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Thoughts and ideas on education, culture, psychology, social science and more from our academics, students, alumni and wider community to create lasting and evolving change. Podcasts brought to you by UCL Institute of Education (IOE), the world's leading centre for education and social science research, courses and teaching, and a faculty of University College London (UCL).
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You're listening to IOE Insights, the UCL Institute of Education podcast and University College London.
Voiceover 2:This is Academia et al. The podcast for anyone and everyone. Figuring out life in academia.
Zeinab El-Khateeb:This is Academia et al, the podcast for early career academics. I am Zeinab El-Khateeb, I am a lecturer in Teacher Education at the IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society.
Zeinab El-Khateeb:In this series of episodes, we are going to hear stories about academic journeys, achievements and legacy, which we hope will inspire you to embark on your own adventure as an early career researcher. Today I'm delighted to welcome Doctor. Gideon Sappor in the studio with us. He is an Associate Professor in Early Years and Primary Education. He is also the Co Inclusion Lead for the IOE Department of Learning and Leadership.
Zeinab El-Khateeb:His research interests are in the broader areas around the factors that predict higher academic performance and achievement in children. Doctor Gideon, thank you very much for joining us today. It's been a pleasure to have you on the stage here today with us. You're welcome. Thank you.
Zeinab El-Khateeb:The first question, it would be helpful if you could provide the audience with an overview of your academic journey and progression to the present day.
Gideon Sappor:Okay. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me.
Zeinab El-Khateeb:Pleasure.
Gideon Sappor:I grew up in Ghana, so my undergraduate degree was in psychology. After undergrad, I worked in corporates for a few years, and my academic journey started when I started working, trained to be a primary school teacher in The UK and then started working as a teacher. And as a teacher, I could recognize some children in my classes who I knew were able to perform, had the had the potential to perform at the level of their peers, but there seemed to be something that held them back. So that was a question that was niggling had been niggling at me. Why do some of these children not realize that they've got a potential to achieve to a higher level?
Gideon Sappor:Ask some of their peers. So throughout my primary school journey, that has been in in the background. Primary school teacher journey. And then, initially, I wanted to train to be a head teacher when I when I started teaching in the primary school, but there were other events that I'm not gonna go into that made me not want to be a head head teacher anymore. So since childhood, I had always wanted to be a professor.
Gideon Sappor:So the thought just came to say, oh, this is something that I've always wanted to to do, to be I didn't even actually understand what it meant at the time when I wanted to be a professor. So I thought, okay. I've got these questions that I want to understand, and that drove me into the study to apply for the PhD and then to do some research. And that led me to research on self regulated learning skills and how that develops in children and how culture influences how they are developed. It is through towards the end of my PhD, I got opportunity to start teaching in psychology.
Gideon Sappor:My PhD is in psychology. I started teaching in the psychology department as a student, as a PhD student, alongside working part time as a primary school teacher, and that, I would say, was the gateway to enable me to apply for the job in ITE here at the IOE, and then my development grew from then on.
Zeinab El-Khateeb:Excellent. And you started to do a teaching job alongside with a PhD at the IOE as well?
Gideon Sappor:Yes, I did.
Zeinab El-Khateeb:And you are a part time teacher as well?
Gideon Sappor:Yes.
Zeinab El-Khateeb:Wow, wonderful. Thank you. And that leads us to the next question. Which professional accomplishment or initiative do you consider the most significant to date?
Gideon Sappor:Professional accomplishments. Well, as a primary school teacher, I yeah. So, I mean, I'm I'm I'm actually a professor now, but I will first go to my primary school teacher days Yeah. Where I had a class where there were some boys who were earmarked to be excluded or dismissed because we're too much trouble. And I made it my mission to support them to stay and to achieve, which I did, and I think that beats most things I could say I've accomplished.
Gideon Sappor:But here in the university, an accomplishment will be navigating courses that I led through COVID.
Zeinab El-Khateeb:Wow. And working
Gideon Sappor:to adapt the courses from courses that were designed for in person face to face delivery to an online provision and make it as successful as they were. And some of the lessons learned from that has become a blueprint for a lot of things that I do and we do today, I would say.
Zeinab El-Khateeb:Yeah. I suppose COVID was something a complete surprise. And at that point, you had to develop what you have to move to online platform. Is that right?
Gideon Sappor:Yes. Yes. So we're not prepared for it, so it just came out of the blue. I remember taking on the leadership of a module the the previous autumn, a new module to the department that I had to redesign and then turn of the year the lockdowns happened so I have to now re redesign the redesigned module to make it fit for so online delivery. That was a challenge, but I would say I'm pleased with what we're able to achieve.
