On the first day of a sociology class with Susan Rahman, it’s likely she’ll try to frighten you.
She’ll tell you that if you’re not ready to work with others, or if you’re not ready to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, then you’re not ready for her class. Don’t expect to sit in the back quietly and just do your work. When you attend Susan Rahman’s class, you’re going to experience a whole new way of understanding society.
“I don’t think I was scared but I was kind of concerned because it always seems like a lot of work, but she really makes you understand why you’re doing all of it and makes you understand why you’re doing it in the first place,” said SRJC student Erik Ramirez. She’s really passionate about what she teaches.”
Student Amy Marcussen knew she was going to like Rahman right way. “She makes class fun, she shows us real life examples,” she said. “She has us share our own experiences so we get stories from our classmates. We each learn from others.”
Rahman is an SRJC and College of Marin sociology instructor. Born in Seattle, she grew up and lived in San Francisco until she attended Humboldt State University.
She is of Palestinian heritage and embraces her culture. She is working on her Ph. D. and writing a dissertation about Palestine. “I’m looking into examples of effective peace models in Palestine and Israel with hopes that I can be part of the process of change,” Rahman said. “I want to make a documentary about it.”
It is this notion of feeling different yet longing to find equality for everybody that drives her passion in life and her profession. “I want to contribute in a society that has less discrimination, less hate, less poverty, and more equal rights for all people; as a teacher I like to talk about the issues to my students and try to introduce them to things that go on in society so that they can make informed decisions,” Rahman said.
The desire to make the world a better place for everyone is what brought her into sociology. She was originally a
biology major, but took a couple of classes and didn’t like them. Then she took an introduction to sociology class and fell in love with thesubject.
“Susan shares her passion for sociology as a discipline that seeks not only to understand the human condition but to improve it,” said Andy Roth, associated director of Project Censored and lecturer in sociology at Sonoma State University. “Whenever I visit one of her classes as a guest lecturer, her students impress me for how engaged and prepared they are. That’s a testament to her efforts as a teacher.”
Rahman incorporated Project Censored in her classes about three years ago. As an assignment, students must hunt for censored news, stories that mainstream media has missed or ignored. These stories get passed to the heads of Project Censored and some are published on the project’s website. In addition, these stories are all runner-ups for Project Censored’s annual book highlighting the 25 most under-reported stories.
“Susan provides her students with unusual opportunities to develop their critical thinking skills and media literacy by making Project Censored a central component of her course’s curriculum,” Roth said. “Students in Susan’s classes brought forward four of the top 25 news stories featured in Censored 2013. She and her students are crucial contributors to Project Censored.” For the book, Rahman also wrote a chapter, “Women and Gender, Race and Ethnicity,” with one of her students.
Teaching was not Rahman’s first career. She spent 10 years working with at risk youth in San Francisco, helping kids who needed a place to stay, who lived in violent communities or were in gangs. “I was like a mommy to them,” Rahman said. “They could call me in the middle of the night, or whatever they needed I would be there for them.”
That career ended when she had a daughter of her own. “The birth of my kid changed my life,” Rahman said. She realized she could not still be there for the at-risk kids. As much as she wanted to help them, she had a bigger priority in her life now. She began teaching at San Francisco City College because, by becoming a teacher, she would be able to help others and take care of her daughter.
“I got really lucky that I got offered a job. I started teaching and I really liked it,” Rahman said. She has since influenced some former students to become sociologists.
“She changed my mind in what I’m going to do with my life,” Marcussen said. “I was going to major in psychology but I changed my mind and I’m going to major in sociology.”
Rahman also had great influences of her own. “Famous sociologists have definitely stuck in my mind and I had teachers as an undergraduate that affected me,” Rahman said. “Also, people
who stand up for something. I love Cesar Chavez, Alice Walker. People with names that aren’t recognizable, people that do things in a daily basis, people that practice nonviolence in a way that is so powerful. In times of crisis and war they choose to be nonviolent.”
Rahman recognizes the power teachers have on students’ decisions about their studies. She also directly influences her daughter, reminding her not to be a hypocrite.
It is this motherly side of her that perhaps helps her connect with her students, as she did with the at-risk youth she worked with when she first started.
“She’s the first teacher I ever had that really offered guidance with my life goals outside of my immediate goals for the class,” Marcussen said. “I want to keep her as a permanent source for my education and career. She helps me analyze my ultimate goals and the best way to achieve them. She really genuinely cares and wants to see people succeed no matter what their goals are.”