my pleasure. It's a great topic for us to get into. So much to unpack. And as schools continue to evolve, including the school population, much comes to mind. So eager to hear from you. And the subtitle of your book is From Invisible to Valuable. Wondering what makes students from refugee backgrounds feel invisible in schools.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:02:09]:
Thank you, Roberto, for the question, because even though it's the first question of this meeting, but I think it's the heart of my book, what makes students from refugee backgrounds invisible? It's. There's a lot, there's a lot that makes them invisible. And one important aspect is the education system as a whole, including curriculum, teachers, teaching methodologies, teacher preparation programs. I mean, the whole system really tends to make the students from refugee backgrounds invisible. There's a lot that we as education system can do to make these students valuable, but the system try to turn away from that. These students come with. They don't come empty handed to our education system. They don't come empty handed to our, to our classrooms.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:03:15]:
They come with a lot of wealth. And even though some of them come from refugee camps that they've never had any education backgrounds before. And so the first thing that comes to teachers minds usually when they hear the word refugee students. Well, first of all, the, the term refugee students, we put refugee before students is a wrong term. And that's why in my book, I said students from refugee Backgrounds. You know, this makes. This makes a lot of. I mean, language is power.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:03:52]:
And so the words we choose and the words we place and, you know, which words we use first makes a huge sense, and it makes a huge difference. And so when teachers first think of refugee students, the first thing they're thinking about is the label refugee. And then they start labeling students more and more of interrupted education. The first thing that comes, and then the second thing is trauma. And, you know, and they're always looking for ways. And I'm not saying this is wrong, they're always looking for ways to save the students. Again, there is that savior, there's that word save students. But we never look at these students as knowledge holders.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:04:38]:
You know, they've never had any formal education, but they've had a lot of different types of education that books don't even teach. You know, and these education, I actually talk about it in my book in, in a lot of details is, is, you know, students come with resilient education. They come with navigational education and knowledge. They come with linguistics knowledge. And we can go deep into these in this interview. But as far as this question go, I think where the system needs to be reformed, it needs to be reshaped in order for us to actually look at these students as valuable and welcome them fully as human beings and not as labeled as refugees.
Roberto Germán [00:05:35]:
Right, right.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:05:36]:
That term, Roberto, is. Is really dangerous, to be honest. I've asked a lot of people about this term too, you know, like, what does it mean to you? And they pause and say, you know, I never thought of it. I always thought of it as like, you know, people who fled their countries, people who. And that goes to the power of language. But I don't want to go too much into this term right now, but I'm, you know, to conclude this, this your question. This system is what makes these students invisible. And the system needs to be reshaped and rewritten and reformed in order for us to really fully welcome in.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:06:25]:
Recognize these students.
Roberto Germán [00:06:27]:
Yeah. And to recognize them through a human lens. Right. We want to make sure we. Humanizing all that we're doing. Even as I hear you speak, one thing that came to mind for me was oftentimes you hear people say, oh, as it relates to folks who are living on the street. So that's a homeless person. And I, I prefer that.
Roberto Germán [00:06:50]:
I wish people would use the term a person experiencing homelessness instead because I think it's. It humanizes them.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:06:57]:
Right.
Roberto Germán [00:06:58]:
Instead of placing that label before the person. Another thing that I captured and What I'm listening to in terms of what you shared was basically you're pushing back against deficit based narratives. And I know you do that in your book. And you write that students who, who need some support or students who have a refugee background are often viewed only through trauma and struggle instead of brilliance, instead of the multilingualism, instead of their adaptability and resilience. And I know you mentioned the system, but why else do schools struggle to, to see those assets? Is there some type of disconnect that the system is reinforcing in the individuals?