Zeinab El-Khateeb:Absolutely. And sometimes going through that challenges, it brings the best out of you. Yes. And that's accomplishment.
Gideon Sappor:Exactly.
Zeinab El-Khateeb:Wonderful. Thank you. And that takes us to the third question. So was there any individual who inspired your intellectual development? And did their research focus online with your interests?
Zeinab El-Khateeb:It could be one individual or it could be many individuals.
Zeinab El-Khateeb:Okay. So maybe you want me to focus on I'm assuming you want me to focus on the academia element of inspiration because I could go back and talk about my mom and
Gideon Sappor:Of course. Yes. It could be personal and professional.
Gideon Sappor:Oh, okay. So I can then I have to talk about my mom my mother because my mom my mom never went to school. So she could not read and write English, but she made sure I did my reading from childhood, and I couldn't get past her. Even though she couldn't she couldn't read the book, she made sure she knew what was in the books, and we could still talk about read about what was in the book even though she couldn't read it. So I would say that was pivotal in my exposure to reading, to learning, to books, and that drive to to succeed academically, my dad as well.
Gideon Sappor:And it takes a village to have uncles and aunties who too many to mention. But in the academic space, I will give credit to my supervisor. All I had when I I started my PhD journey was an idea, the hunger to learn understand something, as I said, about the children in my class. But he was able to guide me and he believed in me and supported me to develop as an academic, least at the at the doctoral training and education stage. And then upon gaining my PhD, one of the people who's had the most impact on me has been Professor Callender because meeting her enabled me to understand myself better and to learn to navigate the space and to train, learn, develop, and keep keep my focus.
Gideon Sappor:Because in in academia, there are so many things that can distract and take you away from your focus. And sometimes it needs people who would help focus you to focus on what is important. So, yes, professor Kalender has been one. I have an auntie in Ghana. Well, her funeral will be going I'll be travelling for a funeral in a couple of weeks.
Gideon Sappor:So she and it's it's interesting we're having this conversation at this time.
Zeinab El-Khateeb:Yeah. I'm sorry to hear that. Lovely. Wonderful. And I like how it's personal and professional, how all linked together.
Zeinab El-Khateeb:I do agree with you. IOE is a huge place and if you don't have sign posted or mentoring, you do get lost sometimes. Thank you. That's really interesting to hear. I like what you discussed about, you know, from your childhood.
Zeinab El-Khateeb:I like what you talked about in your classroom. And it is so much like, obviously, your mother being in the picture there with you and, having to help you, inspiring you. That is, would you mind to expand further on, you know, on how was your childhood and also being as a teacher? Because I'm aware myself, I was a teacher myself for many years. And even my PhD, very similar to your situation, which helping children who couldn't read, speak English as a first language.
Zeinab El-Khateeb:I would like, if you don't mind, to just, expand further in how you're giving your child heart and being a teacher have helped you to achieve.
Gideon Sappor:Yeah. Thank you.
Zeinab El-Khateeb:Thank you.
Gideon Sappor:Yeah. I think that is that is really important. So thank you for this for for asking this follow-up. Because I didn't say this about, like, one of my greatest achievements, but becoming associate professor was a big deal for me and for my family for that reason of the background I'm I'm coming from. I remember having a conversation with a colleague recently who didn't see because of where they came from and their background, becoming a professor was it's not as much of a big deal for them.
Gideon Sappor:You know? But if you understand where I'm coming from so we we had this conversation at that level. Now if you Google a place in Accra called Nima, N I M A N I M A, and a audience, you can Google it. You will find out it's a slum. Well, I grew up there.
Gideon Sappor:Yeah. I grew up in Nima, and I had a happy childhood. Growing up in that place, did it doesn't mean it's not like what you see on on telly, stereotypical slums and on telly with children with flies on their noses. No. That's not no.
Gideon Sappor:I had a very happy childhood. Yes.
Zeinab El-Khateeb:I can imagine.
Gideon Sappor:I didn't have running water in my house or a flush toilet in my house, but I had a very happy childhood. My childhood was great. But in terms of academically, there was that drive from my parents for me to succeed in education because education is the only and has been the only passport I've had to get me out of that background. Education has been the passport. So even though my mom could not read, she used to tell me, you will go to Lagon.
