Episode 14: Reaching for the Periphery

We have no weapons. We only have pots and pans. We have no power. We only have pots and pans. Beat the pots. Bang the pans. This is our revolution. We have no weapons. We only have pots and pans. We have no power. We only have pots and pans. Well, it's not every day I get to interview my former boss. But in this week's episode, here he is. Scott Habib, or as I affectionately call Jefecito. Although rooted in Salem, Virginia, and more akin to his mother's eastern Kentucky background, Habib tells of the Lebanese heritage on his other side, and what it was like growing up in southern Appalachia, looking more like the latter rather than the former. His story is one that many of our EL students will find relatable. Scott also shares his passion for those on the periphery, and his calling to create a non-profit organization that serves adults, who society tends to overlook. Along with this story of compassion, we will enjoy the creative, energetic indie pop of Dan Dandero of Lima, Peru. Tracks from their brilliant album, La Gran Impresión, will be shared. They masterfully blend elements of 80s synth wave and 90s indie. And well, if you're as old as me, you'll surely feel pangs of nostalgia. As always, our mission is to create an archive of meaningful accounts, while sharing artists with similar experiences and cultural backgrounds. And now, here are their stories. So, I'm lacing up my trail shoes, and I'm ready to go up the second mountain of the day. And I'm up on Humpback Rocks, in case there's any hikers out there, just south of Shenandoah National Park. It's April 2021, and I'm traveling to southwest Virginia, the Roanoke Valley, to visit my family. And I'm going to spend the rest of the day in the mountains. It's April 2021, and I'm traveling to southwest Virginia, the Roanoke Valley, to not sign my contract, but sign my letter of intent. And as I'm putting on my, whatever, my left shoe or my right shoe, my phone vibrates, which is strange, because I didn't think I would have connection up there. But it vibrates, and I wasn't going to answer it, but I look at it, and it says, and it says, Salem, Virginia. And here I am, deep in all of my interviews and applying, but, you know, for all intents and purposes, I have the job I want. But I was like, Salem, Virginia, who, what? And then I answer my phone. So, I'm sitting in my office, April of 2021, wishing I could hire an EL teacher, but knowing that we don't have the funds for it. When I get a call from my superintendent who says, guess what? We have funds for an EL teacher. And I had to ask twice to make sure. But, yes, we were going to hire a full-time EL teacher, and I knew just the guy because I had met him in a Zoom, Mr. Nolan Shigley. So, I picked up my phone, and I called Nolan, and he answers it and says he's on top of a mountain. And I have to say, listen, I cannot promise you a job, but I'm thinking I'm promising you a job. But I can't say that. You could imagine what my mind was on that entire second loop of my run. Oh, yeah. I say, come to Salem, please. And you're like, Nolan says something, I'm going to accept a job elsewhere. I can't do it. And so, I think you actually hung up. I did not hang up on you. Well, not rudely. Oh, okay. We got off the phone. And then I get a phone call back saying, hey, can we talk more about this? And I'm like, yes, we got him. Well, I was afraid it was unethical, maybe a prank call, but I did recognize your voice. Well, then you came in, and meanwhile, I think you said something like, can we maybe go out to dinner and can you see the high school? And so, I called our superintendent and said, look, this guy's coming in. We have to hire him. And if we don't get him by, like, tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. or something like that, we've lost him. And so, you and I hung out. We went to dinner. We walked around the building. I became even more sure of it. You got up to go wash your hands or something at the restaurant. I called our superintendent and said, seriously, we have to hire this guy. So, he said, tell him to meet with me tomorrow morning at 8 a.m., and we'll see what happens. Do you know I've never met a superintendent before that? Because in Chesterfield County, you don't get to meet the superintendent, not because he's or she's a bad person, but because they are in charge of, God, like 18 high schools, 50 elementary. It's its own country. That's right. It's its own state, basically. And so, when you told me I had to meet the superintendent, I was like, what? Dude, all I brought were, like, running clothes, a pair of jeans, and a T-shirt. So, I went over to the Belk store in the mall. You did it. Did you really? Yeah, I did. Yeah, well, I was in a pinch, all right? Gosh, and I bought a pretty cheap suit. It's cheap because it ripped, like, literally days later, days later. And I don't even think it really fit me, and I didn't have any good shoes. And so, I don't know how I sold myself when I went. I'd already sold you. Well, thank you