Dear HoCo Diary,
It’s me Robert Morgenthau of RoCo writing. My wife, Colleen, the darling , had gotten to write the last three articles on our site. We usually alternate, as regular readers of this site know, and I really missed it! This was a perfect week to jump back in, because I got to meet a terrific woman. Read on.
As I pulled up to the centrally-located home of Sabina Taj, a progressive candidate for Howard County Board of Education (BOE) in the upcoming general election, she was bidding farewell to another visitor. She waved at me vigorously, first hello and then motioning me to come in as I quickly stuffed my belongings into my man-purse. We only had an hour to talk and I could tell she is a busy woman. People were coming and going while Sabina fielded phone calls and answered her older daughter’s questions, all seemingly at the same time.
She greeted me so warmly I almost had to ask her to cool it because it was so hot that day! But that’s Sabina I’ve come to learn – so alive and full of joy she radiates love around her. She welcomed me in and when I noticed a cute mini-pancake on the kitchen table, she looked over and said “Eat it, Robert! It’s yours. The kids won’t finish it.” I’ve never been one to turn down pancakes, so I ate it up while curiously scanning my surroundings. The Taj household is one where kids are clearly the focus. In the four seconds it took me to inhale my pancake, I noted a pile of schoolbooks, a handwritten note from of a friend of Sabina’s younger daughter, and a fact sheet from one of their classes taped to the fridge.
Another Kind of Dish
We sat down to chat about Sabina’s bid for a spot on the BOE. I feared it would be hard for me to focus because Sabina’s big, dark eyes, intensified by her silky tresses, set off by her cafe-au-lait skin, draw you in and won’t let go. It turned out her words are just as fascinating, though, so it all worked out. Colleen and I have known her for a few weeks now, and I still think every time we speak how fiercely intelligent she is. It comes across in succinct, pithy language. I always wonder: “How did she plan her answers when we’re just having a conversation?”
“I’ve been involved with kids’ health and wellness for my entire career,” Sabina told me of her background. Sabina attended California Lutheran University for her undergrad years, studying psychology and sociology. Then she got a Master’s in Psychology at Georgetown University. There, she did a thesis on how psychosocial factors affect kids’ immune systems. She pointed out that kids learn best in the classroom when they’re happy and healthy.
“You have to put out the fire of trauma to light the fire of curiosity,” she said. I gave her a look of silent but vociferous approval, and she chuckled, her eyes scrunching up cutely as they do when she laughs.
Sabina teaches two courses at Howard Community College (HCC). One is an arts integration course for educators. The idea behind it is for her to guide her students in appealing to different intelligences, thereby helping teachers teach their own students in ways other than just visual and auditory. This was one of many ways I’ve found Sabina to be aware of the need for diversity in the educational experience.
“My students often come in saying, ‘I’m terrified…I’m not artistic.’ But by the time they leave it’s more like, ‘Can I keep my sketchbook?’ If I’m successful, they come away from the class with a very different perspective,” she said looking off into the distance, clearly taken with the wonder of instilling a love of learning in her HCC charges. We bonded over this for a minute because I too taught language arts in the New York City Public School system for many years, and my son, Joshua is getting a Master’s in rhetoric and composition right now to train him to teach first-year writing to college freshman.
After grad school, Sabina worked on hunger, homelessness, and related issues at various nonprofits. At a local program for seasoned professionals called Leadership Howard County, she saw how the public and private sectors are connected and how the topic of educating children crops up when you want to effect change in almost any area of community life.
As the sounds of her older daughter and a friend echoed through the home, Sabina remained keenly aware of all that was going on around us. We switched focus to talking about her BOE candidate platform. If you want even more details on what she wants to work on as a BOE candidate–as well as that of other candidates for a sspot on the BOE–see this handy-dandy page put together by Indivisible HoCo.
Fiduciary Feelings
“Prioritizing educators and making sure they’re paid adequately; ensuring that every segment of our population has a voice, especially those who don’t feel like they have one; educational equity,” Sabina said when I asked her for a quick tour, if you will, of her policy platform. The last in that list included addressing the needs of students with different abilities, empowering students with greater decision-making abilities, and addressing the opportunity gap.
“I feel like our public system of education is fragile and it needs to be protected,” Sabina said, speaking with excited alacrity, rattling off statistics about education like ingredients to a recipe. “Wow, she knows her stuff!” I thought.
The perennial issue of how to fund all that the school system needs came up, and Sabina told me of her keen interest in making sure HoCo public schools have the money they need: “We convey who and what we are prioritizing by the budget decisions we make,” she said. More than eighty-percent of the HoCo school budget goes to teacher pay and Sabina thinks that’s why it is so critical to fully fund the budget. “Seventy-eight percent of Americans think teachers are underpaid,” she noted. “We need to find ways to increase salaries so they too can live in the wonderful community in which they teach.” Many of Howard County’s educators don’t teach and live in HoCo.
Reading Between and Outside the Lines
Sabina’s a big reader and lover of books, which I could see from the ones prominently displayed around her home. So, she was excited to be able to work on the Centennial Lane Elementary School’s (CLES) Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) committee. One of their first priorities was to diversify the school library’s book list so that it better reflected the makeup of the diverse student body.