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:08:01]:
Yes. So again, Roberto, I talk about it in my book and I'm also actually going deeper into this in my upcoming book that I'm working on, but it's bigger than, you know, a question that I can actually talk about in this interview, but I'm going to mention this. Language, for example. When these students come learning English, they're always looked at by the teachers and by the school as English learners, language learners. And we as multilinguals, we carry pride when we speak different languages. You know, like myself, for example, I speak English, Spanish, Arabic is my first language. And then I speak a little bit of Korean. And I, you know, when I was in school I spoke Spanish and English and Arabic, but I didn't see that recognition.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:09:06]:
I saw the, the accent recognition instead. You know, like, oh, you have an accent. Immediately I'm looked at in a deficit lens instead of, oh, this person speaks Spanish and Arabic and English. Multilingualism. Refugee students from refugee backgrounds, they come, they're very unique because they've lived in a lot of different countries. They've lived in a lot of different communities and a lot of different refugee camps because they move around. They, they, they pick up a lot of languages. So a student who comes from Kenya refugee camp who's Somali, they speak Somali, they speak Swahili, and most likely they speak Arabic because they learn as Muslims, they learn Quran and Arabic and then they speak, they start speaking English as a fourth language.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:09:59]:
That is an asset that nobody looks at. And if they come from Ethiopia, they speak Amharic and Somali and Arabic and then English and Koran. Students who come from refugee camps in Thailand, they speak Quran, Koarani, most likely Burmese and then Thai and then they speak English. Those are a lot of languages for a, a, you know, a, a kid, I was just walking in a store the other day and there's this, I, I think the kid was like 6 year old kid with, with her mom. And they're in the store and that six Year old from Ecuador. When I started talking to them, they said they're from Ecuador and that kid was translating. The kid was asking the shop owner of when they're going to get the, the, the goods and how much will it cost if they buy this much. And the kid was negotiating, actually looking, you know, nobody's actually looking at this asset.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:11:10]:
This, this kid is learning business. This kid is learning negotiation. This kid is learning a lot of skills. It's not just translation. There's much more than this. And we as education system, as teachers, we're not looking at this. We're bring language brokers into our classrooms. They translate between the teacher and the family and the parents.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:11:32]:
But we're not looking at the importance of that skill. The translation is not just translation. It's pausing, listening, absorbing, digesting, you know, all these skills, knowledge holders and then performing the new language. And, and so when students pause, we're like, oh, immediately think, oh, the student is taking too much time. They're not learning fast enough. Well, I'll put you in Costa Rica for a year and I want you to speak Spanish fluently in a year. You know, we're not putting ourselves in the student's shoes. We're not even thinking, we're not humanizing our curriculum.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:12:16]:
Our textbooks are very white spoken, are very white written, are very monolingual based, you know, driven. So there's, there's a lot, there's a lot of gap. And as, as teachers, I think we're, we need, we're apt to think of these gaps and think of filling these gaps from an asset base, from a humanizing lens.
Roberto Germán [00:12:48]:
Right?
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:12:49]:
Yeah.
Roberto Germán [00:12:50]:
So let's, let's take a moment and put ourselves in the student's shoes, as you mentioned. So right now, students are watching wars. There are deportation debates and deportation happening. Right. We know ICE is on the ground active. There's a Islamophobia, anti Semitism, anti immigrant rhetoric, political division, all of this unfolding in real time. And how do these larger social tensions show up inside schools for students from refugee or immigrant backgrounds?
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:13:27]:
I mean, Roberto, this is a great question because when students come to our classrooms, they come with a lot of stories. And we do not actually tend to, as teachers, we don't tend to listen to these stories. We don't create this safe space. You know, a lot of teachers ask me sometimes, they're like, what do I do now? What do I do next week? It's not next week. It's a long process. First, these students need to feel safe in order for them to start sharing their stories. And so in order for us to create that safe space, we need to build relationship with our students. We need to start making them feel like they're home.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:14:20]:
And one way to do this is by recognizing first their. Their strength and their assets, and then also by showing them caring, showing them care that I care about you and I care about your stories, and I care about what's going on in your countries, and I care about what's going on to the community today. And, you know, by not by saying it, I care, but by doing it. My mom is my best teacher, who actually I lost a couple months ago.
Roberto Germán [00:14:56]:
But my condolences.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:14:58]:
Thank you. She taught me something. My mom doesn't know how to read or write or didn't know how to read and write, but my mom taught me something really valuable, which is teaching is by doing. She always modeled the example. Yes. She always modeled charity for me, you know, and then her last message is, is, you know, this is my money, and I want you to build a house for orphans.
