Teach Middle East Podcast
Welcome to the Teach Middle East Podcast, the ultimate audio hub where educators find inspiration, share innovative ideas, and grow together! Brought to you by Moftah Publishing—the minds behind the premier Teach Middle East Magazine—this podcast is your gateway to the latest research-based practices, cutting-edge classroom strategies, and the heartwarming stories of educators from the Middle East and around the globe.
As the only podcast that interviews school leaders from across the Middle East and beyond, we offer unparalleled insights into the challenges and successes that shape educational landscapes in diverse settings. Join us as we dive deep into the fascinating world of education, where every episode promises a treasure trove of insights designed to connect, develop, and empower the brilliant minds shaping our future. Whether you’re seeking fresh perspectives, practical tips, or a dose of inspiration, the Teach Middle East Podcast is your must-listen resource. Tune in and transform the way you teach!
Teach Middle East Podcast
Building Classrooms Where Every Student Belongs With Dr Salma Waly
Salma and Leisa explore how to build classrooms in the UAE where every student feels seen and valued, and where local culture is integrated alongside global learning. Practical steps, candid reflections on bias, and clear guidance on using AI as a co-creator make this a toolkit for real change.
• agreeing on a shared definition of culturally responsive practice
• recognising and reflecting on bias through confidential prompts
• creating learner profiles to understand language, history, and needs
• auditing libraries and curricula for representation and local relevance
• balancing Emirati identity with global exposure
• contrasting UAE inclusion with US/UK contexts and public school dynamics
• using AI critically as a co-creator, not a content consumer
• prioritising critical literacy, collaboration, and academic integrity
• designing teacher PD that matches context and future skills
Meet Salma: Dr Salma Waly, an Arab American 40 Under 40 honoree, is an award-winning global educator and EdTech leader dedicated to building inclusive, future-focused learning communities and expanding opportunity. With 20 years of experience across higher education, international schools, corporations, start-ups, and NGOs, she brings a global perspective shaped by work in the United States, Asia, the GCC, Africa, and South America. Her culturally hybrid identity fuels her commitment to equity and inclusion, ensuring all learners feel valued. Currently based in the UAE, she is an assistant professor at Sharjah Education Academy, founder of Universal Narratives LLC, and host of the Universal Narratives Podcast.
Teach Middle East Magazine is the premier platform for educators and the entire education sector in the Middle East and beyond. Our vision is to equip educators with the materials and tools they need, to function optimally in and out of the classroom. We provide a space for educators to connect and find inspiration, resources, and forums to enhance their teaching techniques, methodologies, and personal development. We connect education suppliers and service providers to the people who make the buying decisions in schools.
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Hosted by Leisa Grace Wilson
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You are listening to the Teach Middle East Podcast. Connecting, developing, and empowering educators.
SPEAKER_01:Hey, this is Lisa Grace coming back with another episode of the Teach Middle East Podcast, and this one is my pleasure to welcome Salma Wali, and she is an assistant professor at the Sharja Education Academy, a place I know quite well. Hello, all my friends at the Sharja Education Academy, Dr. Hunada and the crew. How are you? It's a good time to discuss what we're about to discuss, which is creating inclusive learning spaces in our schools. What does that look like? How do we do it? Where do we start? Salma, welcome to the podcast.
SPEAKER_02:Hi, Lisa. Very excited to be here. I have been listening to your podcasts and I just love the wide range of topics as well as the different types of expertise, different backgrounds that you spotlight in your podcast and the Middle East Teach Middle East podcast. Just a quick introduction. As Lisa mentioned, I work at Charger Education Academy. I train teachers currently in the Emirate of Charger and other Emirates as well. I come to the work of inclusive practice and cultural responsive practice because of my own personal experiences, being a third culture kid, a daughter of expats who lived in different parts of the world and then immigrated to the US. And I've always been like the one who's different in so many different settings and so many different spaces. And so I feel like this kind of like hybrid identity of mine kind of just comes to the surface every time I'm faced with challenges in our schools in terms of including students, making sure that their voices are heard, they're being accommodated. There is actual substantial efforts to include everyone, not just by saying we do so, but by actually doing things. And so I'm very excited about this topic, inclusive practice. And yeah, we're looking forward to just discussing this more with you today.
