Guest - Nina Sohn, elementary, middle and high school parent

Nina shares her experience as a White mom who has biracial children who identify as Asian.  She and Mrs. C talk through the challenges and joys of helping children step into who they are, even if it’s different from who their parents are.

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Hi I'm Jennifer Carter and thank you for joining me on a podcast for parents, teachers and administrators. Today's conversation should be a good one and i'm sure it's something on your mind so let's get to it. So thank you so much for joining me here today Nina, can you just tell us a little bit about how you're connected to the world of parenting and education.

Of course it would be my pleasure. Probably first and foremost I am a mom so I have three children. I have a son who is 16, he is a sophomore in high school and I have two daughters who are 13 and 11 so they're in eighth grade and sixth grade respectively and um quasi in school these days sort of half time, um but I'd say being a mom is inherently weaves you in with the education community because that's a such a huge part of their journey um, and then I've also taught a lot of art over the past decade at my children's school just on a volunteer basis.

Usually concurrent with the curriculum, and I've really really really loved that I have a passion for art and I love working with younger kids in particular because they're totally unjaded and confident and their perceptions around art so it's really awesome to throw up something contemporary and weird and hear their like announcement of what it is in fact boldly and uninhibited and so really. Not alacrity. Enjoy that. It's been some  just remarkable experiences doing that. I'm really grateful for it so those are the people I'd say my two primary connections to the education world.

Excellent and so what are we going to talk about today? Oh I get to pick is that right! Dealers choice. Anything is fair game, okay. Gosh I would love to talk about well, I would love to talk about race in schools. In part because I think it's super current I feel like I have a toe in the water. In it a little bit in a I don't know how to describe it, because it's not full throttle, but my husband's korean so my kids are half asian and they identify as asian which is interesting. It's been an interesting experience for me as a parent to realize that my children's identity and also their experience is different than mine as a very white person. So that topic really really interests me a ton all the all the levels of it.

So do you find this here's a question for you that may be a little unusual but do you find because your children are korean american and white, do you have to feel like there's almost like a hierarchy of needs when you talk about racism and ostracism? Um I have some we used to live with students who are korean and chinese and they would sometimes feel like they were passengers on the race bus and not necessarily active participants or drivers in getting people to see them and to steer away from stereotypes. Have you had that experience with your kids?

I would say yes. Although I would with the qualifier, because of the school they go to it's a private school it's a wonderful school but it's, I would say poor in the diversity department. So they actually in that setting they are actually quite diverse, um but I think if you were an african-american child you would feel much more um I think they would feel much more engaged with race issues in that particular setting.