Roberto Germán [00:15:31]:
Wow.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:15:32]:
Yes. For me, this was a huge lesson that textbooks didn't really teach me, you know, and so, you know, so I learned something from her. Like, if you want to show me. If you want to teach me something, show me. And I think this is what caring teachers do. Modeling. And so I'm asking teachers to model, care. If you tell me that I care about what's going on in the community today, show me what you're doing.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:16:01]:
Model this for me. Standing up for our students, going to demonstrations, being there for students when they need someone to be there for them. So when students come with these stories, they want someone to listen to them when. When. When there's war. Right now, these students are hurt inside, my friend. They're hurt inside because they will remember, even if they're from Burma, for example, but the war is in. In a different country in the Middle East.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:16:40]:
These students are hurt because that triggers something. Sure. You know, warplanes, for example, airplanes. For me, they trigger something. Wow. Yes. That trigger. Because I've experienced this, I've seen it, I've lived it.
Roberto Germán [00:16:59]:
Right. So there's like, everyday things that are happening around us that maybe a lot of us don't necessarily think about, but it could be a trigger for another person. In your case, the planes. That's. Yeah, that's good and important for educators to understand.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:17:15]:
Yes. And then when we welcome these students into our classrooms, we're not fully welcoming them because we are missing those connections with students. And those connections are stories it is, you know, these stories. And I talk about it in my upcoming book. Narratives are not just. They're not just stories. Even if we look at them as resilient stories, that's not enough, my friend. These stories have a lot of knowledge.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:17:50]:
They carry a lot of knowledge for us as educators to learn from. You know, they're not just simple stories. Oh, wow. Great job. I like this. You should write. No, that's not it. We should look at every single sentence that students say when they narrate their.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:18:08]:
Their migration stories. I had, Let me tell you this really quickly. I was teaching middle schoolers and Andres was from El Salvador and I was the only Spanish speaking teacher in the school. And I was actually. No, there was one other teacher also, but I was very close to Andres and everybody labeled Andres with lazy, not doing the work. And, and you know, he was an eighth grader. I got very close to Andres and I. And he started telling me his stories.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:18:40]:
I first, what I first do is I tell my own story. When I tell my own.
Roberto Germán [00:18:44]:
You're modeling the example.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:18:46]:
Exactly. And then students just open up. And he told me that he walked from El Salvador to Mexico. Wow.
Roberto Germán [00:18:55]:
Oh my goodness.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:18:56]:
Without parents. What? Yes. Him met his father here. He left his mother back home. His story was, was very powerful. And then like, so what I did as a teacher, I didn't keep the story for myself. I did a workshop for teachers about how to really welcome students and how to really listen to students stories. And so I think this is what we need to do as teachers and listen to our students, but then also teach others.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:19:33]:
Spread the word of what inclusive curriculum, inclusive education system means.
Roberto Germán [00:19:41]:
Are you finding that challenging to accomplish in the current context?
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:19:47]:
I mean, yes, because we tend to avoid a lot of political situations. You know, we, as teachers, I always hear teachers saying, I don't want to get into this very deep. I don't want to talk about this topic. I don't want to talk about that topic. When do we talk about these topics then?
Roberto Germán [00:20:09]:
That's a good question.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:20:10]:
You know, deportation, ICE and immigration is. Is not something that we should avoid. It's something that we should open up to. Is something that we should actually talk about publicly and freely because huge population and I'm from Minneapolis and we know what happened in Minneapolis. Huge population of our even if not undocumented students, but parents who are undocumented face during this period of time. What do we do if we don't talk about this topic? That's. That's not something we should avoid.
Roberto Germán [00:20:52]:
Yeah. And it's one of the reasons that I wanted to create a platform to. To process narratives, strategies, discuss all types of topics that impact us in the world of education. Because it might not be a strictly academic topic, but it's a current event topic, and it's impacting all of us. That means it's impacting our learners also. And so we have to be prepared to navigate all of that, including facilitating conversations that address what's going on and create, as you said earlier, a safe space for students to process, for students to share, and also for there to be connection opportunities.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:21:49]:
Absolutely.
