Seeing Strengths, 8 Pillars of Belonging, and Making Americans with Jessica Lander

In this conversation Jessica Lander discusses educating immigrant and refugee students. We talk about her book Making Americans that is a wonderful book about the  exploration of immigrant education across the country. She talks about seeing these students for their energy, talents, and drive. Jessica discusses the lessons she learned from traveling around the country and meeting innovative schools who are leading the way in innovation for these students. The tips and knowledge that Jessica shares during this interview is something that is not limited to students who are new to the United States. The principles that she discusses is something that all students would benefit from. 

Topics discussed:
1.Think about the different strengths, gifts, and perspectives that the students bring.
2. Don’t lower standards and expectations for students. Keep high expectations
3. Sometimes we sell students short because we can associate language acquisition with intelligence.
4. Think thoughtfully and intentionally how you support immigrant students.
5. If we are serious about reimagining immigrant education we have to ask the young people who are attending out schools about what they need. 
6.How can schools foster a strong sense of belonging where students feel that this is their home and they can build a future there.
7.Schools need to think about how can we create a sense of belonging
8.Eight pillars of belonging - opportunities for new beginnings, supportive communities, assurance of securing, chances to dream, committed advocates, recognition of students strengths, acceptance, opportunities for students to develop their voice.
9.Schools can be a community hub. Connect school to the community. 
10. Collaborate with community partnerships.
11.Global Village Project - the only school in US dedicated to refugee girls who have spent a lot of time outside of school.
12. Honor students identity
13. Bring laughter and joy into the classroom
14. Create a community that is supportive 
15. Family engagement is pivotal - seeing it as an equal partnership
16. When meeting with parents lead with questions. For example What are hopes and dreams for your kid? How can we build trusting relationships together? 
17. Recognize that students might come to school with different sorts of trauma
18. Trauma sensitive garden 
19. Use complex and interesting language.
20. Meet teacher where they are and help them with what they need.
21. Get students involved in action civics. 
22. Help them develop their skills to share their voices.
23. The way that we learn from each other is extremely powerful.
24. Learn from each other’s history
25. We Are America Project

Jessica Lander Bio:
Jessica Lander is an award-winning teacher, writer and author. She teaches history and civics to recent immigrant students in a Massachusetts public high school and has won numerous awards for her teaching, including being named a Top 50 Finalist for the Global Teacher Prize in 2021, presented by the Varkey Foundation and being named a MA Teacher of the Year Finalist in 2022, presented by the MA Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Jessica writes frequently about education policy and teaching. She is the author of Making Americans: Stories of Historic Struggles, New Ideas, and Inspiration in Immigrant Education, a coauthor of Powerful Partnerships: A Teacher’s Guide to Engaging Families for Student Success and the author of Driving Backwards.

Book: 
Making Americans https://www.amazon.com/Making-Americans-Struggles-Inspiration-Immigrant-ebook/dp/B09PQM33FS/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1TV7F6ZB1Q3MO&keywords=making+americans&qid=1673760376&sprefix=making+americans%2Caps%2C568&sr=8-1

Website: https://www.jessicalander.com

Transcript

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What's going on everybody, I hope this finds you striving and thriving and doing absolutely amazing. Today's episode is filled with a ton of insight. And it's one that each and every single one of us whether we're from an urban community, or rural community should listen to this very closely. Today, I'm joined by Jessica Linzer. She's an award winning teacher, writer, and author. And she recently published her third book, making Americans stories of historic struggles, new ideas and inspiration in immigrant education. And in this conversation, Jessica is going to give us a peek into your own classroom, which is made up of immigrant and refugee children. She's gonna give us a peek into school districts around the country that she's traveled to, in order to see the innovative ways that others are educating immigrant students. And in this conversation, listen, as Jessica talks about the importance of recognizing the gifts and strengths of immigrant students pay attention to the eight pillars of belonging that she discusses. Listen, as she talks about laughter, and the power can have in sparking learning, and the necessity of setting high standards. In so much more. This conversation holds so much for us. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. I am super excited for this episode today. I love always having guests on, because I always learn so much. But this is one where I'm gonna sit back and take so many notes. Because I'm stepping out of my comfort zone. I don't have a lot of background knowledge about what we're about to talk to. So this is going to be extremely eye opening. And I think it's gonna be eye opening for all of our guests to hear this wonderful individual. We have Jessica lander here, Jessica, welcome to the teaching champions podcast. But thank you so much for having me on the podcast. I'm so excited to talk with you today. Yeah, this is gonna be absolutely amazing. Jessica, for those who don't know you, would you be mind sharing a little bit about your journey? Absolutely. So, Brian, as you said, my name is Jessica lander, and I am a teacher in Lowell, Massachusetts. I teach at law High School. And I teach all recent immigrant and refugee students from about 30 Different countries from Colombia to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Cambodia. And with my students, we study history and civics. And you asked me a little bit about my journey. I started off in teaching now more than a decade ago, which is wild for me. I just don't know where the time goes. And I actually when I was in college, I was planning to be a biology major. And I had the opportunity to do some language study in Tanzania. And while I was there, a friend that I met there introduced me to a school nearby, and he walked me down to the school and I got to tour the school. And it was a school doing really interesting work with low income students. And I came away from that visit. Just being really excited and really interested on how that school was working and how they were. What were the practices that were making some of them so successful? And realize like, literally that night, like I want to, I want to understand that school. And I can't do that as a science