Gideon Sappor:That is university. You will go to Lagon. You will go to Lagon. Read your book. And actually, one of the things I still want to achieve that I haven't achieved yet is to build libraries across Ghana because I had to travel for miles to get to the nearest library, the children's library in Central Accra, so I could read Enid Blyton and and and Tales of Narnia and my Tintin comics, I love Asterix, and, you know, I had to travel far to access books to read beyond what my mom could provide because my mom used to sell smoked fish in the market, and she would buy books from hawkers and bring home for me to read.
Gideon Sappor:And she would get the hawkers to explain to tell her everything in the book. If it's an information book on a page by page page basis, you have to explain to her what each page was on each page. It was a story, it was a fiction, you have to tell her the story and who was in the story and the names of the characters and what they did. So she had to memorize what was in the books before she would buy it. And then when she brought it home, it took me it was very I learned very quickly that I couldn't get past her.
Gideon Sappor:So I remember my one of the first encounters, she brought a book home, and I knew she couldn't read. So she said, Gideon, have you read it? And I said, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Gideon Sappor:And she said, what's in the book? And I made something up. And she was so angry at me for lying to her. Gosh. And she made me read it, and then we we talked about what was in the book.
Gideon Sappor:And so I learned not to do that because I was so disrespectful to her and and it's insulting as well. But I didn't love reading for his sake. So through that journey, I got to learn and understand that reading, learning was going to be my passport out of that background. So I had I went to university. I got a job in in in the oil company Shell after university, and I came to The UK to do an MBA in finance because I was a corporate minded person.
Zeinab El-Khateeb:Yeah. Do you still use these skills that you you carried on and you transferred it for your teaching as well, I believe?
Gideon Sappor:I still do because in my teaching as well, let let's start from primary primary primary schools. As a primary school teacher, and I worked I only worked in challenging schools. I didn't work with in the leafy suburbs. I saw those children as me no matter what their prior attainment was, no matter what their behavior was when they came to me, I saw these children as me in Nima who are going to get an education that will be their passport to have a better life. So that was a driving force of those children.
Gideon Sappor:And like I said about those boys, they were boys who were earmarked to be to be excluded, who were so year six class, and I remember being told, don't worry, we'll get rid of them for you so that you can focus on teaching the rest of the class. And I said, no, leave them to me. And I worked with those boys, and we were successful together because of that. And in moving into university, I well, luckily, these are privileges. I work in IT.
Gideon Sappor:I work in primary education on the MA as well. So I am able to carry on that same way of thinking with the students who I get a privilege to work with, to let them understand not to look down on any child, let them understand that in front of them is a child who be who could become the prime minister, a child who could find a cure for cancer, a child who will bring world peace. You know, that's how I saw children in a classroom.
Zeinab El-Khateeb:Yeah. Looking for potential. Listen to that.
Gideon Sappor:Yeah. To to to impact that to the students.
Zeinab El-Khateeb:Yeah.
Gideon Sappor:To to focus on achieving that to their children, their the children they get the privilege of working with and not see any child as a problem child or as a child, you know, look at the child negatively because our job is educate to help to move children from where they are to a better and that's the job.
Zeinab El-Khateeb:Inclusively, you know, even though it's
Zeinab El-Khateeb:children. Exactly.
Zeinab El-Khateeb:And perhaps that also led you to become the lead of inclusion. I can see the links now between your journey, isn't it?
Gideon Sappor:Yes, exactly. So you can tell all the other things I do apart from teaching is in the same vein. So I'm a dignity at work adviser for UCL because of knowing what it feels like so I can I can help other people? I do fair recruitment. I'm a fair recruitment specialist, I sit on interview panels to recruit staff into UCL because I've been there.
Gideon Sappor:I was that boy from Nima who got a chance to make progress all the way through to get to where he is. So I know what it's it's like. I've been there. I've lived it. I still live it.
Zeinab El-Khateeb:Of course. It's an ongoing journey. And it is amazing how you link and you relate to those children.
Gideon Sappor:Exactly.
Zeinab El-Khateeb:And it's it's wonderful to to remember all that and enable to help them as a class teacher and also as a university professor. And, you know, it's amazing what you're doing at the moment, if it's your job as a class teacher or also as a university professor.
Gideon Sappor:Yeah. I think the outlook is the same for me.
Zeinab El-Khateeb:It's amazing how it's all interlinked as well, and you're still carrying that skills and the mindset, as you say, as you say to, you know, to develop now, you know, university students. Wonderful. Last question. What advice academic do you have for early career researchers? They could be including staff member or student or both.
Zeinab El-Khateeb:Because as you know, some of the staff members like yourself, me, are student and staff members. What will be your academic advice to them?
