Featured Educator: Uzma Hossain

What sparked your interest in education? How did you end up working with CPET?

I have always wanted to teach for as long as I can remember. What truly sparked my interest was when I was in elementary school, I taught English to my cousins in Bangladesh when I would visit them during my summer vacations. I love the notion of education as empowerment.

I began working with CPET when I was in the doctoral program at TC and had the pleasure of studying with Ruth Vinz. She told me about CPET and brought me on board.

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What are your current research interests and current projects?

I focused my doctoral work on Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and South Asian American studies which I hope to continue to cultivate. I hope to research more about South Asian American youth and also the work that I am doing with schools. My current project is my first baby, my seven month old baby boy, Javed.

How does CPET seek educational equity while navigating complicated mandates and policy shifts?

I think that CPET places a significant amount of importance on respect--respect for teachers, administrators, and most of all, students and their learning. The CPET educators, my colleagues, often speak of the challenges that educators face, and push to advocate for those who advocate for their students. We want to ensure that educators are providing powerful opportunities for their students to learn, in alignment with the mandates and policy shifts, but we also strive to support the educators who are being pulled in different directions--to help them navigate these various demands.

If your life was a movie, what genre would it be, who would play you, and what is one song you want on the soundtrack?

I would love for it to be a Bollywood movie, but I think it would be more of a comedy, and I feel blessed for that. I love Sophia Vergara's personality on "Modern Family" so I would love for her to play me in a movie, but I am a lot more awkward. :) Right now, I feel blessed to have my family and my baby boy, so I would choose "The Book of Love", by Peter Gabriel to be on my soundtrack.

If you could choose one word to summarize CPET's philosophy what would it be?

Respect