major. So I'm gonna change my my back my major, I ended up being an anthropology major focused in education. When I studied this school, and then was like, Well, I'm, I'm gonna go into policy, but you know, I've got to spend at least a year in the classroom, because I wouldn't take myself seriously without having some experience in the classroom if I was doing and so got a teaching fellowship in Northern Thailand teaching at Chiang Mai University, flew out right after graduating and spent a year teaching at Chiang Mai University, and the last day of the year of the school year, going to sitting outside in a park in the neighborhood, and just being so sad that I was gonna not be able to be there. with my students every day, we had created this community and this just this collaborative, wonderful, joyous community in our classroom. And that was gone, because the school year was over, and realizing I needed to stay in the classroom. And so came back to the US and taught in the US and Massachusetts, and then went back overseas and taught in Cambodia, in Phnom Penh in the Capitol, and then came back to the US again. And sort of the long winding path, I was invited to come teach in Lowell, Massachusetts, at Lowell High School where I now work, teaching recent immigrant and refugee students and I arrived there in 2015. And it has been just such an honor to work with my students and my colleagues in low for now, so many years, and just so many ways, I'm learning from my students and my colleagues every day. That's a little bit about my journey. More recently, in the last three years, in addition to my teaching, I have been working on researching and writing a book on immigrant education and thinking about how we together across the country, educators, young people, policymakers, researchers, advocates and members of the community can be reimagining immigrant education to better support and better nurture, and we're gonna origin students. And a set out from the classroom three years ago, took a year off, and traveled across the country, sitting in the classrooms of others and talking to researchers, policymakers, young people, teachers, and then diving into the history and sitting with my students to learn their stories and just came out this fall with my book making American stories of historic struggle, new ideas, and inspiration and immigrant education, and doing all that and still teaching. So I will be back in the classroom tomorrow morning. You are busy woman my friend. It's really fun. It it's it's such a joy and such an honor to work with my students. So it means so much to me. And it is powerful and inspiring work. That's beautiful. And you're doing some phenomenal things. And before we get into your book, because I can't wait to hear more about this. I'm really interested on what you learned from being overseas. Like, what were some of the experiences, what were some of your takeaways because you've managed several different locations. I mean, I think there are so many things I learned from my students and all of the places that I have had the opportunity to teach him. I think a lot of what I've learned from my students teaching, both in Thailand and Cambodia, have really impacted the work I do now in the classroom working with my immigrant origin students here in the US, and I think really led me to work with my students and to work in Lowell, to be thinking about all of the strengths and skills that our students bring to be thinking about the different perspectives that they have. It also is made me really aware of the different approaches to teaching and the different styles of teaching that then my students today come in with that there are different approaches and setups to classrooms and curriculum. And so when my students come into our class, where we're setting new norms for all of us, but also recognizing that there were different ways that they might have been learning in home country, and all of that has been impacted by the work I did overseas. I think too, it's always a good reminder for me of how hard it is to navigate in a new country and a new culture and a new language. Having lived both in Thailand and Cambodia, and not knowing the language when I got there, and not knowing the city and having to learn those navigate systems is absolutely very different than what my students are experienced as a young people coming in moving to a new country really gives me a deep appreciation for the ways in which my students are navigating systems and creating communities here now as I work with my students, having experienced living in a country where I didn't know the language where I was learning the language where I was learning the country and the customs and the culture. And so that's been I think, really, really impactful in a very positive way and an important way and leading me to the work I do now and to the approach I have to my students into my classroom with my teaching now. Yeah, I think that's so insightful like for us to truly appreciate what someone else is going through, to expose ourselves a little bit to that to be that person where they're not speaking the same language as you are, you're thrown into a new culture, new people, new places, I think about doing that and as an adult, and that could be stressful. So then you take these children, their children, you know whether they're or five to young adults 18. That has to be difficult. But the resilience, the the joy, the wealth of knowledge that they have to share has to be so rewarding. Exactly. So I think it just really reminds me of all those things you just said. And I mean, that's where I first fell in love with teaching was teaching overseas, working with my students, and my students being so generous in working with a young teacher and learning with a young teacher. And there's so much that I didn't know when I was starting off with so many teachers in their first year don't know, the first year is really hard. And so I learned so much from the young people I had an honor of working with, particularly in Thailand, my first year teaching, and it was through collaborating with them and learning with them. And the work we did together in class. And that really inspired me to want to be in the classroom to want to continue this work, that I just I, it was so powerful to work with them and to learn with them, like I can't leave. Absolutely. And when what I love with your book, and what you're doing in the classroom, you have so much knowledge to share. And it's not just, you didn't keep it just to yourself like it. It's just not what you're doing inside of your classroom and your book Making Americans you've traveled around the country, and visited schools and talk to other educators who are working with immigrant students who are working with displaced refugees, students, what have you found for these students for these young people? What are some of the biggest obstacles some of the biggest challenges that they face when they come here? So I mean, my students bring tremendous strengths to our communities and to our classrooms or