SPEAKER_01:Brilliant. So we've got 30 minutes, so we're gonna pack a lot of value in this because classrooms around the UAE look like the world. Meaning we've got students from all over the world with varying backgrounds, varying needs. And so my first question really is tell me a little bit about what you've observed as you've gone to different classrooms. Like, what have you observed in terms of inclusive practice that you think we need to be aware of?
SPEAKER_02:What I have observed is that, as you said, there is so much diversity in our classrooms. We are home to over 200 different nationalities, the UEE, and we have so many different languages and cultures represented in our classrooms, yet there seems to be a lack of understanding among a lot of teachers of what cultural responsive practice really is. Teachers are very well-intentioned and they want to support students, but there isn't a unified kind of professional development framework that would assist teachers in finding ways to support all learners. There are, as I said, so many different languages in our classrooms as well. Yet we do not really have enough, I would say, multilingual programs in our schools. And so we only accommodate some students, but not everybody else. Home languages are not always represented. We are trying to do that, but again, there are issues with staffing, with finances, with making sure that we hide the right caliber to support our students. And so these are all concerns that I'm seeing. There is also another challenge, which is really balancing that global aspiration with local culture and identity. Because we also have a lot of students who are Imorati students, for example, in our international schools, who are studying different curricula and programs imported from other countries. But then what are the teachers really doing to create that balance so that they're able to develop their Imarathi identity while also develop the skills that are needed to support the UEE, an amazing country that is moving from being an oil-based economy to being very diversified in terms of the wide range of economies that we're involved in, as well as a center and a hub for innovation and AI internationally. So that balance is also very much needed. I would say the issues would be just addressing the needs of the wide range of languages and cultures that we have, lack of a unified system for training teachers on cultural responsive practice and leadership as well, because there is a need to focus on how we can train our leaders, international educators, to be cultural responsive also in terms of creating school cultures that accommodate all teachers, all families, all students, regardless of what background they're coming from. And the third issue would be balancing local and global cultural and heritage.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I want to go back a bit. I think for our listeners, we need to define what culturally responsive classrooms or teaching means. What does it mean to be culturally responsive?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I would say, like simply put, it would be making sure that every student feels seen, heard, all their voices matter. They see themselves in the content that they engage with and with the books that are in their classrooms. Teachers understand their cultures, heritage, they see the differences as assets rather than deficits in their learning. And so they capitalize on that. Also, just being open to the fact that there are so many different ways of knowing, so many different ways of learning. Family engagement can look different in different places around the world. And so just holistic understanding that every child, every family that comes to our school is unique in the way that uh the approach teaching and learning. And as an educator, what I should do is try to learn more about the students and the families that I'm working with. It's not easy sometimes because, as I said, we're a very international uh country with teachers from all over the world. And sometimes, as I said, most of our educators, if not all, are extremely well-intentioned. But sometimes there is a lack of exposure and understanding of what it means to be working in a multicultural, multilingual setting. And as I said, because of those missing frameworks for training our educators, educators feel like they're not really sure what to do. You know, they're really faced with so many challenges, curriculum demands, administrative demands, but also families that are very different, students who have very different needs than others. Uh so I would say cushion responsive practice is just keeping in mind that all of this is normal and we are learning on the go. We're trying to find ways to get to know each other as humans, first and foremost, and then as educators getting to know our families and our students.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I can hear people in my like, you know, my listeners in my head sometimes I can hear the question they may have. And I think one of the questions they may have is what frameworks do we need to put in place? Like, how do we go about doing this practically? Because as you said, many majority are well-intentioned. They want to make sure their classrooms are culturally inclusive spaces for all. What can they do? Give me some practical tips.