Summer school: "The Arab American Experience"
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As a professor whose humanities classes often draw Arab American students, Sabra Webber knows life can be hard for them--especially in Ohio's small-town high schools.
"Of all the immigrant groups," she says, "that's probably the one that's the most misunderstood."
Webber's Arab American students often tell her they felt lonely and "very, very much the minorities in small towns," she says.
"It's so fantastic now to be at Ohio State, because I don't feel so alone anymore," students have told Webber, a professor of comparative studies and near eastern languages and cultures.
"They've connected with other people who've gone through the same experience," she says.
Two years ago, when Webber read a news story about a boy who wore a t-shirt that said "Islam is a lie" to school, she decided she needed to do something that would help teachers understand the specific problems their Arab American students face, and use that newfound knowledge to make their classrooms more hospitable to such students.
With grants from the Ohio Humanities Council and Ohio State's Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, Webber spent a week this summer teaching a seminar for high school teachers on "the Arab American experience."
"The teachers cannot specialize in Arab Americans, but at Ohio State we have people who can specialize in something that narrow," she says. "That's one of the things we have to offer here."
Teachers in Webber's class read books and poems by Arab Americans, watched the documentary Being Osama, met an Arab American fiddler, and took a field trip to Dearborn, Michigan, where the visited the largest mosque in the United States and toured the Arab American National Museum.
"They really picked up on the idea that it's important to hear the voices of the people themselves," Webber said.
Related information:
Ohio State Professor Sabra Webber
Ohio State Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures
Ohio State Department of Comparative Studies
Famous Arab Americans:
- Ralph Nader, consumer advocate and three-time presidential candidate
- Doug Flutie, former NFL star
- Dick Dale, a pioneer of surfer music
- Christa McAuliffe, who died in the Challenger explosion
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