schools. And I mean, I'll say that again, and again, probably over the conversation, top of mind for me, and it's central to the work I do. And I think it's important for schools and communities to be recognizing those strengths. I think sometimes expectations can be lowered for our students. Sometimes, folks can equate language acquisition with intelligence. And even if my students can express certain ideas in English, that doesn't mean they aren't thinking them and can express them in home language. Sometimes, expectations are lowered, folks lower expectations for my students, because my students might not be able to express all of those ideas in English yet. And so I think, thinking about how our school system setting high expectations for our students is really, really important. And it that benefits everyone, it benefits our students who are going to be able to really succeed, when they're high expectations, and then the supports to help them succeed at those high expectations, it benefits communities, because our students will be giving back to our communities in so many different ways as they build homes and lives here. That's really important. I mean, there are all the challenges of coming to new country that my students face in navigating a new community and culture of leaving friends and family, whether there was by choice or by force, and that it has so many emotions wrapped into it, there's some maybe some excitement in coming to new country, there are new opportunities. But there's also loneliness, there's also sadness, that missing a family and friends, the frustration of not being able to communicate in a new language. So all of that comes with them as well. And then there are the challenges of learning those new spaces for my students who are all teenagers, often their cultural and linguistic navigators for their families. I think about the just the extraordinary amount of work my students do in supporting their families and navigating government systems in like looking at rents, often my students might have the strongest level of English in their family when they first come. And so they're looking at Rent, they're looking at housing bills, they're looking at government forms. They're helping on taxes. These are all things that I was privileged enough to have parents who spoke English and knew English and navigate all of this for me. And I learned this as an adult and my students are navigating these systems as young people that is so like what skills they have and also that can be really hard and challenging. Some of my students too, are experiencing either family reunification or family separation. So some of my students and some of our immigrant origin students might be traveling here on their own and sort of living here on their own and then some of my students might be might have lived with some family members, maybe a mom or a dad or maybe grandparents Back in home country, and then when they come here, they're living with different family members. And so maybe mom and dad came to the US earlier, and now are rejoining them. But that's maybe after many years, and so you have to navigate relationships with your family and your parents that are different because you haven't lived with them for a long time. And you're particularly for my students who are teenagers, you're navigating those relationships with your parents who you haven't had sort of the daily interactions with, while being a teenager. I mean, it is already really hard to be a teenager navigating relationships with and your family. If you've lived together your whole life, and you had in the complexities of having to do that when you're maybe rebuilding relationships. Or maybe you're here with an aunt or an uncle or another extended family member, one parent, and the family member who you really grown up with is still back in home country, and just navigating those relationships that are now crossing borders, can be really challenging them. So there's a whole bunch of just ways that my students are navigating spaces, navigating relationships, navigating language, that schools can either not help so much, or step up, and really support and nurture. And I think what I saw across the country, and these innovative schools I visited is the ways in which schools are helping students navigate all of these different spaces, communities, relationships, as they're building new homes, new communities. And thank you for highlighting some of the struggles that and what they face. I think you know, you were talking a little bit you talked about lowering expectations. And a few interviews I talked to an amazing administrators named Josh towbar, and he came from Mexico, and the school that he's working with is a lot of immigrants, a lot of refugees. So he sees a lot of the same things. And one of the things he said, as someone who came from another country to America, he said do not lower expectations, keep them high, just because I can't speak the same language doesn't mean that I'm not capable. Yeah, and I think this is extremely important. Like I said, I don't have because of where I'm at a very rural district, I don't have the same dynamic as you. But what I do know is our country is evolving, our country has a lot of individuals coming into it. In my district, just recently, some refugees from Ukraine came. So I know there's a lot of educators out there that are in rural districts, that maybe we don't have the dominant population being what you see in yours, but we're getting those families coming in. So listening to what you have to say, listening as you dive in right now to, to what you see out there that grade schools are doing is so important, whether you're an urban district, or a rural district like myself, because we are getting those families. Absolutely. I mean, one in four students today in our K 12 system are immigrants are the children of immigrants. And so we have immigrant origin, I say American origin as immigrants with the children of immigrants, students in so many communities, it was 100 years ago, when my family came over, as refugees from what is now Ukraine. So my family came over in the 1900s, as refugees from what is now Ukraine, and then most immigrants were in big cities. But today, that's not the case. And so thinking about how all our schools, not just our city schools, but all of our schools in rural suburban and urban areas, are really thinking thoughtfully and intentionally about how they support immigrant origin students. And honestly, I mean, the strategies that I have found in visiting schools across the country, and I highlight in the book are strategies that would do well by all students. And so thinking about, say, high expectations, we should be holding expectations for all of our students, no matter their background, their identities. And that is really, really essential. It's particularly important when I'm thinking about my immigrant origin students, but it's important for all of our students. And as I read your book, that's exactly what I was thinking to. So what are some of the elements that you found