so much because there is nothing wrong with Belk. It's just what I maybe had chosen at that time with that lack of time. Well, I was so excited after he met you. He said, you're right. We're hiring. I've offered him a contract. I've offered him a job. And, man, I knew we were in for something good. I didn't know quite how good, though. Well, that, and no lying, that was one of the most important phone calls I've ever taken in my life. Yeah. I think of, I just think of the students and the staff and the friends that I wouldn't know if I had not taken that phone call or accepted that position. Like, it's, like, we were just talking about Dr. Sarah Epperle. It's like I couldn't imagine, or Meg Crewe, I couldn't imagine my life not knowing these people, not knowing y'all. Well, it's hard to imagine right now this school and this division without the type of EL program that you've brought, just the cultural impact that you're having. It's very exciting. So I think it was very providential that at that moment you got self-service, and at that moment, you know, we had this job open up. So very cool. Can you introduce yourself? Absolutely. My name is Scott Habib. My current role in the city of Salem schools is IMD coordinator for alternative and online programs. So I oversee any kind of, whether it's GED or alternative ed or for students online. We have some online programs that kids do. I oversee all that. Now, for 20, this will be my second year of that role, but for the 26 years before that, I was at Salem High School. I was a history teacher for seven years. Then I moved to the dark side of the force. I became an assistant principal for nine years, and then the last ten I was here, I served as the principal, and that's when I had the honor of recommending that we hire Mr. Nolan Shigley. You were also the tennis coach. I was. Not to destroy everything you just said. Right. No, I coached girls' tennis. I thought of that because, oh, no, she was on the cross-country team. But you coached her tennis, too, Dr. Epperle. I did. Dr. Epperle, who is a wonderful educator and kind of a hero of mine, in ninth grade, she played tennis. I drove her off. She moved to track after that. But I coached also some middle school football as well. What is the history of your family name, Habib? Sure. So Habib is an Arabic name, and my dad's side of the family is Arabic, primarily Lebanese. My dad's grandparents all came to the United States in the early 1900s, and they met in the U.S. They weren't already married or anything yet, so they came at a pretty young age. And I have grown up with that side of my family being, you know, very Arabic, and there's some really cool stuff there that I've learned to really appreciate. And then on the flip side, my mom's side of the family is sort of your typical American mutt, you know, Scotch-Irish. Everyone says they have some Cherokee Indian in them, a little German, a little bit of everything, and sort of small-town, southern sort of country. So those are my two mixes that go into making me who I am. So you mentioned the other day we were talking, and I'd never heard you say this, you said you looked different as a child, and you questioned that. And you started kind of questioning your identity, and almost in a negative way. Sure. Yeah, so if you meet me, which people listening to this podcast can't see me, so let me paint a picture of who I am. I'm not that good-looking, but I look Arabic, okay? And, you know, anybody who meets me, if they know anything about different nationalities and ethnic groups, it's very easy to tell I'm Arabic. In fact, I was walking through the farmer's market just this past weekend, and there's a Lebanese lady who has a little food booth there, and she looked right at me and said, are you Arabic? I mean, she just knew right away. So I very much look Lebanese. And as a kid, I didn't know how to handle that real well because of the way other people interacted with that concept or that reality. They weren't mean, but this was a question I got all the time, what are you? Like you meet somebody when you're eight, and the first thing they say is, what are you? Well, what do you mean, what am I? Or they say, where are you from? And so this was a little thing that happened over and over again. I would meet somebody, and this went, this still happens as an adult sometimes too, but not nearly the way it used to. But someone will say, where are you from? And I'll say, Virginia. And they'll say, well, where were you born? And I'll say, New York. I say, well, where were your parents born? I say, one was born in Ohio, one was born in New York. Where were your grandparents born? Kentucky, Kentucky, New York, New York. And so I just, and I know what I'm doing. I'm being sort of passive aggressive. But then they'll say something like, well, where are you from? Like, what's your nationality? And sometimes I'll just say, I don't know. What's your nationality? And they'll say, I don't know. And I'll say, well, then why should I know? I mean, this was, you can tell there's