Culturally Responsive Teaching: Shifting From Assimilation To A Multilingual Habitus with Kholood Qumei

I'm so excited for you to hear today's episode featuring Kholood Qumei. She is an educational genius. I'm so excited that I was able to share a room with her. When I did my teaching in New York City. She currently teaches 10th and 11th-grade social studies and ESL in New York. She worked with the International Rescue Committee of New York and New Jersey. Her Master's comes from Teachers’ College. She's currently back there, again, pursuing an EdM in international education and development with a concentration in languages, literacies, and cultures. I cannot wait for you to hear this insightful conversation with Kholood.

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Lindsay Lyons: 
I am so excited to introduce to you my former colleague and amazing friend today on the podcast, Kholood Qumei, who is literally one of the most inspiring motivating people that I have just the privilege of having in my life. She introduced to me this idea of marigolds, but she credits Cult of Pedagogy's Jennifer Gonzalez as sharing it. But just this idea that you know, marigolds really have these roots that are healthy and nurturing and giving, and also, you know, by giving we grow and this two-way relationship of just thriving and growing together. I think epitomizes just my experience of my relationship with Kholood. So I am so excited to introduce to you today, um, Kholood and her brilliance, and I'm just going to actually let her introduce herself in the way that she would like to just tell us a little bit about her journey to education, her background, her research, all the things that== you know, bring her excellence into this space today.

Kholood Qumei: 
Thank you so much, Lindsay, you are so awesome and you are definitely a Marigold in my life. So I appreciate that. I will, yeah, I'll go ahead and introduce myself. So, as you said, my name is Kholood Qumei and, I am living that hyphenated life where I am an Arab-Filipina-American. I was born in Brooklyn, but then I spent my K through six years. So my elementary formative years in Amman Jordan, and then I moved back to the United States to do seventh through 12th grade. And then just ended up staying here for university. So, right now I am a 10th and 11th-grade social studies teacher in New York City. In another life though, I used to work with the International Rescue Committee in New York and New Jersey in different capacities. Started out interning with them, and then realized more and more that I wanted to get into the education field.

Kholood Qumei: 
And then let's see what else. Yeah. Education was never really, I didn't know that this would be where I would end up, but my undergrad was in international relations. I had a stint in divinity school thinking I would get my Master's in theological studies that now, after getting my MA in TESOL with a K-12 certification from, from TC, from Teachers College, I'm working full time and also back as a graduate student yet again, pursuing my EdM and International Education and development, and I'm concentrating on the field of languages, literacies, and cultures.

Lindsay Lyons: 
Awesome. There is so much there that you have accomplished already, and that is so impressive. Thank you for sharing that. I think one of the things that are really exciting about just our conversations that we've had about education is kind of like big thinking or our big dreaming about what education could possibly be. And so I think that's kind of the question I want to start with. What's the big dream that you hold for the field of education, if you could kind of dream it into being, what would that actually look like?

Kholood Qumei: 
Yeah. Initially when I first thought about this question, my, my first answer was equity in education, right? Like that's something that I think so many of us today are striving for, but then I really thought a little more deeply and I was like, well, for me, what's my big dream for education and it is equity, but I really, I really love this emphasis on multilingual learning because I think that, you know, language is something that I'm really passionate about and I think it needs to be brought into the conversation a lot more. So, so many incredible people are doing anti-racist work and talking about the decolonization of education and pedagogy, and I think that language needs to be a part of the conversation on equity, where language diversity is really celebrated and incorporated in the schools both from the bottom to top and top to bottom. Because there's so much history that we can talk, you know, ad nauseam about, about language linguistics and colonialism because we still see today without, without even really recognizing it sometimes unless we pause the colonial legacy in our curriculum and you know, English is a very dominant thing, right?

Kholood Qumei:
So I know there are discourses on globalization, global English and this idea that you know, English is supposed to be good because, you know, it expands global markets and it enhances economic expansion, but all of this is really at the expense of people's languages and diminishing them. And then, you know, going, like you said, from these big ideas to more specific ones, I see it being diminished in my students. So that's my big dream is equity in educational development through multilingual education. Uh, yeah, that's how I would really like to frame this conversation.