that in your book that you highlight as far as making it impactful for our students? Absolutely. So my book really stems from and inspired by the work I did with my students, and we'll talk about that more in a little bit. But in it, I, I really I set out to write this book, to better understand how we can reimagine immigrant education. I mean this I have a vested interest in this myself as just the teacher Mmm, let alone thinking about how we can do this at a wider scale than my own classroom. But I was curious for my own practice of being able to learn from educators across the country and learn from young people and historians. And to reimagine immigrant education, I really came quickly to believe that we needed to learn from three types of stories, we need to learn from the past key moments in laws, Supreme Court cases and movements in the last 150, your years that have transformed our schools, and transformed our communities. And these are stories that are absolutely just remarkable stories of courageous individuals. And they're also stories that are often not known. I mean, I am embarrassed to say, I did not know most of these stories until I started this book. But they're essential stories, they need to be known, in addition to the stories of the past and happy to dive into some of those, because they're just really, really cool. And really important. In addition to those we need to learn from the present. And so those are those stories of schools today working with immigrant origin students across the country. And then finally, we need to learn from the personal. And that, for me is the heart of this book is learning directly from our immigrant students. And so I actually sat down with seven of my remarkable former students who courageously and generously shared their stories with me, so that I could share their stories with everyone, and really learning from them about their experiences of migration of their coming to this country, and their experience of our schools. Because if we're serious about reimagining migrant education, we got to learn from the young people who are experiencing our schools, in addition to those stories in the past, and those stories of the personal. And in learning all of those stories, what I found was that it all comes back to belonging that all, too, how can schools nurture a strong sense of belonging, where students feel that this is their home, that this is where they can set down roots and build a future. And that schools should be must be working to nurture that sense of belonging for all students, in my case, really thinking about our immigrant origin students? And that then got me thinking, Well, what does that mean? And so from these stories of the past, the president personal from talking with teachers, for historians, activists, young people, I, I drew from those stories, what I'm found to be eight pillars of belonging, sort of at the moments of belonging that together make up a sense of belonging for students. And those were one opportunities for new beginnings, to supportive communities, three, assurances of security, for chances to dream. Five, committed advocates, six, recognition of students strengths and assets, we've talked a bunch about that already. Seven acceptance for who students are and where they come from, and eight opportunities for students to develop their voice and valuing those voices. And those, for me, are the eight essential elements of what it takes to help students really develop and feel a strong sense of belonging to new places. They're building new homes and new lives here. And it was at what are the lessons we can draw from the past the present personal to help us think about the practices, the policies, and the work we're doing to nurture these eight elements of belonging? Yeah, those eight elements, those are so pivotal, and like you said, whether they're students from immigrants, refugees, or there just are students that have been here since the day that they were born. They are pivotal. Now, as you're traveling around, and you're seeing these schools, what are some of the amazing things that you're seeing educators do out there that are creating that belong, that are hitting these eight pillars? Absolutely. I mean, so much innovative work across the country. So I'll give you just a few. One is five schools in Aurora, Colorado, the Aurora action zone, and these are five schools that have rejected the idea of schools being sort of open from like 7am to 3pm and then sitting empty, and they really have created a community school approach, but with the five schools in the entire community around him as they envisioned and then set out to create their five schools as community hubs open from sunrise to sunset, and really drawing all of the community resources and advocates and strengths into the classroom can Acting shelter so that they're all co supporting each other, and then also all at the heart supporting young people. And so they partner with the local hospital and with businesses and nonprofits and with working groups of refugee families and immigrant families, and all of them are collaborating on ongoing and in regular meetings, way to support young people in the community, which and they have a large number of immigrant origin students, powerful model of tapping into those strengths of looking at all the strengths in a community and drawing those in so that everyone is working together to support young people. There is a school in Georgia. Yeah, right outside Atlanta, and Decatur, Georgia called the Global Village project. School, it's the only school in the US dedicated to refugee girls who have spent a long time outside of school. And so for example, you might have a student who has never yet experienced formal education, possibly because of war or conflict, sometimes economic reasons. And let's say you're 15 1617, you shop in the US you've never had an opportunity to experience academic for formal schooling, you don't yet know English, you are often in many school systems going to be put in 10th, or 11th, or 12th. Grade. Good luck. students up for success, no. And so what the school does is it recognizes that students are going to need to play catch up and to catch up on all the years that they've missed in terms of their academic formal schooling, at the same time, as they might need to learn kindergarten or first or third grade material. They also are young adults, and they have likely lived as young adults for many years and shouldering the responsibilities of young adults. And so what the school tries to do is honor those identities honor the fact that these are young, mature women, while also providing them maybe with their third grade material or second grade material. They do this by reaching out to the community and bringing in a whole cadre of about 100 mentors from the community that come in and work one on one with these students. And that allows students time to practice language in a setting that's less anxiety, producing then one where you're practicing a new language in front of your peers, which is right, terrifying, sometimes