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Firstly, we we need to really develop a shared understanding, like define what we mean, as you asked earlier, by cultural responsive practice. What do you really mean by cultural responsive education? What does it mean to create an inclusive classroom? So having a shared understanding is very important. And developing that shared understanding through reading, through looking at examples from all over the world, what's happening, how accommodating our students, et cetera. Another component of it would be just trying to think outside of myself, outside of my comfort zone. So it would be more like uh implicit bias, really, and uh how my own notions, my own norms on understanding of things impact the way that I work with others. And uh what I can do as an educator in order to separate myself from my own beliefs when I'm working with others in order to be able to accommodate their needs. So that would be the second part. It's not easy, but like what I have seen happening in other parts of the world would be really like very confidential written narratives where you're given a prompt as an educator and you have to reflect on these prompts and just reflect on what you're writing, like how your emotions come into play when you're working with specific people. And what can you do? How can you be very deliberate about taking actions to avoid acting in a certain way in specific situations because it's coming from a place of bias or lack of understanding? And if there is understanding, what can you do in order to fill that gap? Where can you find these resources in order to be able to develop a better understanding of how things are happening in other parts of the world, other cultures, among other like students who are coming from different backgrounds, family backgrounds, etc.? Stage two would be really practical strategies of what can you, like very small steps that you can use in the classroom in order to create a more inclusive setting. It starts with just getting to know more about your students, surveying their needs, right? In the beginning of the school year, interviewing them, getting to know about their families, uh, maybe having some kind of less a system of documenting certain facts, certain details about every student, how they learn, how they do things, where they went to school before. Was it like a formal like schooling experience, or what was it interrupted? Was there any kind of crisis maybe? Because we have a lot of students who are also refugees. We have a lot of students who also come from war-torn zones. So, what are we doing in order to understand where they're coming from? What are topics that they would be okay to talk about? And what are things that I should stay away from? How can I coordinate with other people in my school in order to provide the services that they need? Who else would be a good person to collaborate with in my school building? Does anybody else speak the language? Is there another person in my school that comes from the same culture that can educate me as an educator about, you know, how to tackle certain issues with uh certain students? That's one thing. The other thing would be really looking at the materials that I'm using in the classroom and thinking, how responsive are these to the needs of my students? We know that our students use materials from all over the world. We have different programs and curricula in our schools in the UE. But we also have students who have never been to these places. And so, how can they relate to certain experiences? My daughter was reading recently about interstates in the US. She's in an American system school, and I'm like, she can relate to that because she's been in these places, in these situations, and she knows what that is. But if a child has been raised in a different country or in the UE, how is that engaging? How is that responsive to their needs? There are topics that we have to modify or change or connect to our local cultural and heritage, as I was saying earlier. Like, okay, I'm gonna teach them about engineering or architecture in other countries. Why not connect it to what's happening in Dubai, for example, in our local communities, in our backyard, really? And then making sure that we represent all our students in the materials that we use. There is a tendency in our books, and what I mean by books is like really our school libraries, our classroom libraries to have characters that come from certain parts of the world and do not represent everybody in the classroom. And there is really a growing body of literature, like children's literature, that has diverse characters. On voice, they call it literature for children. Characters who are black and brown and handicapped and multicultural kids, bilingual kids. It doesn't always have to be animals or white characters. It has to look like our students, the demographics that we work with in our classrooms. And that's one way we can help our students feel that they're actually valued, they are seen and appreciated. One last strategy would be really in terms of like leadership, just being very strategic about our hiring as well. We need to diversify who our teaching for is, like who we have in our schools and our leadership as well, so that students have role models to look up to, because they need to see people that look like them who are very successful and accomplished in order to be motivated. Otherwise, it always feels like, for lack of like a better description, like the superiority, like some people are more superior, they have more knowledge than me. We want to make sure that everybody feels that they're seen, they have an opportunity, they have a path to success, uh, just like everybody else. So these are just some practical tips.
SPEAKER_01:Those are some great tips, actually. How do we balance? Because when you were talking about the material that we used and stuff, how do we balance giving students something that relates to their culture that they can relate to versus exposing them to new ideas and new things?