Lindsay Lyons: 
Awesome. I love that. And I wanted to pick up on a couple of things you said there about just even colonialism and recognizing, just being aware of and calling out and naming things like colonialism or things like just the absence of multilingualism or language in our conversations about equity. Too often, it is absent and I'm glad you, you brought attention to that. So that makes me think about the mindsets that we have as educators and, you know, as ways that we think about how education should look or how it's historically been. So what mindset shifts do you think are really required for educators and educational leaders to really buy into and, and the things that are really that you see are necessary in order to achieve this dream or work towards that dream. ,

Kholood Qumei: 
Yeah, and I think, I think that you know, in this case, we're talking more and maybe the audience is more of the American audience. So we're primarily focused here in the United States, but I think that's part of the, part of the issue, right, is that we are so America-centric. Nut I think a major mindset, mindset shift, sorry, is to think more globally, more internationally, and to, to really look beyond ourselves, both at the individual level and as a country, because there are so many great things happening out there, all around the world on all the continents that we need to be more aware of, language, education, policy, language practices, and a major mindset shift that we need to think about is, is our own language ideologies. This is something that I've been really getting into lately.

Kholood Qumei: 
So, you know, an ideology is a belief. So what is our belief on languages, as educators, especially? And before I enrolled in my program, I really, you know, I come from the ESL world with my first Master's degree. And so the whole idea was, you know, to help students get to speak English. And this is part of the American assimilation narrative. And, you know, and I get that. And I, I worked in some capacities doing, the State Department mandated cultural orientation for recently arrived refugees, but the more I started thinking about it, and the more I started thinking even of the history of ESL is how Western English-dominated it is and how that in and of itself is problematic and how we need to rethink that. So even calling the students, "English Language Learners" is so diminishing for them because they have other amazing capacities that some people truly don't have that I don't have.

Kholood Qumei: 
You know, some of them speak more than four languages. And so that's a shift from this monoglossic language ideology that is maybe so deeply embedded in this education system that maybe we need to have a more critical approach to it. And so that's more of a heteroglossic perspective and language ideology where we see that multilingualism should and can be normalized. My advisor calls it the "multi-lingual habitus", which I really love,—Carol Benson. She's amazing. So I'm really trying to adopt this language in my own life and work, but a multi-lingual habit where, you know, it's, it's drawing on people's strengths and recognizing multilingualism as really an asset. So even, even not using the language majority versus minority, like, "Oh, these are minority languages", you know, because sometimes the numbers, the numbers don't point to that. So instead of adopting language like dominant versus non-dominant, or even calling things, not a minority, but "minoritized" to emphasize that this is something that's happening to them. So really that's, I mean, in some, the mindset shift, it has to be a lot of self-reflection and looking beyond the self on so many different levels.

Lindsay Lyons:
Oh my gosh, there are so many things in there that I think we could talk about for days. But I think one of the things, two of the things that really stick out to me is one that non-US-centric idea, and that I think is, is a huge, huge piece paired with that idea of that assimilationist narrative, that idea that "Indian boarding schools," right, removed, people from their families removed their hair from their heads, their clothing on their bodies and their language from their tongues. Right? And, said that this is what it means to be American. And I think as educators, we need to recognize that is the history of what it has been in the United States. That, in addition to so many more, examples, but I mean, that's, that's what we have grown from. Like our education is rooted.

Lindsay Lyons:
Our system is rooted in that assimilationist narrative. And so stopping our language from problematizing students because they're "English Language Learners", as opposed to seeing, I love the phrase "multi-lingual habitus" and like seeing the assets, the brilliance that is required to be multilingual. Many of our teachers are not right? I, myself am not. And so I think that's a huge, huge shift. Thank you for sharing that. When we talk about, you know, like, how do we make this happen? So we have the mindset shift we're like ready to embrace, non-US- centric perspectives, we're ready to embrace the multi-lingual habitus. Like, what does that actually look like in terms of a teacher or a leader of educational development, you know, taking action towards that dream of, of that multi-lingual habitus or multilingual education being done in a way where students are thriving in schools?

