CFD Team Spotlight: Souhaila Nassar, Graduate Fellow
The Newsletter Team sat down with one of our graduate fellows, Souhaila Nassar, for an interview about her work, passions, hobbies, and special CFD projects. The transcript of our interview is below.
CFD Team: Tell us a bit about yourself.
I am originally from the wounded land of olives, martyrs, resistance, and return. My grandparents were Palestinian farmers who had a strong relationship with the land. On May 15, 1948, my grandparents were forcibly exiled from Acre, a city in the north of the occupied land of Palestine. When they reached the south of Lebanon, they became labeled as refugees. This was the case for more than 750,000 Palestinians. The work of numerous Palestinian authors depicted this tragic shift in social identity. For example, the leading Palestinian novelist, Ghassan Kanafani, vividly describes this harrowing identity shift in the autobiographical The Land of Sad Oranges. He writes:
“I watched the long line of cars enter Lebanon, leaving long behind them the land of oranges. I started wailing. Your mother was still looking in silence at the oranges. In your father’s eyes were the reflection of all the orange trees he had left behind … all the clean orange trees he had planted one by one glittered in his face. He failed to stop the tears that filled up in his eyes when he came to face the head police officer.
When we reached Saida [a city in the South of Lebanon], in the afternoon, we became refugees.”
In Borj al-Barajneh camp, my grandparents established a family under a tent, which later became a stone house where 5 sons, 2 daughters, and 34 grandchildren were raised. As a third-generation Palestinian and the grandchild of those forcibly displaced from their homeland, I carry the legacy of their exile.
I was raised with 6 siblings in a small house tucked away at the end of an alley facing the UNRWA clinic in the camp. My educational journey started at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) schools. I later earned a BS in Biochemistry from the Lebanese University (LU), a Master’s in Business Administration from the Lebanese International University (LIU), and a Master’s in Science Education from the American University of Beirut (AUB). I taught science for a decade in Lebanon and resented the unjust policies schools have long imposed on teachers and students. I vehemently felt that something was wrong and something should be done but I didn’t have the language to articulate what those “somethings” were until I read Paulo Freire’s inspiring work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. It was then that I realized that not only was I oppressed but also participating in the oppression of my students. My overwhelming frustration fueled a defiant rejection of oppressive pedagogies that deny children’s identities and school policies that strip teachers of agency. This led me to resign from teaching and start a new journey.
I am currently a PhD student and graduate worker at the Wheelock School of Education and Human Development in the Language and Literacy Education program. My focus is inherently interdisciplinary. I am interested in exploring various ways to nurture multilingual learners’ scientific sensemaking and engagement in science and engineering practices. Further, my heart’s work lies in designing culturally resonant curricula and learning experiences for third and fourth-generation Palestinian refugee children to nurture their identity work and rootedness in their cultural heritage.
CFD Team: What is your role within the Center?
I am a graduate research fellow. I have been involved in pedagogy-focused projects including the design and implementation of the summer teacher education workshop on forced displacement.
CFD Team: What experiences most directly led you to your role with the Center?
I have interdisciplinary interests that align well with CFD’s vision and interdisciplinary research pillars. Before starting my PhD at BU, I taught science to Palestinian, Syrian, and Lebanese children for around ten years. I also worked as an educational designer and project manager at an EdTech NGO in Lebanon. My work entailed designing digital learning experiences for disadvantaged children, including low-income Lebanese children as well as Palestinian and Syrian refugees. The last two projects I worked on before moving to Boston were: 1) The Language of Science and Mathematics Project in collaboration with AUB where we designed modules for English language learners to support them in learning the language of science, and 2) LALmoudaress project which aimed to support teachers across Lebanon at times of emergency. Those projects sparked my curiosity to explore various ways to support disadvantaged and forcibly displaced children, a core pillar of CFD’s work.
CFD Team: What inspires you about this work?
I find inspiration in more than one aspect of this work. First, I am a member of a forcibly displaced family stripped of the right to visit my homeland, swim in the sea of Acre, and taste the oranges of Yafa. I graduated from UNRWA schools where Palestinian history was not (and is still not) taught and signs of nationalism are prohibited. Thus, serving neoliberal Western ideologies aiming to erase Palestinian histories and identities. I am also a multilingual learner who has struggled to learn school subjects and communicate in a foreign language. I share some of the histories and aspects of identities with forcibly displaced learners, teachers, workers, women, and mothers. My work with CFD opens up opportunities for me not only to learn about myself and other forcibly displaced people but also to support those people in their journey of becoming authors of transformative social futures.
CFD Team: Tell us about some of your passions and hobbies outside of academia. What makes you, you?
Outside academia, I enjoy nature walks. I find mind and body relaxation in yoga. I have taken a couple of Vinyasa yoga classes. I have also recently learned three cultural practices, embroidery, knitting, and weaving. With every X-stitch, knit, or pick, I learn a lot about myself and the cultural histories of my ancestors.
CFD Team: Where do you see yourself in five years?
This is a contemplative question. I hope to have my PhD completed with a few publications by then. I also hope to establish my own educational non-profit organization seeking to collaborate with community artists, educators, and policymakers to design and effectively implement immersive culturally resonant learning experiences for Palestinian children in refugee camps and beyond.
CFD Team: Can you tell us a fun fact about yourself/can you tell us about something you’re proud of?
While all my siblings inherited my dad’s sea blue eye color, I’m the only one with complete heterochromia – the little twist in the family that has everyone wondering what eye color my children will have. Let’s just say, I’ve kept them waiting way too long.