been inside of me just like, I don't know. It bothered me. And I think part of it was, we all want to fit in. And what I heard as a kid in the question is, why aren't you like the rest of us? Or kind of almost what's wrong with you? Or why are you different? Or why are you separate? And, you know, my inside, my internal who I am is completely unrelated to our exterior, you know. And there's no, I am Scott Habib. And I'm the son of Kathy Habib and Edward Habib. And there's a lot of things I am. And so it just, it bothered me. And so for so much of my life, honestly, being of Arabic heritage wasn't something I prided. It had nothing to do with Arabic or Lebanese itself. It was that I felt different or other. And so this might sound horrible to your listeners, but this is the truth of a kid. I used to say I'd like to grow up and marry a blonde and have nothing but girls. And then the Arabic side of me would weed out. Now, I did marry a blonde. She's a wonderful blonde, not for that reason. I married her because God brought her into my life. And we do have three girls. We have a son as well. And I'm proud that the Habib name will go on. This is me as a child, me as a younger person. But it was because I felt like looking Arabic and the way people spoke to me about it just sort of defined me as different or separate. And that's not what I wanted. We had a guest, Roger Lopez from Guatemala, unbelievable young man that attended Roanoke College. And he said something very, very similar. And I hear this quite often from students. But he even went as far as taking a toothbrush as a kid and trying to, I don't know, clean his skin of his skin color, as he said, because he thought he could change that until his mother said, you are never doing this again. And then Roger now is one of the strongest allies for Latinos that are going into college. Yeah, and I felt like the question of where are you from or what are you isn't a general greeting, right? Like when you meet somebody. No, I know. You typically don't say that. So every time that was said, it just bothered me. And so I really – I mean it was – I've gone through life as a pretty confident person, and most things don't tend to bother me. But that was my one thing that just always stuck with me that I look different, and I don't want to be different. And I didn't know how to handle that real well as a kid. You recently went to a wedding, or maybe it wasn't so recently, but in the last couple of years. It was. Okay, it was. Can you share that story? It was really interesting because I saw my own insecurities in reverse. So a great friend of ours, a great family friend of ours got married this past – a few months ago. And when we went to the wedding, the way things played out, there ended up being an empty seat at our table, and somebody got placed there who there wasn't a seat for. And so I'm sitting next to this young man. He's probably 22 and looks like he could – if he had said he was of English or Scottish heritage, you would believe it. He's very light-complected and so forth. And we get talking, and he's actually Lebanese. I'm 50% Lebanese. He's 50% Lebanese. I look like I'm Lebanese. He looks like he's not Lebanese. But he's – beyond that, he's actually from Lebanon. And so it was fascinating to listen to him talk about growing up in Lebanon and his – and he had come to the United States for college and had met the folks who were getting married. But one of the things he said was his whole life – in fact, actually, he said something that has never been said to me and will probably never be said again. We're on a podcast, but I'm not the best-looking dude in the world. He said this to me. You are what I always have wished I could look like. There is a good chance that will never happen again. I will never be said again. No one's ever going to – but what he meant was he had experienced the same thing. So he was Lebanese in Lebanon, but he had had people ask him the type of questions of essentially why do you look the way you look. And so he had always wished he had been Lebanese-looking. So I guess perhaps this is a common occurrence for folks growing up around the world. Do you fit in? Do you not fit in? Do you belong? Do you not belong? Do you still have a connection or a celebration of your Lebanese culture? You know, it was my great-grandparents that were born in the Middle East that came here. So by the time I came along, a lot of the culture had kind of weeded itself out. Understandable. My grandmother, who has passed away, but my grandmother was a phenomenal cook, and she made some great Lebanese dishes. My favorite was stuffed grape leaves. Oh, and by the way, Mr. Habib made those stuffed grape leaves. I did. Do you remember for our multicultural club? Yeah. I must have eaten maybe a quarter of them. They're good. They're amazing. Yeah. Yeah, so when you were at my grandmother's house, the food was very – you know, it was just wonderful. And she always had Lebanese dishes mixed into whatever we were eating, and she had some words she