Kholood Qumei: 
Yeah, I get frustrated by this a lot because it's that action step, right? It's like, okay, what can I do? And sometimes I feel like I need to be in 50 different places at once, but then I realized well, we're spread too thin. Let's focus and be more effective focusing like one thing at a time. But, I feel like now in my role, as both a practitioner, as an educator, someone deeply devoted to their students, but also someone who is a perpetual student kind of at this point of a perpetual graduate student, it's never-ending, but you know, that's fine. But you know, as a practitioner, I get really frustrated in certain situations where I, you know, in my coming across different pieces of literature that have fantastic ideas, I want to implement them. And then also as a graduate student, I become equally frustrated when the literature doesn't take into account educators like an actual educator's perspective and voices when they make recommendations.

Kholood Qumei: 
So, then I think about actions and I think actions need to be mindful of both perspectives. And really as educators, the work starts with ourselves. And I know that this is something that so many people talk about and I think it's easier said than done, right? But how do you challenge these preconceived notions, your, your ideas, your biases? And especially when it comes to language again, something I'm so passionate about, because I know that there's so much amazing work that is going on with anti-racist work, and challenging those preconceived notions. But I really, I would love to challenge others to think about their own biases with language. So what actions can be taken, what can people do in their schools? I think at a school level, maybe engaging more in the small steps. I know that a few of us started a book club, I think was it two years ago at this point?

Kholood Qumei: 
Yeah. Book club, monthly and engaging in really, really thoughtful readings and then sometimes not thoughtful because we needed a break. But you know, when you learn something, running PDs, right, encouraging your colleagues to attend conferences with you, giving each other critical and meaningful feedback on your curriculum, on your pedagogy, asking people, what they think being vulnerable in that sense. And I know that when we work together, I so admired you and your work, Lindsay, that, that you were probably the first person I always went to for that kind of meaningful exchange and feedback to take actions, to have these mind shifts that we're talking about. But then I think comes the question like, okay, and this is, this is the frustration that I was talking about earlier where, you know, I think there are so many of us educators who are doing the work, putting in the time, learning about ourselves, how we can be better, how we can do better.

Kholood Qumei: 
But then how, how do we make the next jump? Right? Because a lot of these issues are they're systemic. How do we challenge that? You know, I think in politics, people say that that next jump is, you know, with active citizenship and civics, civic participation. And one example is voting, among many, many other ways of civic participation, but I would love to see more educators at the table doing work with policy discussions and being in positions of power. I find it really challenging to accept when there's a person in power in the education world who's never taught a day in their life. You know, and then I also see many educators who have so many fantastic ideas who want to stay in the classroom because that's the kind of people that we are. We love our students, we love our work. I have those moments where I'm like, I don't want to leave, but is there a way to do both? So, having that balance, but being...doing the work ourselves and being a part of that conversation, that larger conversation, I think that that is how a lot of that mindset shift can really start to come to fruition.

Lindsay Lyons: 
I love that because they also think it speaks to my research that I talk about all the time like shared leadership and thinking about how do we make sure that teachers are at that decision-making table in schools, but also beyond. And like you were saying, like in political positions, in policy-making positions, and I'm almost thinking too, you know, how, how about students and family members as well, who are multilingual to be in those positions of power, as well as shaping policy and, you know, thinking about those recommendations for schools individually as a community, but then also beyond. And I think that's an incredibly powerful shift when we can shift from like individual work to systemic work. So I appreciate you sharing that. I think a lot of the teachers that I talk to and the questions that they ask of me is like, "Okay, tell me a strategy." Like, "Give me a strategy to use."

