Senior Yusur Jasim is set to graduate this May with a teaching certificate from ϳԹվ Teacher Scholars. They credit their high school teacher, Matt Bernstein ’13, for helping set them down this path.
Bernstein graduated from ϳԹվ with his certificate from the Teacher Scholars program in 2013. He began teaching at a year later, after working at the Portland, Maine, public school as a student teacher.
“I fell in love with the school and the community after seeing the way it supports every kid and makes every kid feel accepted for who they are,” he said.
Jasim first met Bernstein in 2017, when they had him for their ninth-grade social studies class at the school.
Now, this May, Jasim is set to graduate from ϳԹվ as a certified teacher.
“I left high school saying I want to be Matt Bernstein when I grow up,” Jasim said, including going to the same college and completing the same teacher training program. “Mr. Bernstein would say I should be myself, and I have discovered who I am through the years, I know who I am. I am just taking the best parts that I learned from him and doing it my way!”
Jasim didn’t know at age fourteen that they wanted to pursue a career in teaching—that came later, during their senior year. But Bernstein said he could quickly see that Jasim was suited to this particular vocation and other public-spirited ones.
“Right from the first day knowing Yusur, I knew this was a person who has a deep passion for learning and a deep passion for helping people,” Bernstein said.
Jasim proved Bernstein right. In high school, they were involved in student government, mock trial, and the literary magazine. “Casco Bay taught me the meaning of community. ...My way of giving back to what my teachers and friends were giving me was putting my best efforts in the ways I engaged in my high school,” they said.
At ϳԹվ, Jasim is a student director for the Sexuality, Women, and Gender Center and leads Gender Matters, a program for trans and gender non-conforming students. They've also been a teaching assistant for several classes, including ones in the departments of education, Arabic, and the visual arts.
Jasim last summer worked with The Telling Room in Portland, a nonprofit that encourages young people to write and share their stories, believing that creative expression changes communities and prepares children for success, according to its website. Jasim said the relationships they developed with young people there reinforced their desire to go into teaching—to be a “supportive adult, to teach students how to take care of themselves and their communities. Which is precisely what Mr. Bernstein taught me.”
Bernstein has observed Jasim's consistency in this regard over the years. “I admire the way they approach the world and the way they show up in the world and the way they’re always centering others and improving the community around them,” he said.
Meanwhile, Jasim credits Bernstein for helping them develop greater self-confidence, to trust their decisions and perspectives. “That is one of the biggest things an adult can do for a young person whose brain is still developing,” Jasim said. Not only is fourteen a tough age, Jasim was also still learning English and acclimating to a new home and culture, having fled Iraq with their family two years earlier.
After taking Bernstein’s freshman-year class, Jasim enrolled in an upper-level seminar about the Holocaust that Bernstein co-taught (which is what inspired Jasim to later major in history at ϳԹվ). They also worked as Bernstein’s teaching assistant junior and senior years. This created many opportunities for the two to have big and small talks, about identity, gender, religion—the works. In these moments, Jasim said they began to engage in a deeper self-examination that was both healing and clarifying.
“I had never thought about my mental health until high school,” Jasim said. “I remember having a conversation with Mr. Bernstein about Islamophobia, and that felt so good, it felt so good in my brain and body. I was like, maybe I should keep doing this! Mr. Bernstein opened that space for me.”
Bernstein said it means a lot to him that Jasim credits him as a mentor and influence but that his role has been minimal. “I always say, you’re the one doing all this amazing stuff, you’re the protagonist and hero of this story.”
He added, “I have been lucky to have had a front row seat to it. Any credit or praise Yusur gives to me just means to me that I have been lucky to have been connected to this truly remarkable person.”