it allows for mentorship opportunities. It I mean, I visiting the global village project, I think one of the things that stuck out to me the most was laughter and how joyful learning was at the Global Village project. And just and it struck me like, What I don't know a couple days into being there of just how much laughter I was hearing. And was like, laughter really Joy's laughter in the learning in the classroom all the time. And I realized I'd never heard so much laughter in a school. And you could imagine a very different scenario where it is exhausting and terrifying and demoralizing to have to catch up on this material. And there isn't any laughter and that's not to say that there aren't exhausting and demoralizing days. Right. Immunity they created was so supportive, that they're just it engendered so much laughter and so much joy as community. Wow, students are making up these gaps in their formal education, and then setting them up for success as they move on to high school, college or careers. There is a school in Lawrence, Massachusetts, right near me about 15 minutes away. It's a school within a school enlace a school within Lawrence High School. And that is a school for immigrant students who have been in the country usually about a year and they do really powerful work on family engagement and partnering with families really seeing them as true and equal partners in the work of educating and supporting students. And so they start out the year off not in the classroom, but in homes and they visit homes when it's convenient for families not convenient for teachers necessarily because really making sure that families feel comfortable with educators in their spaces. With rules or regulations or policies, they start with questions. What are your hopes and dreams for your kid? Let's learn from you. How can we build trusting relationships together that are then going to extend across a year so that together we're working to support your young person as they're building? New home here as they're learning a new language as they're building a new community when friends there is a school in Houston, Texas, another school for newcomers but more elementary level is again for students new to the country and its students might spend next month to a year there, and that school, one thing that I found doing really powerful, they were doing really powerful work in is the trauma therapy work they were doing of recognizing that students might come with different sorts of trauma either from experiences they had in home country or experiences on their journey, or in navigating relationships with their family, having experienced either family separation or family reunification here on the US. And they have created a whole bunch of supports to help students not just navigate academics and language, but also social emotional supports for students. They process process things they have lived through. And one of the things they do is they have this trauma sensitive garden outside. And it is filled with herbs from all around the world herbs that you will recognize no matter where you're coming from. And so you can if you're having a day that you maybe you're feeling lonely or angry or upset, or maybe you can't express the emotions, go out and sit in the garden, maybe with a teacher or a counselor, and just smelling the herbs can be really calming, but also you might and these spend time with students planting and nurturing the garden and those conversations around say repotting a plant or giving fertilizer to a plant and lead to conversations about like what it means to be up rooted and what transplanted. And what are the nutrients and the sports you're going to need. And of course, the same for students as they are transplanted and building those new communities and setting down new roots. And so just really powerful ways of supporting students social emotionally. There's a school in Guilford, actually, there's a school district in Guilford, North Carolina, that's more than 120 schools where they're reimagining literacy. The School Direct, the El director for the district, had with her team worked on a whole bunch of different strategies over many years and some successes, and then you know, test scores would go down and some successes, scores would go down. And she came up with a new approach that you've learned from a partnership by a practitioner in New York and a professor in California. And then she said about applying this to her district and having teachers reimagine how they teach literacy by setting high expectations for the types of language that students were engaging with. So that from day one, students were engaging with really complex, juicy language and that simplified language, which is sometimes often taught in ESL classes, that really complex, interesting academic language, but giving the support so that students could really tackle it and take it apart and put it back together. And they found in that three years after they started implementing this test scores shooting up in math, science, English, writing, reading, and what was powerful for me, there was how they approach supporting teachers across an entire district. In all the bulk the group PD, the individual conversations, the you're struggling to find material, let me go help you find material you're struggling with lesson let me come teach that co teach that lesson with you or model that lesson, let me come in and teach a lesson your class, you can see it really meeting teachers and educational leaders where they were, and helping them in all of the ways they might need to reimagine what it meant to teach literacy in this way of holding these high expectations. And so not just saying, This is what we're going to do, but actually providing all the supports big and small being there. If you need me, I will drive to you. And this is the yield director of the district, I will drive to you and support you in the ways you need to be able to implement this. Anyway, these are just a few of the ideas. There's so many, and they're just really, really powerful. They're all across the country. You have so many and so good. Absolutely love and my friend. And you know, just to touch on some of your points. I think when you talk about how do we break up that anxiety that some of the students have coming to school, I was just talking with a colleague today. And just in my setting, and a student was having a difficult time. And we looked at what that students facing outside of school. And we were like the expectations we put on kids. When they're facing so much out of school. It's amazing. Sometimes they just don't come and break down, right? They're in school. So building an area where there's laughter I love how you said that were the community you're bringing in community members, you're taking off that stress, which could be a very stressful environment, and you make it one where it's filled with joy And when we're laughing, our brain is activating or soaking more things, and so beautiful. And then you talked about that family engagement. And I love