Roberto Germán [00:21:52]:
You know, I'm wondering about you talking quite a bit about connections, but I want to pivot a little bit to distinction because you make a really important one in your book.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:22:07]:
And.
Roberto Germán [00:22:07]:
And that's when you get into talking about terms like English learners and plurilingual students. Can you explain why? And you. You've done some of this already. But to further unpack, because this is a particularly strong concept in your book, and it's very engaging for educators. So I think we benefit from hearing you unpack this further in terms of explaining why language matters so much and what shifts when educators begin seeing students as plurilingual instead of deficient. Because I think part of the struggle that I consistently see in many schools that we work with in different organizations is mindset and having to work with folks around, shifting their mindset. And in the process of doing so, we have to do a lot of work to help folks identify and dismantle their biases. But I'm interested to hear you unpack this further based on some of your writings.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:23:23]:
Yeah, that's a great question. And I always focus. I have a whole chapter in my book about translanguaging and the importance of translanguaging and what is actually translanguaging. Because it's. Lately, it's becoming a trend. And I wanted to kind of explain that sometimes trends avoid the. The. In Arabic, we say the butter.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:23:47]:
The butter of the most important thing about translanguaging. What is it?
Roberto Germán [00:23:51]:
Sorry, how do you say that in Arabic?
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:23:53]:
Zibda.
Roberto Germán [00:23:54]:
Zibda. All right. Because I. I need to probably. I need to polish up. When I went to Egypt a few years ago, my Arabic was developing, but I need to polish up. Thank you.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:24:05]:
Yeah, but looking at, you know, when. When a white student learns Spanish, everybody applaud that. White students. Oh. Even if they know a little bit of hola como. And, you know, wow, great. You know, you can. You can make a conversation.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:24:26]:
You can say Few sentences. It's great. We need that. We need all of our students to learn another language.
Roberto Germán [00:24:35]:
Yes.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:24:36]:
But when I have a Somali student who speaks some Haric, Somali, Arabic, and then. And they know how to read and write in all of these languages. Very complex writing system.
Roberto Germán [00:24:53]:
Wow.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:24:53]:
You know, and then they. They learn English immediately, we're looking at them as, oh, deficient. Yeah. Why not? The plow that you gave to the white students who learned a few sentences in Spanish. The word multilingual is a great term, but it's becoming also. It started to have this deficient also. Look into whenever we come up with a new term that kind of brings our plurilingual students up, the new term becomes a deficit. It tries to bring our students down.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:25:39]:
It is a system. It perpetuate, you know, And. And we need. We need to fight. We keep fighting for this. So the word plurilingual, I think, is the right term to use because these students are not using one or two languages only, but they're using so many languages in their brain. Like right now, I'm looking at Roberto, but I'm thinking Roberto speaks Spanish and speaks English. And I'm very sure I don't know other languages that you speak Portuguese or something.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:26:09]:
I'm just assuming. But my brain is going, if I answer this question to Roberto in English, I'm using my English knowledge, but then I'm mixing up my Arabic knowledge as well, because that's me. That's my identity. That's my Arabic brain. But I'm also adding a lot of my Spanish because I know Roberto speaks Spanish. My. My linguistics repertoire is working, all of it working in my brain. I'm not, you know, I'm not just that monolingual.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:26:44]:
I'm not just that bilingual. I'm not just that students who pick up from one language whenever I. I'm using all my linguistics repertoire. If we look at the students from that lens, my friend, we're actually appreciating what's going on in their brain cells. You know, what's going on in. In. In their brain when they're using all of these languages at the same time. What's.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:27:12]:
Our system is missing something really huge. And I think sometimes I think of it to be honest and purpose. We're missing it and purpose, you know?
Roberto Germán [00:27:24]:
Yeah. I. I don't disagree.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:27:27]:
You see what I mean? Even. Even when we teach Spanish, I think we're not teaching it in a correct way.