used. For example, she called us my alibi, which I might say that wrong. I don't speak Arabic, but it means like my heart. And so that was part of my Lebanese background was food and my grandparents. But I think also – in fact, the guy I met at this wedding told me that – he said, you seem Arabic. And I said, what do you mean by that? And he said I was very sort of gregarious and – That's such a good word for you. Yeah, talked big and very friendly. And definitely, you know, I think the sort of Western European American norm is to be kind of, you know, with – not withdraw. What's the word I'm looking for? Just sort of calm and, you know. Chill. Chill. Maybe a little proper. Proper. That's the word I'm looking for, proper, yes. But the Arabic thing is to be very huggy and, you know, kissing on the cheek. And that was always what life was like around my dad's side of the family. And I'm not a big cheek kisser necessarily, but just the sort of friendliness I think probably comes from the Arabic side as well. So that's sort of my experience with that culture growing up. So last week I had Andrea Sowers, our interpreter, family liaison. You know, she was one of our very first EL students. And so she said she had arrived to East Salem Elementary in the mid-'90s, 1995, 1996. But from her point of view, she saw this demographic shift. Actually, it wasn't even really shifting yet. It just – it didn't exist yet. And you've been here for longer than just your time as principal. How have you seen? And maybe give some statistics. Yeah, I think that Salem, being a small town, is sort of a microcosm of what's going on in our country at large. Some of our larger cities were definitely ahead of where Salem is. And so in a small town here, sometimes we don't realize that things are even shifting in our own culture, our own city, our own community. But when I came to Salem in the late-'90s, I came here in 1997, I don't know the exact percentage. But I'm pretty sure the percent of nonwhite was less than ten. It was definitely – You mean in the city? In the school division. Or in the school division. The school division, yes. In the school division, it would have been less than ten percent nonwhite. And right now, we're over 30 percent nonwhite. So that, in less than 30 years, is a significant shift in and of itself. There's also been a shift in people from different nationalities moving in. I remember there was a time when, to my knowledge, there was one student in our high school, out of over 1,200 students, who didn't speak English. And she was in my class. And it was just this anomaly, this very unusual thing. And, you know, I have four children, three of whom have graduated from here. And the one who graduated in 2020 has been back subbing in just the past year. She's phenomenal. She is. Yeah, McKenna's wonderful. And she has said that Salem High School feels different to her than it did just a few years ago. Wow. She also looks Lebanese. And so she used to feel like she was one of the few brown-skinned people around the building. And she's very excited to walk through the building and hear other languages being spoken and see so many students here from so many countries. It's been completely ‑‑ it has a very different feel. And it's ahead of the curve. Schools are always ahead of the curve of the community at large. So I don't know that everybody in our community is aware of the diversification of this community. But it has been really exciting to watch that happen here at Salem High School. Yeah, I think it actually surprises people when they sit at graduation. Oh. You know, you mentioned Sarah Epperly, who's both one of your heroes, one of my heroes. Just a great lady. And when she was an assistant principal at Salem High School, her job was to read the names of the students as they came across the stage. Masterful. Right. And so she's fluent in Spanish. She also speaks Mandarin. And so between those two, she was able to get, you know, every name really great. And for the two years that she read the names, the number one thing I heard from just people in the community who attended the ceremony was, first of all, oh, my gosh, that person reading the names was amazing. And then secondly, holy cow, we had no idea of the diversity of names, which then represents culture and nationality and background that exists in this small little American town. And it goes way beyond the EL classroom, too. It's not like every one of these students has, you know, needs that I have to fulfill for EL, what am I trying to say, accommodations. Right. Yeah. And it really – it's a noticeable and positive impact on the school. It creates some new challenges, right? It's easier if you're teaching a school where everybody's the same. That's simpler. Anytime you have any diversity of learning needs or backgrounds, it adds some challenges. But it really has brought a richness, in a large part, to the way you handle things, Nolan, as a teacher. It speaks to the importance of the teacher, which is always evident in the school. But our