I don’t know who you are yet, but I believe you do. Who are you when it all goes quiet at night? Who are you by daybreak? What are your loves? Who do you come from?…

To be people with any concern for the dignity and liberation of everything, we must become unequivocally familiar with our own faces. We must confront those things we’ve learned to use to obscure our own image. And in divine integrity, we must stay near to ourselves.

–Cole Arthur Riley, Black Liturgies, p. 16

What’s up, Community?

What a year it’s been already. Cole Arthur Riley’s profoundly moving writing has kept me grounded through these months. Let’s take a moment to sit with and honor the tens of thousands of lives lost in Gaza as a genocide rages on. As an American of Jewish descent on my father’s side, and a citizen of the globe, I stand with all who call for a unilateral ceasefire. I stand with every aching Palestinian mother and every Israeli mother who longs for this unabated violence to end. Let us also remember and honor the loss of precious trans Indigenous teen Nex Benedict and the criminal lack of response and accountability on behalf of the school and legal system.

We can do better than this for our children.

We must do better than this for our children.

May our classrooms and schools become spaces of liberation and humanity in which children find voice and agency.

Announcing Street Data Pod Season Four

Alcine and I are busily working (with support from our Magic Millennial producer Maya Cueva and Gen Z genius social media coordinator Becca Bantum) on Season 4 of Street Data Pod. This season we focus on the question: What foundational pedagogies need to be nourished & built upon in order to center student voice & cultivate student agency? Here’s a video teaser of the season. We are extremely excited about our guests this season as we dig into questions of pedagogy and radical inclusion with thought leaders Joe Feldman, Gloria Ladson-Billings, Jo Chrona, and Django Paris.

Please subscribe on Podbean, Apple, or Spotify, and if you like what you hear, please share with your colleagues and friends. We also encourage you to follow our new IG account: @streetdatapod where you can see what else we have in store for you!

Street-Level Highlights

ICYMI, I wanted to share this beautiful article written by Nathan Ngieng and student leaders Ari and Harshan about the work I have led alongside Dr. Jamila Dugan in Abbotsford, BC, Canada. If you’re interested in taking “student voice” to the next level and want to cultivate deep, authentic student agency, I encourage you to read further!

https://www.nextgenlearning.org/articles/student-voices-authentic-listening-school-transformation

On April 12th, I’ll be keynoting the BCSSA Spring Forum, Their Voices Lead Us: System Transformation Through Student Agency, and hosting a Kiva Panel with four brilliant student leaders from this work. Let me know if you’ll be there and come say hi!

Photo below courtesy of Abbotsford School District.

Street Data Mini-Grants

In the Spring of 2023 Jamila and I set aside a percentage of our speaking and workshop fees to fund a first cycle of Street Data Mini-Grants. The purpose of these grants was to fund, resource, and inspire students and teachers who are trying to REIMAGINE current systems and practices using the Street Data model. Our hope was that these grants would support projects or initiatives that center students and teachers of color, teacher leadership, as well as LGBTQIA+ students. We prioritized projects that had the most direct impact on the classroom, teaching, and learning.

We received over 20 applicants and awarded 12 mini-grants. Two additional applicants were granted copies of Street Data thanks to our wonderful publisher, Corwin.

We asked our grantees to keep us posted on how the funds were used. Here’s an update from one of our grantees, Amonie Rucker, who is a Science Educator at Carver Early College High School (Atlanta Public Schools). She used her Street Data Mini-Grant to fund a fabulous STE(A)M Night event.

“The STE(A)M Night event was a dynamic and inclusive initiative that brought together a diverse group of STE(A)M professionals and community leaders to inspire and empower black and brown students (with a particular emphasis on female students) in the expansive fields of STEM/STE(A)M. This collaborative effort aimed to foster a sense of belonging and investment within the Atlanta, Georgia, innercity community by providing students with hands-on experiences, interactive demonstrations, mentorship opportunities, and more. By showcasing the achievements and stories of successful black and brown professionals, especially female leaders, the event sought to break down barriers and instill a sense of confidence and ambition in young minds. Through engaging activities and discussions, STE(A)M Night endeavored to spark curiosity, passion, and a lasting commitment to STEM/STE(A)M pursuits, fostering a new generation of diverse leaders poised to make significant contributions to the ever-evolving landscape of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.”