SPEAKER_02:I don't think, I mean, we have to balance by making sure that we're doing both, honestly. Like we have to expose them to new ideas, of course, as much as possible, given that these ideas, again, are culturally appropriate, because really being culturally responsive is also understanding the host country and its culture and making sure that we're selecting topics that are appropriate for the culture where we're working. One thing that I shifted my understanding of cultural responsive practice is that when I came here to the UI, cultural responsive education looks very different than how it looks in other parts of the world. It's very different. Like the issues that we look at, for example, issues of multilingualism, issues of all these different curricula that we have in our schools, etc. It's very different. It's a very unique example compared to, let's say, the UK or the US, where cultural responsive practice means something very different based on race and identity, etc. It's very different here in the UE. And so as an educator, I try to educate myself on what is actually culturally responsive practice in this country, what is really relevant to this country, my host country. Get to know more about the country where I'm working. And then I have to just find the balance to introduce whatever ideas I think are relevant to the students that are, again, culturally responsive, appropriate with the culture, and in the same time make sure that I am connecting that with their local culture and heritage as well. And, you know, we want to broaden their understanding of global issues as well, because we especially in international schools, we want them to be well-rounded, we want them to be able to work in different settings, go and study abroad, etc. So it's very important for them to have that exposure, but at the same time, we need to have that solid understanding of who I am, the value that I bring, and that my voice is really important in the process as well.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I was just thinking when you said there was a difference. I'm wondering what the differences are that you've noticed between, let's say, how cultural responsive practice is in maybe the US where you went to school, and here. What did you notice?
SPEAKER_02:One area, for example, would be like the whole issue, like in the US, cultural responsive practice is really associated a lot with immigration, for example, like the rights of immigrant students in our public schools. And sometimes we have students who have not obtained their legal status yet, but they are part of our public schools. And so we have to accommodate their needs as well, but they're also dealing with a lot of shifting dynamics outside of the classroom, the socio-political climates, and the role or the, like I would say, the impact of what's happening outside the classroom with what's happening inside the classroom. So, how can teachers really navigate this space of creating safe spaces for all students despite what's happening outside the classroom? It actually in 2016, I interviewed educators in New York City to just learn about how they create spaces of healing and spaces of safety in their classrooms, given what was happening in the country at that time. And it all focused on mental health education, really, because teachers felt that they did not have enough resources in their schools, for example, to support students in terms of mental health, uh well-being, social, emotional well-being, et cetera. And so many of them went and obtained these certificates to be able to support their students because of lack of resources, for example. Students were very scared, for example, to go home to find out that certain family members were detained or arrested, et cetera. So these are issues in the US, for example, and other parts of the world that are very different than here. And also we talk about like public schools in the US. It's extremely different than international schools here. Like that the kind of students that we have, the families that we have in our schools, it's a very different demographic than what you find in other parts of the world.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that makes actually a lot of sense because where I taught in the UK, there were a lot of um refugee kids and Roma kids, and the dynamics are, yeah, they're different from here. But still important that we understand that we have to create spaces that are inclusive for all students. I want to shift gears a little bit because there is a lot of talk about the use of technology and the use of AI, etc. Is this helping or hindering creating culturally responsive classrooms?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I think it's a very big topic. That's like a topic for another podcast episode. But I believe that it depends. In a country like the UE, it can be a force for good for sure, because we have a lot of resources to use as educators. The biggest concern would be to make sure that our teachers are co-creators rather than just consumers of the content that is generated using artificial intelligence. So we know that a lot of the content that we generate sometimes is biased or it's not representative of the wide range of demographics that we have in our schools. It kind of celebrates dominant cultures and dominant languages while alienating other cultures and languages, etc., because of the data sets that we use in order to generate this kind of information. And so there is so much out there, but it's a matter of being able to utilize these resources in a way that, again, is culturally responsive. How do we do that? I would say, first and foremost, training on cultural, what is really cultural responsive practice. So just going back to step one, developing that understanding of what cultural responsive practice is, what my roles and responsibilities as an educator are. And then afterwards, navigating all these AI resources to see how I can be a co-creator, co-designer of the content that I receive. There is so much potential of, I've led sessions on like using AI to lesson plan or, for example, design materials, etc. But I what I always tell teachers is that you have to use your expertise and your judgment as an educator who knows the context of learning and the culture around you in order to prompt AI properly to get the output that you want. If we just go and generate something on AI, it's not necessarily going to be relevant or responsive to the needs of my students. And so we need to also, after we do the cultural responsive practice training, we need training on really a discerning user of artificial intelligence or what we call critical literacy, really, and media literacy as well. And these are skills that I'm not seeing yet in our teacher education programs, for example, or professional development frameworks, but they're really important at this time. A time when there is so much change outside of the classroom that is really impacting our practices inside the classroom. In order to be well informed and not do our students a disservice by just avoiding AI altogether, we should be informed. We should be trained on how to use it properly in order to generate output that is appropriate for the needs of our students.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you said something there about becoming co-creators with AI. Expand on that. How do we as educators become co-creators? What are we doing practically?