Gideon Sappor:I think for for for the student part, I always say to people who who talk about doing doctoral study is the question is why are you doing it? Are you you you doing it just to get a title, or is that something you are passionate about? Because if it is just to get a title, then you will hit the buffers, challenges will come, and then it becomes difficult to move beyond those challenges. But for someone like me, I spoke about my mother. One of my driving forces from childhood, I wanted to be a professor.
Gideon Sappor:I didn't even know you had to do a PhD to become a professor. Well, not necessarily.
Zeinab El-Khateeb:That younger age. We don't you don't know.
Gideon Sappor:Oh, my mom used to tell me the University of Ghana where I studied was has is just known by Lagon Lagon because it's in a place called Lagon. And my mom, as a child, used to tell me, you will go to Lagon. Go and read your book. You will go to Lagon. Go and read your book.
Gideon Sappor:So you have to have a driving force. So and on my PhD PhD study, there were be bits were were very challenging, but I had this driving force that my mother never went to school, but she will have a son who is a doctor. So that that was something that pushed me, and then I was passionate about what I was researching as well. I needed to understand why some of these children what made some of them of similar potential achieve higher than others? What's missing?
Gideon Sappor:What's the missing link there? You know? So that was a driving force, and that kept me going through to the end. Becoming an academic, I think one important thing is particularly, and I will say this, if you are an ethnic minority or global majority like myself who, you know, the way we perceive things in the present is guided by things that happened in the past, prior experiences. And for someone, for example, who had been told in a forum that one thing that would stop me from becoming a head teacher is mine, off putting accents as it was put then, and things that happened at the time.
Gideon Sappor:And then being in the space where things were also happening, well, as I perceived them, were against my progress, against my ability to to be successful. And and I could for some of the stuff, one could only say, oh, be maybe because I'm different or maybe it is because the way I speak. So there are a lot of things that come come up. But in academic space, one has to learn to focus, and one has to understand that you cannot do it alone. One has to learn to work with people, get alongside people, sometimes proving to people that of how of of your substance, what you bring to the table.
Gideon Sappor:It's really really important as an academic, particularly if you are from an ethnic minority, not to be drawn into the negatives or the race race issues and and the and they've the the barriers and and they or they they've done this and then no. Some of the issues are not are just human issues, and we have stronger and more urgency than we realize. And if we learn to find the right people to support us, we can navigate the space. It's about navigation, somebody to advise you, to mentor you. But then if somebody is to mentor you, you have to be ready to be mentored.
Gideon Sappor:You have to be ready to be mentored. I remember the day I'm not gonna mention names here, but myself and somebody were told, do a particular thing because it's gonna be good for your career. I went that day, and I logged in online, and I started doing it straight away. I'm talking about something that happened six, seven years ago.
Zeinab El-Khateeb:Yeah.
Gideon Sappor:I did it straight away that day. Went online, found I made the time, and I did it. But the other person still today hasn't done it. So is it a a lack of agency and a lack of work, or is it the system that is working against someone? Well, I think we have more agency than we realize and we need to hold ourselves responsible for our progress as well.
Gideon Sappor:Don't be dropped into negativity, navigate, work with people. You can't do it alone. Find people, work with people. Yes, find a mentor, but be ready to be mentored.
Zeinab El-Khateeb:Absolutely. And be that flexible and adaptable, isn't it? And take on board what more experienced colleagues can advise you with. Absolutely. I completely agree.
Zeinab El-Khateeb:Very, very, very interesting journey, Gideon, and thank you so much for sharing your journey, your ideas and your thoughts and also your advice. It has been a pleasure to have you with us today and thank you for joining
Gideon Sappor:You're welcome. You're welcome. Thank you.
Zeinab El-Khateeb:Please follow the link in the show notes to find out more about Dr Gideon Sappor's work as well as discovering more podcasts from the IOE. And if you like what you've heard, please give the IOE podcast a five star rating on Apple or Spotify. This will help us reach more listeners who may also enjoy the podcast. I'm Zeinab, thank you for listening.
Zeinab El-Khateeb:Have a good day.
Voiceover 3:Academia et al. Is brought to you by the IOE's Early Career Network and IOE Marketing and Communications. The podcast is presented by Zeinab El-Khateeb. The theme music was composed by Ronnie Zhu, editing by Teresa Baker of UCL Educational Media, and Jason Ilagan is the executive producer of the IOE podcast.
Voiceover 1:Thanks for listening. Search IOE Insights for more podcasts from the IOE.