Roberto Germán [00:27:37]:
What do you mean
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:27:40]:
we teach. I think we teach Spanish for. I hate saying this, but we teach it for fun, and we teach it so that we can make these students, these white students, shine in the classroom. But we're not teaching them to learn about these cultures, to learn about these people in Latin America who speak Spanish. Who are they? What are their assets? What are their importance in our community? How many of us really here in the United States who've never been outside, how many of us really thought of, who are the Mexicans who speak Spanish, how much knowledge these Mexicans have and can teach us? And that's why I created this class. I'm taking my students from our university here. I'm taking them. They're going to be future teachers.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:28:38]:
I'm taking them to Mexico.
Roberto Germán [00:28:39]:
Why would you do that? Dr. Al Jafri.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:28:42]:
Thank you. Why would I do that? Because I don't want to be talking about theories and not seen. I don't want to talk about assets of Latino communities, but I want them to go and see the assets of Latino communities. You know, I want to see. I want them to see the richness of Mexican community. I want them to see the richness of the Mexican Spanish that we always look at non academic Mexican Spanish, but the Castellano Spanish is the academic Spanish. You know, I want them to look into these. When do we really learn from Mexican kids? That's.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:29:25]:
That's my whole purpose. When do we learn from Mexican kids instead of us teaching them all the time?
Roberto Germán [00:29:31]:
Yeah. My brother KB has a good line in his song where he says, I'm par. I'm gonna paraphrase it, but he says something along the lines of, we, we love the food more than we love the people. You know, we love Mexican food, but, you know, we don't really want to get close to the people.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:29:52]:
That's scary. Yeah.
Roberto Germán [00:29:54]:
And. And unfortunately, that's, that's. That's the disposition for many.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:29:59]:
And who did, who brought this food? Who made this food? The people. Who are the people? Those are the people that we're missing a lot. We're. We're missing a lot of information about, you know, these are, the. The identity of these people, the mixture of these people. The. So going back to your question, multilingualism is. I think it's abused, my friend.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:30:30]:
And we still use the term esl, unfortunately. I mean, esl, English as a second language is a very deficit term. We're still using it in our education system. When do we change this term? I have no idea, because we have a lot of cleaning to be done in between now and the term itself that needs to be taken care of.
Roberto Germán [00:30:58]:
Well, I got a couple more questions as we prepare to wrap up this interview. One thing is what are for, for those who are listening to this episode and want to better support students from refugee and immigrant backgrounds, but they don't know where to start. You mentioned something like this at the beginning of the interview, but I want to make sure that we, we give them a little something they could bite on. So whatever. What are a couple more things that you would tell them, hey, tomorrow morning before they walk into the class, this is something you could do.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:31:38]:
Well, first of all, they should buy the book.
Roberto Germán [00:31:40]:
Of course, of course.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:31:42]:
I mean, there are a lot of tips, especially in, in the end, the last chapter. There's a lot of tips on what to do. And I mean there are tips all over the book. But I think my always, my advice is, always is first learn who your students are. Look at your students body and look at them. Where do they come from? Right? And then go back and do your homework and learn about these countries. Learn about the cultures of these countries, the history of these countries. If your students come, if your students come from Iraq, learn about Iraq, the rich history of Iraq, you know, the civilization of Iraq.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:32:32]:
Make these students proud when you talk about them in the class, when you bring curriculum that is related to them and go and shop for a curriculum that can fit, that can bring the identity of these students. Without that curriculum, these students are not included, unfortunately, talking about their, their history, just about their history in the class. It doesn't really make them feel they're included. But bring a book and don't bring Alibaba and don't bring, you know, bring a book that really talks about who these kids are and so you can praise them in the classroom. That's number one. Number two is build a real relationship with these students. The hi, how are you? Relationship is not enough. Meet their parents.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:33:22]:
Don't meet them for the sake of meeting your parents, but meet your, meet their parents so you can really understand who these parents are. You know, don't disengage these parents from the classroom. These parents have to be part of the classroom. They have to be part of the curriculum. They can teach you something. And please don't look at them as who parents who did not go to school because of, because of where they grew up, because they were born in a different corner of the world, in the wrong corner of the world. Look at them as people with knowledge, people who can teach me something, people who can teach me curriculum that I can bring to my Classroom. Without that, I don't think you will be able to build that safe environment.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:34:17]:
It takes a lot to build that safe environment. It's not a week or a month or two. It takes a lot, and it takes a lot of efforts. Are you ready to make these efforts? Ask yourself that question and then move on.
