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Pedagogy as Encounter: Beyond the Teaching Imperative
What is the role of politics in the classroom? How does the desire of the teacher shape the pedagogical process? Is teaching possible? Is learning possible? Pedagogy as Encounter engages with such larger issues. The majority of discussions, workshops, conference panels, articles, and books avoid meta-pedagogical issues by focusing on technique. Such “technique talk” examines schemes, methods, and procedures that do and do not work in the classroom. It answers the “how” question at the cost of ignoring these bigger queries.
Pedagogy as Encounter consists of 120 vignettes arranged in eight chapters. Most of these are first person autobiographical stories that describe encounters with students and colleagues. They portray a teacher whose classroom disappointments lead him to radical experimentation. But there are also a few theoretical sections, as well as segments that are epigrammatic in nature. All of it is grounded in a Lacanian political psychology and in a critical global political economy. The theory, however, remains largely implicit and is confined to the footnotes. The body of the text is free of jargon and presented in a conversational voice.
Pedagogy as Encounter consists of 120 vignettes arranged in eight chapters. Most of these are first person autobiographical stories that describe encounters with students and colleagues. They portray a teacher whose classroom disappointments lead him to radical experimentation. But there are also a few theoretical sections, as well as segments that are epigrammatic in nature. All of it is grounded in a Lacanian political psychology and in a critical global political economy. The theory, however, remains largely implicit and is confined to the footnotes. The body of the text is free of jargon and presented in a conversational voice.
146 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 28, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 5, 2022
I was only an English and writing teacher for four years and that was thirty years ago, but the experience reverberates and haunts me to this day. What was useful about the texts I chose and the questions I asked? How do the lessons I learned in college (and the lessons I taught to college freshmen and high school and middle school students) hold up before the lacerating scrutiny of the present day? Are we still even engaged in the same process? Do we improve the process? Does literature still have the power to civilize and connect us, and can we ever agree on which books and poems would do that without leaving anyone out?
It seems to me that my own sons did not have the same kind of pedagogy at all, that the questions, especially as they reached college, had changed. I came of age being taught what and how to revere; they came of age being taught who and what to revile. And yet—is that entirely true? I remember telling ninth grade students in a mostly white private school classroom in 1990 to question privilege. I remember being told by a literature professor in 1988, the year I started graduate school, that we live in the Age of the Sneer. So whatever we are doing now, as we debate curricula and replace canonized texts, has been going on for some time, and is maybe not all about reviling and sneering. The question, in any case, is why this book gives me so much hope. What could be more volatile and harrowing than teaching international relations in the U.S. during the last thirty years? I often think that if I had continued to teach literature (which is less volatile than politics because you can at least hide behind the idea of it being fiction), I would have burned out long ago. I think I would have lost the energy for asking how I could do it better, and, even more likely, would have lost the will to stand up for what I believed in when students hated my methods, the books I assigned, or me.
And that’s why this book moves me so much. Because Naeem Inayatullah did not ever stop asking how he could do it better, and he never asked harder questions of his students than he asked of himself and the institution itself. This is a book that blends, in the most readable way, philosophy, memoir, and theory. I hope it will be widely read.
It seems to me that my own sons did not have the same kind of pedagogy at all, that the questions, especially as they reached college, had changed. I came of age being taught what and how to revere; they came of age being taught who and what to revile. And yet—is that entirely true? I remember telling ninth grade students in a mostly white private school classroom in 1990 to question privilege. I remember being told by a literature professor in 1988, the year I started graduate school, that we live in the Age of the Sneer. So whatever we are doing now, as we debate curricula and replace canonized texts, has been going on for some time, and is maybe not all about reviling and sneering. The question, in any case, is why this book gives me so much hope. What could be more volatile and harrowing than teaching international relations in the U.S. during the last thirty years? I often think that if I had continued to teach literature (which is less volatile than politics because you can at least hide behind the idea of it being fiction), I would have burned out long ago. I think I would have lost the energy for asking how I could do it better, and, even more likely, would have lost the will to stand up for what I believed in when students hated my methods, the books I assigned, or me.
And that’s why this book moves me so much. Because Naeem Inayatullah did not ever stop asking how he could do it better, and he never asked harder questions of his students than he asked of himself and the institution itself. This is a book that blends, in the most readable way, philosophy, memoir, and theory. I hope it will be widely read.
September 3, 2022
This terrific book is by turns both retrospectacle and moving personal account of the last thirty years in the trenches of one of the most challenging jobs there is - teaching intelligent human beings how to learn and adopt the stance of lifelong learner in the midst of bewildering change. I can only hope there are more books like it to come. We might say If learning is hard we can only guess how skilled must be the teacher. The worlds need more skilled teachers like Naeem.