how you said that they go to the families, and they lead with questions. They're not going and stating, you know, you have to do this, this is what we're going to do. It's leading with those questions. And one of they say one of the most powerful things that we can build with others trust. And you talked about building that trust. And then I love and I was reading when I was reading your book, and you talked about that garden, such a beautiful thing, where they're taking different agriculture from all over the world that these kids might identify with, or when you're talking about uprooting a plant, and putting it somewhere else, and reaching a student through that, through that conversation, helping them identify with that. And then in that last example, you're talking about, you know, reimagining literacy, and making it fill with that juicy language and having, like you said earlier, let's not lower those expectations. Let's keep that high expectations. But what I thought you use that was so important, was that level of support for one another, which is tremendous. You said inside your book, you have some personal stories, because your classroom is rich with stories, can you share a few of your stories from inside your classroom? Absolutely. So seven of the so 1/3 of the book, and there are seven stories of young people are stories of seven my remarkable students. And it has been such an honor to teach them in the classroom, and then to learn from them not just in the classroom, but outside the classrooms, I sat down to learn with them for this book. So part of those stories, a lot of it is about their other experience, but some of it is weaving in some of the work we do in our own classroom. So I think about I get the, the impact in the work we do around action. Civics, is really powerful. And it's something that my students spoke a lot about when I was interviewing them for the book. In the spring semester, we tackle a classroom wide multi month, actions of project where my students choose an issue they care about in their community, and the research that issue. For example, a few years ago, my students in one class decided they wanted to tackle food insecurity. And so they researched food insecurity and the impact food insecurity has on students and on academic learning. And then they reach out to experts in the community to learn from them. They also called up a whole bunch of food pantries in our community to interview them, they then set about coming up with a goal first identifying a root cause of why some of their classmates were food insecure. And then a goal and one of the things that they came up with and identified was that many students didn't have enough access to food who were food insecure and that food pantries might be far away, or they didn't know about them. Or they were hard to access depending on timing. So they set out to see if they could open a food pantry in our school. There's a number of years ago now. And they I still remember the day that Rebecca and both a student from Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and then a student from Cambodia. Text me on the school texting app. Slender, we use your classroom, we have a meeting with the head of the Merrimack Valley Food Bank. And was like, yes, like usually we reach out together because it takes a while to draft these emails. But they had gone ahead and set up the whole meeting and they come in I just sit on the side listening to them for the whole meeting. And they propose to the food bank. Will you partner with us to open up a food pantry? And food pantry said that the food bank said yes. And they reached out to the school would you partner with us and the school said yes. And they wrote a memo detailing a cost analysis a location analysis logistics analysis how they'd run it. And the next fall, even though the class was over. And the grades were in and some of the students had graduated. We opened up the middle market a food pantry that sits inside law high school that is still in operation today many years later and actually has been used as a model for food pantries in schools throughout the district or across the district. And so that just I mean it's so uh so powerful that one example to me to see the leadership my students are taking mm On. But I think two is speaking to sort of that idea of action civics. My students are building communities here. They want to, they care deeply about their communities, and they want to engage and support and help their communities. And so one of the things we're doing, which my students talked a lot about when I was interviewing for them, but what are these actions, ethics projects of the tackling real issues in the community that they cared about learning the skills to work on those issues of how do you reach out to people? How do you write memos or op eds? Or surveys? How do you talk to officials, and then how transformative is when people were back to you and want to go, I mean, there's always that moment, when we're doing this work, maybe we're writing an email to the mayor, or the head of school or a representative. And they will turn to me and they will go sue Miss Linda, this is this is fake, right? Like this is pretend we're not actually going to send this. And then I get to be like, Oh, no, no. Email, the eyes get really, really big. And they get like real nervous. But then there's that moment when the representative or the head of school writes back. And they're, they're glowing, because adults are listening to them. Adults are interested in their voices and what they have to say. And it's just so powerful to watch that transformation happen. And then to see the impact in their confidence in their sense of the importance of their voice in this new community that they're working in and living in the amount of kids who then months later we, we learned how to write op eds, we're actually working on an op ed project right now before the actual civics project. Some months later, they'll come in being like, Miss lander, I'm upset about this issue. I'm excited about this issue. And I want to write an op ed, and will you help me write this op ed, and it won't be for a grade and it won't be for a class. They just they have skills on how to share their voices, and they care about issues. And they want to make their voices know. And it's just it's so powerful to watch that transformation. And to see my students really stepped into those leadership roles. Because we have so much to learn from them, and so much to gain from the work they're doing already in our community. So that's one story from my classroom, I'm happy to tell more. But the the work we do in our class, the ways in which we learn with each other, is really, really powerful. I guess one other project that you had mentioned to me earlier, when we were talking before the pod that came out of the work of my classroom, and it's something we talked about in the interviews with my students, is a project that developed in the classroom and then has gone national, which is not something any of us would have expected when we