students have come in, and I'm sure they've dealt with so many struggles and insecurities, like all teenagers do. But in turn, they have added a flavor to the school that didn't used to exist, you know, multicultural club that's powerful, food festivals in the cafeteria, just things that all students, regardless of your background, should have the opportunity to experience being around different people and learning different cultures and just how to love and engage and interact with one another. So it's harder to do that when everybody's already the same. And so it's really neat to see what's happened in this community. What do you think the future of our community is in terms of this growing population? Where do we need to go? How do we need to improve? You know, first, I would say some of the past. You know, it was evident that we needed EL support, full-time teacher EL support for a long time. And it was on my list of sort of demands every year. Frankly, you could have one non-English speaker, and you could need that support. But, you know, schools have budgets, and nobody was against that or opposed to it. But you have to also have priorities. And so it took a while before we were able to do that, and that's when we hired you. And so as I look to the future, you know, one of the things you want in a school that's very important in a school is for everybody to feel like they have a home and to feel very comfortable, and then for everybody to contribute. You can't contribute if you don't have a home. If you don't have something that you belong to, you feel like you are part of the school somehow. But you don't want to just stop there because everybody has something to offer to make things better, to make the school a better place. And so I think the future, you know, just if we look at demographic trends, we know this is going to continue. I can't speak for a school division, but I would imagine it needs to be eventually more than one full-time EL teacher. Amen. If I wrote the checks, it'd be done. And I say that. Our school division has been very supportive of what's been going on. But, you know, money, resources are scarce at times. But as that population grows, that demographic trend continues, what I hope will happen is not only will those students feel very much at home in this school and in this division and in all the schools in this division, but that they will also find ways to have a voice within the division and to be influences on their peers and to go beyond just belonging. Amen. And, you know, in just the past two years, we've had quite a few of our EL students express that they want to come back and be teachers. That's amazing. And I've always preached that, well, if you want to see a diverse staff of teachers that represent you, that look like you, well, then maybe you have to be that first generation that takes that step and does that. Yeah, and when we look at diversity within the teaching ranks, the diversity of a faculty tends to represent the diversity of the community. So it's hard to get people to move to places where they don't feel like they belong and they don't feel like they fit in. And so it would be a beautiful vision to see a more diverse student body sort of driving the train to where that leads to a more diverse community, more diverse staff, and so forth. Let's go back to that Zoom meeting. Yeah. I think it was like February of 2021. We talked about teaching students on the periphery and how important it was to me, obviously, as an EL teacher, but then how important it is to you as a principal but also as a leader of a nonprofit. Yeah, and folks who listen to this podcast, if you haven't met Nolan, if you just heard his voice, if you just hear his voice, it sounds pretty nice. You have a nice voice, Nolan. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. But it speaks to really a man who when you meet him, you can't help but like him. And so we had actually met on a Zoom. This is COVID era, so job fairs are done on the Zoom. And I don't remember what the job opening we had, but it was something that you probably would have knocked out of the park, but yet the way things lined up, we had to hire somebody else. But I just knew, this guy is someone we need, you know. And that's why when we got a position approved, I knew who to call. I didn't know who was going to be running on that mountain, but I knew who to call. But one of the things I loved in our conversation, I just heard in your voice a sincerity for something that I think every teacher, frankly, every human ought to have, which is the idea that my life, whatever I do, job, you know, just the way I interact with people, it should be about making the world around me better, right? We're not here just to teach content. Content is wonderful, but in the end, we have a bigger role to serve than that. And you have an obvious heart for teaching folks in the periphery or on the margins in the case of folks who are new to our country or don't speak the language, don't speak English very well. And I feel like