SPEAKER_02:What we do is we, first of all, I believe in teaching your favorite AI tool, your values. So I have been using AI for uh like a very long time. And I use it a lot for my planning, for my preparation to generate case studies, etc. But it took a lot of time of me training AI on what my values are. How? How are you training it? What are you doing? I just provide like I just prompt it in such a way, like for example, if I get a content that I think is very culturally relevant or that is not appropriate for the students that I'm working with, that or is not aligned with my values. Or for example, one time I remember AI generated a list of resources for me, but completely missed a very important resource by a scholar of color. And I was like, why is that one omitted? Like, why? Oh, that was a mistake. Here's the so sometimes you notice certain things, again, as an expert who's been doing this work for some time that are not relevant to the context, that are not relevant to the needs of your students, then you have to instruct AI to change the way of doing things in order to generate the output that you think is most appropriate for your students. So other things would be whenever I see like any instances of AI saying something that does not align with my beliefs of working collaboratively with others or values such as something that does not, for example, align with my academic integrity, I would just call it out. Like, you know, this is not right. How can we change this to so now whatever I generate on AI most of the time is extremely relevant to my needs as an educator because I've been using a lot of prompting with AI in order to customize it so that it accommodates me, the teachers that I'm working with, the different projects that I'm engaged in, etc.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So, I mean, we're coming down to the tail end of the podcast, but you train teachers. So tell me, Sama, what are some trainings that you think, and I think you alluded to some of it before, but what are some mandatory trainings that you think teachers need in this time for these students that we have in front of us right now?
SPEAKER_02:Actually, I'm I teach a course on future skills and global competencies to teachers, graduate uh level teachers. And what we always say is we think globally, but we act locally. We try to learn from what's happening around the world, but we contextualize everything, you know, so that it fits in our own classrooms, in our own schools, and in our own communities. And again, we try to focus on all this. We also say that we're preparing our students for a future that we do not know. We do not know how it's gonna look like. And so we should not be focusing so much on information. We should be focusing more on the skills that allow our students to navigate all these new systems where information is available. It's just a matter of using that information in a way that is creative, innovative, and that is going to develop the communities where we live, really. So, critical literacy, I think, is a crucial component of teacher training that we are not really seeing as much as we need to in our programs. Another area would be really how to utilize all these new technologies and all these new resources to generate again content that is relevant, and in order to also be well informed as an educator so that you're able to use these resources to support your students in the classroom because our students know a lot. And sometimes they come and teach us things, right? So we want to make sure we're up to date as well. We cannot just throw everything behind us and say, oh, we're not adopting these technologies because our students need to know these technologies. And also just shifting the mindset and understanding that learning has to look a certain way. Because we all learned in a certain way, but it looks completely different now. And the skills that our students and our own children show these days are very different than the skills that we exhibited when we were 10 or 11. Like it's very different. And so we have to understand that our times are changing, the needs of our societies are changing. And with that comes an understanding of how teaching and learning should look like now. It should be very organic. It should really be connected to all these technologies that we have, and it should also be focused on the skills that students need in order to navigate an unknown future. It's not really the information, it's really the skills as well as the values. So there are values that are really needed now at our time, which is, for example, academic integrity, what it means to use resources and create something out of these resources, values of working together, collaboration, etc. So focusing on these values is crucial in order to prepare a group of students who are able to give back to their communities.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and I also think learning to learn. So maybe some courses for educators on how learning takes place and what it looks like, and how we help students to learn how to learn. I know that sounds like a mouthful, but Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, because if you think about it, we've always said that teachers are facilitators of learning, but sometimes we do not really do it this way. We really want to be the ones who are telling students exactly what to do and where to find information. But with the exposure that we have to all these resources right now, it again, it's a matter of training them to be able to be discerning users of all these technologies, who are able to navigate a wide range of resources that are available for them, make the most out of these resources and create something new because we also want them to be creative. We don't want them to just completely rely on what technology has to offer.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, brilliant place to end the pod. Thank you, Sama. Perfect. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure. It's been brilliant having you. Thank you. Thank you.