(Photos courtesy of Amonie Rucker.)

We plan to open up another round of Street Data Mini-Grants soon and we’ll be sure to announce it on the web page and on social media.

PoV Profiles

Over the next several newsletters, I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce three talented colleagues who will be contributing to and working on my next book project with me. In December, Marlo Bagsik was featured. This month, please meet the incredible, incomparable Dr. Sawsan Jaber with whom I am currently co-writing two foundational chapters: 10 epistemologies for a pedagogy of voice and 10 potholes that take us offtrack.

I am an educator who comes from a Palestinian and Muslim lineage. As such, the intersections of my identity have always been misunderstood and often viewed through a single story lens in the mainstream. This has defined my identity in many ways. It has also defined my persona and instructional purpose as an educator. My belief is that schools can serve as healing spaces, not just for our students but for our world as a whole. So much of this is rooted in self-love, the ability for educators and students to dream, and building student capacity to recognize and actualize change they envision in a world better than the one we are living in today. All of this is rooted in liberating educational spaces and cultivating agency with students at young ages. Not only will they be able to dream of a better world, but they will develop a skill set and tool box to make those dreams a reality.

I hope my contribution to this book gives educators practical strategies to modify their practice by centering students and student voices. This book is the village raising the child and an antidote to healing our communities one classroom and one teacher at a time. I know it will be transformative.

–Dr. Sawsan Jaber

Dr. Sawsan Jaber is a global educator, presenter, equity strategist, curriculum designer, community activist and keynote speaker of 20+ years. She has held a variety of leadership positions both in the U.S. and abroad. Dr. Jaber is currently a high school English Department Chair, District Equity Leader, and teacher at Maine West High School in Park Ridge, IL. Dr. Jaber founded Education Unfiltered Consulting and works with schools nationally and internationally. She completed her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction with a focus on inclusion and belonging of students from marginalized communities, with a focus on Arab American students in historically homogenous communities Sawsan was one of the ten finalists for Ilinois State Teacher of the year. She was awarded the Cook County Teacher of the year in 2023, ISTE 20 to Watch Award for 2023, the CEL Teacher-Leader of Excellence Award in 2023, and IDEA Teacher of the Year in 2022. Dr. Jaber is a Board Director of Our Voice Alliance (OVA) charged with amplifying the voices of teachers of color to create more equity for students of color. Additionally, Sawsan is one of the founders of the Arab American Education Network (AAEN).

Dr. Jaber is a member of the International Society for Technology in Education’s (ISTE) Community Leader Network. She is a member of NCTE’s Committee Against Racism and Bias in the Teaching of English. Dr. Jaber is a National Board Certified teacher and focuses most of her research on engaging all students in equity work and advocating for Arab and Muslim students. Among other projects, she has worked on national and international equity centered projects with Google and the National Board Association. Sawsan is a Pulitzer Teacher Fellow and a state TeachPlus Policy Fellow. She has been featured in several conferences and podcasts, and written several blogs, journals, and newsletter publications with the hopes to continue working with educators to empower students to work towards global equity and justice. She has published several scholarly works and a chapter in the book Navigating Precarity in Educational Contexts: Reflection, Pedagogy, and Activism for Change and a chapter in the book The Intersections of Critical Pedagogy, Critical Literacy, and Social Justice: Toward Empowerment, Equity, and Education for Liberation. Her favorite work is being an Activist Scholar and co-conspirator for justice alongside her students. Sawsan brings the perspective of being the daughter of refugees from Deir Yasin, Palestine.

Find Dr. Jaber on X @SJEducate and on IG @sjeducate.