Lindsay Lyons: 
And while I think sometimes that oversimplifies the problem or approach, I guess I should say to address how, how we create spaces for multilingual students to thrive. I think it's also something that is tangible like you were saying and making sure that, you know, what we communicate is practical for educators. What are some of the key concepts that you've learned about, or the particular strategies that you've learned about in your research or you use in your practice that you would recommend that are maybe those top strategies or recommendations that teachers could take and apply in practice?

Kholood Qumei:
Yeah. I love that you bring that up, Lindsay, because I know I sometimes, and just, you know, like I want to open a blog and find a strategy immediately that I can implement tomorrow. And sometimes I do find amazing strategies, you know, and sometimes, sometimes I don't, but, you know, it's, it's definitely a combination right? The mindset that then organically translates in...translates rather...into a practice that we have. And also knowing some strategies. Right. So for me, I think, you know, we hear funds of knowledge, we hear removing deficit perspective, but what does that actually mean when you've implemented a strategy? Like, we can believe that as much as we want, but then if we don't do that in the classroom, it, it kind of doesn't mean as much. But I really personally love allowing students to use their home language.

Kholood Qumei: 
I completely understand and honor the fact that some educators actually, not some, that many educators we're, so we're so pressured by standardized testing, right. Because our job is to help the kids. We want to get them to a place where they are, you know, taking—I can just also talk about the issues with assessment for a while, but I won't—because you know, our multilingual learners—I'm not going to use English language learners—but our multilingual learners, their accommodations, right? They have accommodations. So they're an afterthought. The test is not designed for them. So there's, there are inherent problems there, but as much as we want to, you know, help them, sometimes it sometimes before they can make that jump, we need to, we, as teachers need to also honor their home languages a little bit more and telling them, you know, "Yeah, like now is a great time if you want to use it," whether, you know, jotting down ideas on paper, or if, you know, some kids are lucky enough where there are other students in the classroom who share the same home language, allowing them space and time for that.

Kholood Qumei: 
And also really being mindful of literacy practices. Right. So, you know, one area that I really focus on is the Arabic language and recognizing that whether, because of interrupted formal education in some of these contexts and countries, um, or because, you know, Arabic is diglossic in nature. So that means that there's, there is like a standardized Arabic, and then there are also different varieties and I will not call them "dialects". I call them "varieties" and different languages of Arabic. Right? So, you know, for me, I can write in standard Arabic, but when it comes to my home language, the Levantine variety of Arabic, it's not standardized. So it's mostly transliterating, orthographically, whatever is like coming out of my mouth. So sometimes students have different experiences with literacies even in their home languages. So allowing opportunities for drawing or speaking, you know, it doesn't—pen to paper is really hard for students sometimes.

Kholood Qumei: 
And we don't, we don't pause to think about that. So my biggest strategy, I guess, in sum, that I would, I would give is, you know, allowing space and time and recognition of home language and really getting to know the students' home languages, because I see so many, so many, you know, papers that come from the system that labeled their language like, Oh, this student speaks Spanish, the student speaks French, Arabic, Bengali. But what does that actually mean? Because that's not that that oftentimes is not even their home language. You know, I've, I've seen Wolof a little bit more, for some of our Senegalese students, a little bit more now than, rather than just French, but there so many languages in Senegal, you know, Wolof is the lingua franca there, but it might not be our students’ home languages. And so we need to do a better job in learning that, and maybe with needs assessments, finding that out, finding out their skill sets there, and then using that because again, just because they don't speak English doesn't mean that our students are disadvantaged. We need to just, we need to eliminate that belief, and we can learn from them.

Lindsay Lyons: 
Oh my gosh, I love that. You said that, like, I think, you know, I think so much of this is—I often say that standardized curriculum or standardized practices are, you know, difficult because there is this exchange, right? There's this exchange between what our students teach us and what we are able to teach our students. And the fact that we're in partnership and learning together, I think is a really important point. And I love that you highlighted, you know, this is what it looks like to do this in a particular space. You get to know your students, you get to ask those questions, you get them to tell you in their own words, you know, what their home languages and not just trust that what is given to us on paper is what is, and I think that's really important in terms of just the partnership that we have with our students.