“We had different parents recommend books that represented their kids’ histories and interests,” she said. Her face lit up when she told me that the librarian at CLES had created a display of the parents’ submissions, and it was proving popular. “What happens to you,” she wondered out loud, “when you never see yourself represented in the place that is educating you?” We both nodded in a slow, sad acknowledgment of how students might feel invisible or “other-ed” when their learning materials fail to mirror them or their experiences.
“Kids are at school all day–what they learn is their experience in life,” Sabina said when talk turned to the more general reasons she hopes to address kids’ educational concerns on the BOE.
Sabina said she experienced educational bias growing up as a woman of South Asian descent. Whether it was being placed in a remedial language-class without having been tested, or being taunted by peers, all of these experiences showed Sabina the subtle ways we delegitimize students. She leaned her cheek into her palm as she told this story and I could see this was a sad memory. But that didn’t stop her from discussing it with as much zeal as any other topic about which she feels passionate.
“I never want some of the stuff I had to go through repeated for a child. Luckily, there are real things that work to fix predicaments in education. You can’t wave a magic wand and make everything better. But, you can start by having open, honest discussions about sensitive issues of all kinds. Those can truly be the start of change,” Sabina said, after which she smiled and pushed up her dark-rimmed eyeglasses purposefully.
I nodded along as Sabina ignored a call on her cell phone to look me straight in the eyes and say, “All kids need to know they’re worthy of love, and I want to look at ways we can foster a learning environment where they know this.” I felt an electric jolt of excitement from the contagion of Sabina’s passion.
One area Sabina’s been at the vanguard of at the family foundation she works at is studying how students interact in the milieu of an “always-on” social media environment.
“We found that kids are very good at establishing self-directed guidelines for behavior and ‘training’ each other. This is a much more effective solution to curbing bullying and other kinds of inappropriate behavior online, rather than having adults imposing rules from the outside,” she said. Sabina lauded the efforts of Howard School Superintendent Michael J. Martirano to focus on relationship-building as a way to elevate those who would benefit from a robust, thriving Howard County Public School System. “He always says, ‘Be somebody’s somebody.’ I love that. It really stayed with me. That focus on relationships serves us very well.”
Sabina’s also passionate about using “Circle Practices” to usher in progress in our schools. These are actions that find their inspiration in the equity-based practice of, literally, sitting in a circle. This takes a front-forward dynamic out of the collective of a group of students and their teacher and allows all present to have an equal voice. “It’s taken from Native American practices, and it’s very effective,” she said, as I nodded along in wide-eyed fascination.
“I’m supporting Sabina because she is passionate about our community and ensuring that every child in Howard County, regardless of zip code, receives an inclusive education,” said Lena Kennedy, an Oakland Mills resident with two children in the HoCo Public School System. “Sabina’s been working for more than a decade looking at educational programs and budgets across the country and will bring that experience to the BOE.”
When I told Sabina about how my best friend in high school, Bruce, had killed himself because he was bullied mercilessly for being gay, Sabina softly said, “I’m so sorry, Robert,” as we both reflected on how cruel people can be toward their fellow humans.
Then one of the many phone calls she’d ignored earlier in our conversation came in from a supporter of her candidacy, and she had to take it. I understood, and we mimed some goodbyes and promises to be in touch. And we have been. When Sabina said to call her any time with questions I might have, I knew she’d come through. And she did, over the next week, when I needed to ask her nitpicky follow-up questions in my journalist mode about this article. Friends of hers told me she’s very accessible and reliable, and this is one of the reasons she has a lot of ardent supporters in HoCo. She inspires faith–when you see her guileless, fiercely intelligent self-presentation at forums; or get to giggle along with her to a silly joke and she treats you to her million-watt smile; or as she tells you an every day story with the zest of someone who loves life and people.
“I’ve gotten to know Sabina really well over the past year, and she’s a true friend. She set in motion the introduction to a person that connected me with a South Asian LGBT group, a connection I’ve needed my entire life. That’s the kind of bridge-building she’ll do on the BOE,” said Akbi Khan, a HoCo-based writer and activist said to me in a phone call later on in the day I visited Sabina.
Back at Sabina’s just as we wrapped things up, Sabina’s older daughter and her friend came bounding into the room, breathlessly, the way kids do when they’re in the middle of playing. They were jumping up and down with excitement and asked her some question I didn’t really hear. I was too busy looking at the way Sabina’s face went from joy-filled to ecstatic when her daughter was around. I thought of how at the events I’d been to where she spoke, her partner or parents are often in tow, quietly, proudly smiling nearby. Twice I even heard her father speak to a crowd with the same kind of pride and delight in his daughter that Sabina takes in her kids. “The Board of Education needs a dose of this champion of families,” I thought as I drove away from Sabina’s home.
Thanks for reading! Check back with us here at rocoinhoco.com every week as Robert, Colleen (and pup, Moses) get to know the many facets—one each week–of this prismatic place called Howard County. We want to take you along with us, so follow us on Twitter at @rocoinhoco, join our Facebook group, and follow us on Instagram at @rocoinhoco.