set out to do that. But I teach a course course called the seminar on American diversity. And in it, we study the history of laws, movements, and changemakers, who have created positive systemic change in our community over the last 150 years. And we were setting out we always write a book that we then publish, and we share in the community and beyond. And we are sending out back in 2018, to figure out what book we were going to write. And my students were grappling with a number of ideas and questions. One was, we studied Big History, this history of laws, movements, and changemakers. But equally important, is the individual strands. All the individual histories and stories of each of us that gather help us deepen our understanding of American history. And so the need to study each other, the classmates in the class that you're each other's history, to really get a fuller understanding of American history. And the same time my students were grappling with ideas around belonging. My book is about belonging. And they were grappling with these ideas not belonging, of some of my students, whether they'd been in the country a year or their families had been in the country for many generations. Some felt that they belonged, but they weren't sure other people thought they belonged. And they weren't sure they belonged at all. And we talked together and realizing that every generation has an opportunity to reimagine what it means to be American and to redefine it, to expand it and to deepen that definition. And who better to redefine what it means to be American today, then the next generation. And so my students set out to write a book, each sharing a story of self sharing a part of their history, their identity, their lived experience that would help us expand and deepen our understanding of what it meant to be American. And they wrote this book and we published it in winter of 2019. They started talking about in the community doing community conversations, speaking with reporters, speaking on radio speaking at two local universities, and then my second semester class wrote the sequel to it. And we titled these books we are America And then in the spring right at the end of the school year, right before my students graduated, my students gathered in the classroom one afternoon like Miss landed, this work has to continue. And the curriculum like that the semester was over, grades were in. Many of them were graduating in like a few days. But they said the work needed to continue. And so that afternoon, we mapped out on the whiteboard, what it would take to create a national program, national project. And I turned to my students, and so will you do this with me? I said, Yes. And we then set out to I took my curriculum and revised it so other educators could use it. And my students and I are now former students create an application and we created a whole bunch of materials for teachers, we set out a structure for what this fellowship would look like, I secured funding. And we sent out an application into the abyss of social medias and emails, and teachers started applying from all across the country. And we had our first teaching cohort of we're America teaching fellows in the fall of 2019. And we're now in year four, we're working with our fourth cohort of teachers, we work with about 2530 teachers a year, across the country, my students mentor, these teacher, my former students, now colleagues, mentor, these teachers, which is just a powerful role reversal of young people, mentoring teachers. And then in turn these, our teaching fellows are working with our students in the classrooms across the country, to support their students as they share their stories of self, and explore and learn with each other and share these stories, first, orally, and then in written books that we then lay out and we fund and each class gets 100 copies of their book of stories from their classroom that they then share in the community. And then those stories sit on a website that one of my colleagues, former students who's amazing web designer, as well don't know how she does it. created this website for us, the we are America Project. And on the website now we have more than 500 stories of young people from across the country sharing their stories of selves that we can learn from them. That's another project we do. And that is amazing. Absolutely amazing to think you took a project with your students in your little, little classroom. And first off, they came to you at the end of the semester and said, Let's keep this rolling, which is a huge win right there. But now you've taken it national and from you're reaching every part of the country. If a teacher wanted to get involved with that, yeah, what would they have to do right now. So they can follow us on Twitter. And they can also go to our website. So we are America project.com. And if they go to we are America Project calm and go to our contact page, they can either reach out to us through an email or sign up for our newsletter, follow us on Twitter. And we will be sending out the application for cohort five in like late spring. But in addition to that there is an educator resource page on the website that we built out this year. So we partner with three wonderful organizations, national organizations Facing History and Ourselves, reimagining migration and the Tenement Museum in New York City. And they helped work with us to create teaching guides for ways for teachers to use these 500 stories in their classroom. And so even if you're not a we are America Teaching Fellow right now, we hope you will apply. If you're interested. There are ways we've suggested ways clearly you can come up with your own ways for you to use the stories in your classroom so that your students can starting tomorrow. Learn from these more than 500 young people and their wisdom and their stories and identities. Yeah, there's so much that all of us can learn from every single person, if we just take the time to stop and listen. And what better way to learn about another person, a young person, a refugee and immigrant than to read their story in their own words. That's beautiful, my friend beautiful. Thank you. It's really fun. It's just such an honor to work with my students, my former students now colleagues, I mean, it's so powerful to be able to work with them and learn with them over so many years. And so it's just it's been one of the biggest joys of the last four years. Yeah, that's amazing. And I love the book. I love how you talked about the past the present. You talk about those personal stories, and you talked is all about that belonging piece. It's having people feel like they belong because they're, they're part of our future. They are our future. And, and I love the eight pillars from the, you know, the opportunities, new beginnings, community security, the opportunities to dream, having advocates, seeing their strength, which is huge. We all need somebody in our corner to see our strengths to being accepted to having that opportunity, like you're giving your students to share their voice, just beautiful