Lindsay Lyons: 
And, and again, going back to that mindset of we're together, and it's going to be responsive to the needs of our students and not just, I'm going to do teaching in this one way. I love that you used the phrase, and I'm paraphrasing here, but I wrote down something like the tests we accommodate students. Multilingual students for tests, "the test is not designed for them". And I think that's really important when we're framing and grounding our work and curriculum and assessments that we design. Are we grounding it in an approach that involves all students and enables all students to be successful, or are we just accommodating and adapting something that was not designed for all students? And so I just wanted to highlight that those I think are really important points. And I love that you also talked a little bit about your own students, and so you teach in a school where all students are multilingual. So, we taught in that same school together and it was beautiful what we can learn from our own students. And I would love it if you could just share maybe a particular either lesson or strategy or even student—individual student's story that highlights, you know, the success that we can have when we thoughtfully designed those learning experiences with multilingual students in mind and really centering their, their needs and strengths.

Kholood Qumei: 
Yeah. I think when I started my career as a teacher, and I think the reason why I ended up choosing the TESOL certification was because of my own experience. I came to America in seventh grade knowing English. My mom made sure that we tried to speak it as much as he could at home because she always knew that she wanted to come to America. But I think that I was drawing on my own experiences in seventh grade and you know, that silent period, because, and that's why I'm really emphasizing, right, like honoring home language, and knowing the home language because, Oh my goodness, just learning that, you know, Spanish was not actually the first language of, you know, some of my students, especially from, you know, like my students who speak, K'iche or Quechua, that was, that was major.

Kholood Qumei: 
And that was an education for me because I knew nothing about it. So it was also a vulnerability and education on my part. But, to go back to your question, a particular lesson or strategy or story...there's, I, well...I've been doing, I didn't know, I think, well, you know, this, but I've been doing more, more work around maps because I've, I've gotten really international geographic education. I actually got their fellowship, which was really exciting. So, um, I got the Grosvenor Teacher Fellowship and got to go to Antarctica. And so bringing that to our students has been so phenomenal, but more than just learning about Antarctica. And that was a whole thing in and of itself was just rethinking geography and place and space, especially in the context of our multilingual learners. Again, thinking of funds of knowledge, thinking of what strengths they bring, and finding a way to create a mini maps unit, that looked at maps, but also perspective and bias.

Kholood Qumei: 
Starting very simply allowing space for home language and, you know, multiple literacies where there was a lot of drawing, a lot of speaking, and not, I did not start with any like kind of essay prompts or anything like that, although there is a time and place for that, at that, that was a really cool experience. And I do particularly remember the first time doing it, the mini maps unit, it covered all the maps on the walls, which is there for this. No, I don't think, I don't think so after. Yeah. So, I have the traditional standardized, widely accepted yet highly problematic Mercator projection. And then also the Gall-Peters and also an upside-down one. I've been trying to get my hand on an Asia-centric map as well. But yeah, so having students just first draw what the world map, what they think it looks like to them.

Kholood Qumei: 
And that was really cool because it was a space for drawing. Some students ended up using a lot more language, in the maps, so they were labeling things, other kids were not, and that was also completely fine, but then allowing them to, at first in small groups in pairs explain it to each other and then out loud with the whole class, like sharing their surprising moments, their shocks their interesting comments. And then from there, you know, learning more about the language of geography, so there's the vocabulary input, but it's grounded in something that we've already started, and also building on what they know, because I didn't know. And that's why I kind of wanted to start with this—curious about where in their home countries is geography taught there? And for some of our students, it was an Asia-centric map.