Roberto Germán [00:34:33]:
Well, lastly, in a moment where many educators and students are overwhelmed by the state of the world, what gives you hope right now?
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:34:47]:
So, my friend, my book starts with hope. I don't know if you cat that or not, but it's in Arabic. And I, I said I was. When I was in the refugee camp, and I would get depressed because of the camp in the middle of the desert, surrounded by barbed wires and military and all of this. And my brother would read a poem in Arabic for me always, and he would say, this is very.
Roberto Germán [00:35:15]:
Oh, man, take your time. Yeah, take your time, man.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:35:19]:
But he would say, Life is so narrow without that tiny hope. And so I myself, when I was a kid in the refugee camp, I built my life and built my future based on that tiny hope, you know, And. And so I was chasing that hope, but with, With. With passion of, of I'm going to achieve my dreams with that little, tiny hope. So the hope gave me a chance to learn English, and I actually taught myself English as, as a teenager. And then I worked with the United nations office with the intention that they will help me if I help them volunteer translating, they will help me get out of the camp. And they actually did. I worked with the U.S.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:36:17]:
immigration Office translating. And then they helped me and my family and they brought us to San Diego.
Roberto Germán [00:36:24]:
It's amazing.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:36:26]:
Yeah. So that tiny hope, my friend, is what got me to where I am today. And so what's going on today, even though it looks like it's very dark and the world looks very, very horrible right now, but my advice is always find that tiny hope and go with that hope, because that tiny hope is what will get you to the bright future.
Roberto Germán [00:36:58]:
Yeah. You have to chase after it.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:37:00]:
Yes. And these, these students, students from refugee background, they carry that because they've lived it, they've experienced it, and they carry it with them. And this is one of this strongest asset, is that they have that hope and aspiration. And if we build as education, if we build on that aspiration and hope, we will support them and we will help them get to their dreams.
Roberto Germán [00:37:28]:
Yeah. Leverage. Leverage the asset in order to build them up. That's good. That's good, man. Thanks for sharing. That's so powerful and it's, it's quite important for us to hear and to get a glimpse into what you experience and what other students from refugee backgrounds experience. Because we need to try to pursue proximity to all types of people groups, to all different folks with different experiences, but especially people that have experiences vastly different than our own.
Roberto Germán [00:38:11]:
We need to pursue that to come to a greater understanding and hopefully that will result in deeper connection. And so appreciate you sharing. Thank you for writing the book that you wrote. What a resource for teachers. For those who are interested in learning more about you, about your book, Narratives of success and Resilience of Students from Refugee Backgrounds and US Schools From Invisible to Valuable, where can they go to connect with you? Where can they go to learn more about your book?
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:38:49]:
Well, they can find me on LinkedIn and if they can type my LinkedIn profile, they can find me there. I'm available. And then also I just created this website that I will also include and so they can find me there or they can email me to [email protected] and that's my work email. And I will be happy to provide whatever they need. You know, school visits or workshops or webinars, whatever these schools in teacher prep education maybe need.
Roberto Germán [00:39:34]:
Well, there you have it folks. Once Again, this is Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery, author of Narratives of Success and Resilience of Students from Refugee Backgrounds in U. S Schools. From Invisible to Valuable. Go and check out that resource. Learn more, stretch yourselves, get deeper, reach out to to him. You have the information now, wealth of knowledge and someone who can support our growth so that we can better support students from refugee backgrounds.
Roberto Germán [00:40:12]:
Thank you for being here. Thank you for sharing. Much appreciated.
Dr. Yacoub Aljaffery [00:40:17]:
Thank you all. And Shukran Jezilan,
Roberto Germán [00:40:21]:
As always, your engagement in Our Classroom is greatly appreciated. Be sure to subscribe, rate the show and write a review. Finally, for resources to help you understand the intersection of race, bias, education and society, go to multiculturalclassroom.com Peace and love from your host, Roberto Germán.