pillars, my friend. Thank you. I'm so glad they speak to you. And I it's been really powerful to learn these into strips, think about how we can use these as helping create sort of roadmaps for how we think about reimagining and we're gonna education at the classroom level school level, the district level, the state level, maybe in the national level. Yeah, 100% and light. And like we said, we are all districts are going to welcome immigrants from your district, which is a much larger city, or a smaller district like myself, that just received some recently, and how can we best serve them to give them the best possible future? Absolute Awesome, awesome. Now, two of my favorite questions that I love to ask everybody at the end. And I know, and folks, let me just stop right here and say that, Jessica, I was checking out just because website and I will leave that in the show notes. She has written so much. It's not just one book. It is three books, I believe. Correct. So you have written three books, and there is a ton of different articles. So well versed in the writing in a beautiful writer. Well, writers are often you deserve it. Writers are readers often as well. Absolutely. What books would you recommend to others? Okay, so a few books that I would recommend. I mean, so many but invisible child by Andrea Elliot. So Leto by heavier Zamora. Emily Francis was another amazing educator, just wrote this book, if you only knew. And let's go with a beautiful country by Chichen jeulia. One. Excellent, some great reads to add to the list. And my my last question, if you could have the listeners walk away with one thing, what would that be? So I mean, this is sort of filtered through a lot of our conversation. And so I'll come back to it here because it is so important for me as walking away with knowing that our immigrant origin students bring so many strengths to our communities, to our classrooms, that they are that they are linguistic and cultural translators, for their parents, I was talking about that earlier. They are masters in negotiation and problem solving and teamwork. They have experienced and lived in so many different cultures and communities and carrying so many histories that they bring such depth and breadth of knowledge and perspectives from the world gained from living in many countries and cultures that they bring and enrich our classrooms within our communities, which they have developed perseverance and grit home by learning in a new land, and all of those things we talked about early on in the conversation. And so I hope that listeners will come away with an appreciation and a reminder of the tremendous strengths that our students have our immigrant origin students, all of our students, and to be excited to think about the ways that they can be a part of the work of nurturing a strong sense of belonging for our students of making sure our students feel accepted and all their beautiful identities, that their students have opportunities to share their voices and those voices are valued, that I think what I've really taken away from this work of the last three years, is there's a role for everyone in this work, not just for educators, there's really a role for everyone to be involved in creating communities where our students feel that strong sense of belonging and I think so important to that is recognizing just the tremendous strengths our students bring. Yes, I absolutely love that. My friend love that. And Jessica, I just want to say thank you so much. Thank you for your work for making this visible for all of us for going out and looking at other schools and sharing some One of the best practices that other schools are doing and for what you're doing in your classroom, and what you bring to those students, you're doing so much. Keep up the good work, my friend, definitely appreciate you. Thank you so, so much, Brian, for having me on the show for this conversation. It is just always so powerful to learn and talk with other educators. Thank you for the work you're doing in bringing people together and sharing ideas. It's just been an honor to talk with you. So thank you. Yes, Samia. And like you said, we learned from one another. Exactly. This was such a wonderful conversation, Jessica is absolutely amazing. And she's doing some phenomenal things. And as we had this conversation, everything that she said, wasn't just for students who may be immigrants or refugees, the point she brought up, they resonate for all of our students. Now, this is a teaching champions take where I share three of my favorite gems. The first gem that I loved, is how Jessica said, it's essential that we see students for their gifts for their strengths for their different perspectives. It's a must that we see it in them, and that we let them know that we see it. And just think of all the things that we stand to learn from these students, as they have a collection of life experiences and knowledge that are wildly different from our own. So take that time, and see those gifts, strengths and different perspectives. The second gen is when Jessica talked about the eight pillars of belonging, because every student should feel that they belong when they walk through the doorways to school, every single one of them should feel as if they have opportunities for new beginnings, that they're in a supportive community, they should have assurance of security, chances to dream committed advocates, that they should be in a place where we recognize students strengths, where they're accepted, and where they have opportunities to develop their voice. And the third gem is that we should stop. And we should listen. And we should hear that her story. The we are America Project is a symbol of that. And when we listen to another story. And we do that with an open mind, and an open heart, we stand to gain such a greater appreciation for who that person is and learn so much from the path that they travel. The key is, we have to be curious. And we have to be willing to listen. But everyone has a story. And everyone's story deserves to be heard. These are just a few of my favorite gems from this interview. Hit me up on social media and let me know what were some of your favorite jabs. A big thank you to Jessica for sharing so much wisdom and for the important work that she's doing. Be sure to check out her new book Making Americans stories of historic struggles, new ideas, and inspiration in immigrant education. And thank you to all of you for being here. For being part of the teaching champions community, we support we encourage we lift each other up. And if you think someone would benefit from this message, please pass it on. It's all about lifting each other up. And always remember, it doesn't matter if you're from rural America, to urban America, to Canada to Spain to Bahrain. We're all on the same team. We're all on that same mission. And we're always better together. Keep being amazing, my friends, and as we go out into the week, May you step into strength may step into your shine, and let's build our champions up. Have a great week, everybody