Kholood Qumei: 
Right. And it was also cool to see which places were bigger, which places were completely forgotten. Right? You know, everyone remembered Antarctica because they kept talking about it for years. But yeah, slowly starting from there and moving from, you know, the conversation eventually to the written. And it was really great where at the end when we were writing about imperialism and doing an essay on imperialism, students circling back to this unit opener, I guess a hook mini, mini-unit, and especially in their conclusion that "So what?" part, cause I think that's the hardest thing to teach a student, even myself as the grad student that "So what?" part. But yeah, that was, that was really, that was really a fun unit that I could share that. I think it was really a high challenge because you're really challenging the students to think critically when you start introducing perspective and bias, why certain maps are the way they are. And then looking at different maps, we eventually looked at, you know, physical maps, political maps, topological maps, climate maps, but then also from different places and across different time periods. So that was, that was pretty neat while also making it accessible.

Lindsay Lyons: 
That is an amazing unit. I saw—I think I was there when you started doing map units, but, I did not see the evolution to that point. That sounds phenomenal. And I would encourage any listener who teaches social studies to do that unit because I think there's so much that you're teaching there, you're embedding criticality, you're embedding intellect, you're starting where students are and you're inviting them to share their brilliance and, and really educate each other and ourselves as teachers being able to learn from students in that way, I think is just so profound. And I also think it's a great example of—I talk a lot about co-constructing curriculum with students. And so while you were there for my wild experimentation of like "Design your own unit and do that for an entire semester!"—Like that is one extreme, this is also an example of how, you know, students can, co-create the lesson, like on a lesson level, I'm sure having different students in the class for that lesson produce different results from, from class to class.

Lindsay Lyons: 
And that conversation was varied. And so I think for educators or leaders supporting educators to the co-construct curriculum with students, this is a great example of one point on that continuum where it is incredibly valuable. And also doesn't take like a ton of, you know, front end work of like, okay, which, what do students know already? And identifying that going in, like you got to just learn that with them through the activity and during the lesson. So I think that's a very doable thing that teachers could put into their practice for teaching geography and so powerful.

Kholood Qumei: 
I'll also just quickly add that it's also decolonizing it, right? Because you're, you're looking at geography and, and politics and histories so critically, and it is, it is anti-racist work too because you're questioning who made Mercator projection, right? Like why is Africa this size? Why is Australia here? Where is, where is, why is Europe so massive? Right. So, looking at that, identifying the biases of the creators and having students come to those conclusions is really empowering. So I'll just throw that out there too, in the spirit of what we were talking about earlier as well. So yeah.

Lindsay Lyons:
I think that's another great example. I think one of the things, we...I've been talking to educators who teach in rural areas that are predominantly filled with white students in their classes as well. Sometimes they will hear an example like that and they'll say, well, we can't do that because we have this like mono-racial, mono-cultural mono-linguistic, like, you know, experience. But I think this is a perfect example of how you would slightly adapt this and still teach exactly the principles that you're trying to get across. Right? Like looking at who created each of these maps and having that critical lens and having the lens of decolonization when we look at just things in our sphere of education is something you can absolutely do, regardless of who is in your class. I mean, you could also jump on a zoom call with another class, like Kholood's class or something, you know, to, to share ideas that maybe aren't present in your classroom. But I think that's, that's a wonderful emphasis that you just added because I think that's something everyone can do regardless of who is sitting in your classroom, whether that be your physical classroom, your digital classroom now, but, um, as we kind of move to close out of it, I'm curious, are there resources that you have come across that you find to be really helpful in thinking through this or that you would recommend instructional leaders read or, you know, things that would help them learn more about multilingual education and what they could do for students?

Kholood Qumei:
Yeah. I think that this is something where like when I was thinking also, I mean, every time I have a question I'm like, wait, and then it takes like an hour to come up with an answer. But, I have been trying...I think that's why I ended up pursuing this other graduate degree is because I wanted resources and I kept running into roadblocks. Like I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for with multilingual education, because a lot of what's out there still disadvantages them as English Language Learners. And as much as we try to celebrate them and to celebrate and honor, and, you know, empower—they're already empowered—you know, we just, they have voices, right? Like we just need to be listening more, but I kept getting, I kept hitting roadblocks. So I think that's why I pursued it.