that's, if anyone out there is looking for a way to, you know, just live your life a little more full, a little more richer, a little more meaningful, a great way to do that, a great way to start is just to say where does my life exist right now and where do I touch a margin, right? Like maybe it's someone at work or maybe it's someone at my school or maybe it's somebody that I, you know, see every day, but someone who's sort of marginalized, who's maybe a little isolated or on the periphery, and just how can I love that person? How can I serve that person? So for you, that calling has been EL students. And for you? For me, it's been a lot of things. I would say EL to some degree, but really it's been about disabilities. And so, yeah, you mentioned a nonprofit. I have a nonprofit called Masterpiece Alliance that I'm on the board of and serve as executive director of. But what we do is we build community for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. And if you are a minor, a kid with a disability, life can be quite difficult, but there's a lot of services for you. For example, you have school. Like you're probably in school for seven hours a day, so there's some community there. If you're an adult with an intellectual or developmental disability, there's a good chance that your life is completely marginalized. Probably the only people you have contact with are caregivers or family. Very little interaction with true friends, peers, people your age. And I don't like that. It just doesn't seem right. So we decided to do something about that. And some friends of mine, we got together. We didn't know what we were going to do, but we just got together and said, let's do something. And we formed a 501c3 nonprofit. And just one thing after another evolved. And so now we have weekly large group gatherings. We have a staff of four or five. We have volunteers as well. And we just have this beautiful community. We say it's a community for friends of all abilities because it's not really just for folks with disabilities. This is my community, my friend. This is who I hang out with, these folks with intellectual and developmental disabilities. And, yeah, it's been awesome. You enrich their lives so greatly. And I love your Facebook posts. You guys are going bowling. You're partying it up. I mean, you're doing karaoke. You're doing all these ridiculous, amazing activities. And just, gosh, you're just providing so much. Yeah, thanks. It's, you know how people say, like, well, it's not, you know, I get more out of it than I give. People say that a lot. But the reality is the disabilities community offers something that most communities don't. And that is just a willingness to live your life wide open. You know, it's sort of like the reservedness of the WASP side of America, right, the WASP culture, the reserved, this verse, the Arabic, greet you and hug. You know, well, take that Arabic side up a notch. And you don't care what anybody thinks about you. There is a freedom in the disability community that is just beautiful. It's just I really feel like it's how life is meant to be lived. And so, yes, I think we do something for our friends, but we get something back. And, you know, I know this is a podcast about EL, but I think the similarity here is that we were meant to live bigger stories than just go to work, get a paycheck, raise kids, try to be moral, you know. We were meant to live stories of meaning and purpose, and those stories are meant to impact other people's stories. And so when someone chooses to teach, I hope they're choosing to live a great story. And if you are a teacher, one of the best ways to live a great story is to look around your classroom and see who's on the periphery, who can I really love. And what you've done as an EL teacher, and EL just in general, that's what it is, right? It's saying these people could be overlooked, not because anyone doesn't like them or is against somebody, but it's such a system, it's just a system, and it's very much of a like we're just flowing this inertia very fast, and so it's hard to stop and see who's being left out. But EL by itself is the idea that let's stop, let's look at these folks who may be being left out, and let's just love them well. Once wishing as a youth that he didn't look different, Scott Habib has come full circle as an adult. The same demographic change in his school system is mirrored in his own ability to look at himself. As the principal of Salem High, his mindset shift allowed him to embrace the growing diversity and help create a more inclusive environment. And his love for those on the periphery went beyond the walls of the school and was strong enough to create the compassionate non-profit Masterpiece Alliance. Thank you, Jefecito, for your tireless work and that phone call in the mountains. Thank you, Dan Dandero, for providing this week's soundtrack. And thank you, listeners, for joining us on another episode of Pots, Pans and Gritos. But more importantly, thank you for being an ally to English learners everywhere.