Kholood Qumei:
I mean, I know that's why I pursued this degree in international education and development, focusing on languages, literacies, and cultures because I will admit that I was really intimidated by scholarly work. So I was like, "Oh gosh," like, "How do I, Where is my entrance into this? How do I fit? Where do I start?" But with comparative education and also linguistic anthropology, I've come across so many fantastic articles. And that's something that I would really recommend to educators interested in multilingual education is don't be afraid of the scholarly work. We know a lot as educators, right? Like researchers will come to us when conducting work. So, you know, I think, I think we, there's such a great divide between theory and practice. And I think we need to close that gap a little bit more. So a lot of the recommendations that I do have, you know, the canon of Linguistic Anthropology or, or, critical pedagogy specifically focusing on multilingual education is in scholarly work.

Kholood Qumei: 
So again, um, you know, whether it's Carol Benson or Nelson Flores over at UPenn...Nancy Hornberger, a lot of their work is phenomenal and, you know, it's something that I think we as educators can read and then, and then think about in our own practice. So that's kind of where I have been heading to get more because I...yeah, I just kept hitting roadblocks. So don't be intimidated or afraid to read it and question it as we all should because that's important and that's, that's part of, you know, why people read and write and publish and all of that.

Lindsay Lyons: 
I love that recommendation. Thank you. And I just want to kind of summarize, we've talked about so many things today. So we've talked about the mindset shift required. The multi-lingual habitus that we want to really frame our thinking around and start shifting from that problematic language of problematizing students for, for not having English fluency and seeing that strengths-based multilingual learner kind of lens. As we look at our students, we want to really do the personal work, the collective work as, as a group. I know you shared some great strategies for that. And we also want to make sure that we're at the policy level. And so teachers have representation there and multilingual people have representation there as well. Getting to know your students and really making sure that students are able to use their home language and are encouraged to use their home language as well as multiple literacies.

Lindsay Lyons: 
And so we're not just putting pen to paper, and also you gave some great examples of ways to really look at perspective and bias to decolonize the curriculum, using your geography maps unit. And, and that recommendation that we should always be looking critically at, at the theory and the scholarly work. And also maybe I took from that as well, turning to other educators and just seeing what's working well in practice and even learning from our students and families, what can be done in classes. So there's so much richness in this, in this conversation that I'm curious if you could just recommend one place to start. So one next step that an educator or a leader of educational development could take to really live in alignment with that valuing of multilingual learners. That idea of rooting our work in equity and justice, and really be the best educators that they can be to enable all students to thrive. What would that one next step be?

Kholood Qumei: 
Oh man, that's tough. But you also did a phenomenal summary. I have to, I have to tell you, the one next step and I'm going to make this next step—cause I feel like there's so much great work out there, but I want to make it, I want to make it like a language slanted next step—I think, I think it is kind of...this is so tough. But...cause it's kind of two-pronged right. I think it's questioning what we like our language use and like language practices and also better learning our students. So challenging these preconceived notions, like getting to know, doing, doing a language history. Maybe that, maybe I can say that doing a language history, learning history for ourselves and for our students, because this reminds me of like, you know, how you asked me to introduce myself and there was kind of a narrative to it.

Kholood Qumei: 
Everyone has a story and we hear so many cool stories about, you know, people's lives and, you know, maybe it's like having the story. How did they come here to America? Or, you know, where, how did you end up in this field of study, but people have language histories and language stories that are often forgotten. Like maybe it becomes, maybe it becomes like a sentence in an introduction or in, in a biography, right? Like, and I speak this and that and that, or, you know, but, but that is, it's minimizing so much when like we're talking about literacy is like, well, I know how to read and write in this, but it's...it's different from my home language or, you know, I, you know, I went, I was like, my neighbors, you know, maybe spoke this one language, like my Italian neighbors. And I always heard like this one variety. But thinking more deeply about that, I think, for ourselves and for students, because I think language is a big part of who we are and how we express ourselves. And so, not minimizing language, and thinking of it more critically, more deeply and, and just figuring out the nuances will help us in our, in our steps of, you know, embarking on this mind shift.

Lindsay Lyons: 
That's awesome. And you've been sharing so much, I think throughout the session of just things that you've been learning yourself like and been very self-reflective about that. So I think that's great just to kind of highlight we're all learning and growing constantly. And the best thing we can do is really commit to that learning and growth. And I'm just curious if there's something that you haven't shared that you're really, that you've been working on or learning more about or thinking more about lately. Is there something else that you wanted to kind of share, highlight or highlight even your own work that, you know, the research that you're doing, so that other leaders can just be aware of that and learn from you?

Kholood Qumei: 
Well now, you know, teaching in the time of coronavirus has been on my mind a lot lately, obviously, it's had its challenges, to say the least. But one thing I've been looking at and thinking about a little more deeply is about education in emergencies, and how, you know, there's so much work being done now. But not just now, but has been done for so long on refugee and IDP, which is Internally Displaced Persons, their education for various reasons, whether it's war conflict, natural disasters, you know, and whether it is something acute, something ongoing or, you know, something protracted over long periods of time, but there are people out there would have been putting in the work for decades now. And there's so much literature out there. There is a network called the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies, and they do fantastic work and have published so much, for teachers, educators, researchers.

Kholood Qumei:
And I think it's worth exploring because you know, education in emergencies is not a new thing. And it's been around for a while and, you know, the Western world has kind of been epitomized like, "Let's look up to them and see what they're doing." Right? But now I think we need to be listening to a little bit more. So, you know, challenging the dominance and the hegemony and all that. So, that's kind of, what's been on my mind and I just would maybe throw that out there. That's a cool network to check out the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies. If anyone's interested.

Lindsay Lyons: 
You can also drop a link to that in the show notes for this episode so that people can just click on it and they don't have to do a Google search. That was a mouthful. I was like, yeah, let me make sure I got that down. So I will drop a link in the show notes. And then I think just a final piece like I am constantly—I learned so much from you in this episode alone—but I am constantly learning from you. And I would hope that listeners have learned a lot from this episode as well, and are interested in continuing to learn from you. So I'm interested in, you know, where learners might connect with you or learn more about you on either social media or, you know, wherever it would be that you would direct them to do that. I think you just have so much brilliance to share and I want to make sure people are connected with that.

Kholood Qumei: 
Yeah. I am, I am a little social media-shy, but I do have a Twitter. That's my one vice. So, I can also share that with you, but it's, I guess you put twitter.com/, or I guess the handle, right. That's what we're looking for. I am not like the most social media savvy, but it's my last name and then the first three letters of my first, so it's can QumeiKho Q-U-M-E-I-K-H-O, I almost forgot how to spell my name, but yeah, if people want to follow me, I'm always up for chaps and learning, and yeah, I really look forward to, to any of that, any and all of it.

Lindsay Lyons: 
Awesome. Thank you so much Kholood. I just really appreciate you being here and taking the time because you are super busy with a full-time job and a full-time job like research and all the things that you're doing at grad school. And so I really appreciate you and I appreciate all the wisdom that you shared today. So thanks for being on the podcast.

Kholood Qumei:
Thank you so much, Lindsay. You honestly inspired me to go back to school. I...for all the listeners out there, I've never met a person like Lindsay, you dissertating while teaching full time. I just thought, "You know what, I can do this." And so, yeah, you inspire me every single day and you know, when the going gets tough, I'm like, I can do this, you know, and I think of you. So thank you for having me here and thank you. And I hope you know this, you know, I just, I wish you the best. So thank you so much, Lindsay. Thank you.

 Language History Survey

​Lindsay Lyons:
Thank you, Kholood! See this is why she is my marigold. This is amazing.

Thanks for listening, amazing educators. If you loved this episode, you can share it on social media and tag me @lindsaybethlyons or leave a review of the show. So leaders like you will be more likely to find it. To continue the conversation, you can head over to our Time for Teachership Facebook group and join our community of visionaries of educational development until next time leaders continue to think big, act brave, and be your best self.