September 21, 2022
This is a fabulous memoir which recounts one college professor's amazing journey in the classroom. It is humble and hopeful, but perhaps not in the ways you might imagine. It is as bold and courageous a narrative as the classroom pedagogy that the author practices and describes. A book for teachers and students, regardless of discipline or age.
June 12, 2022
An addendum: After thinking about what I wrote here, and receiving some feedback from the author, I wanted to share a few thoughts about what I may have missed or misread (again) about my ol' professor. And that is, his memoir does show us what's possible, what's energizing rather than exhausting. I should know this having experienced it myself in Naeem's class.
To wit: imagine signing up for a course eager to hear what your teacher has to say. You ask a question. Instead of getting a direct answer -- or any kind of answer -- the teacher holds up a mirror (figuratively speaking). Mirrors do not lie. They do not distort. And this mirror forces you to see yourself mouth the words, to listen to your own words echo back at you, to the expression on your face when your claims do not land. The harder you press your point, the closer the teacher holds up the mirror -- yet you don't quite see his hands gripping the mirror's edges. The mirror compels you to ask, why do I believe such things? What needs are filled by my beliefs -- the ideas that awaited me at birth? Why do I think others want to hear my ideas? If I change my ideas, what comes of that image in the mirror?
Learning can be scary. Learning has costs. Learning breeds alienation. We resist this imposition from others. It takes a skilled person to show you how to overcome these fears and costs. And that is why I remember International Conflict with Naeem Inayatullah so vividly after all these years.
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
I cannot write a detached review of this book because I have known the author since 1995 and consider him a friend and mentor of sorts. Rating it with a certain number of stars seemed pointless, so I settled on three stars because giving it zero was not an option. Disclosure: when Naeem was seeking tenure at Ithaca College, he asked me to write a recommendation on his behalf. I gladly did so.
Now, to my review/memories/observations:
I met Naeem Inayatullah when I walked into his International Conflict class at Ithaca College in fall of 1995. I was an obnoxious 20 year old, and he was a new professor at the school. I remember the day I signed up for the class: international conflict? Sounded like something I'd enjoy. I had never heard of the teacher with this funny last name. As mentioned, Professor ihn-'EYE-uh-'TOO-luh was new, so there was probably little my advisor could have told me about him. (His name is correctly pronounced ihn-'EYE-tuh-luh).
Reading Naeem's memoir "Pedagogy As Encounter" took me back to that classroom three decades ago. I remembered the faces, the desks formed into a circle, Naeem pacing outside the circle, the time I yelled during class accusing him of embracing an "anti-American" agenda, an outburst for which I apologized to Naeem in front of everyone the next time we assembled.
I remembered the life-changing book he assigned us, "The Conquest of America" by Todorov -- a book that remains on my shelf to this day.
I recalled the time Naeem began limiting my comments/interjections so that other students could get a chance to speak (a tactic he's used on others), and I remembered that I didn't care what anyone else had to say because I wanted Naeem to answer my questions/barbs and tell us what he thought. And this he mostly refused to do. Naeem refused to impose his ideas on us. Nothing imposed from the outside could ever be legitimate, ya see?
Professor Inayatullah never professed -- never delivered a single lecture. He had a fear of public speaking, making his career choice a bit odd, no? Class was a discussion session about the assigned readings, but they often turned into therapy sessions. More on that in a bit. But "International Conflict" was liberating -- I could speak my mind! I called out. I cracked jokes. I argued.
"Pedagogy As Encounter" is a series of somewhat organized anecdotes and remembrances about Naeem's life and teaching career. Many are no longer than a few sentences describing some classroom interaction or an especially troubled or creative student who sought Naeem's counsel in his office. I was pleased to learn that I was not the most difficult student Naeem ever dealt with -- not even close. In fact, some of the interactions he describes are disturbing.
I often found Naeem's method frustrating, but I never confronted him in his office or in the hall in such a manner that made him fear for his personal safety. Nor did I break down in tears because his class brought some past trauma to the surface. Such episodes fill the pages of this slim volume which is (thankfully) mostly bereft of the theoretical jargon to which less than 0.001 percent of the world's population can relate.
I wondered who might enjoy reading this book, other than Naeem's former students and professional academics who can relate to the difficulty of teaching. The stories are designed to illustrate his teaching method -- a method Naeem wants others to replicate -- which is based on the premise that teaching and learning are impossible, at least in the typical way we think about these things.
From his epilogue: "Anything might happen if we treat pedagogy as encounter. Anything. Is this why so few of us take pedagogical risks and why teaching remains so undertheorized? If we do not police, if we do not securitize the classroom with the military geometry of rows and columns, if we do not benumb them with our lectures, if we do not threaten them with grades and attendance policies, anything might happen. The full plethora of human emotion might emerge, forcing us to practice at being a human being without a license..." p. 127
Not what you expect from a political science class, huh? More like therapy, psychology... or self-discovery.
So this book reminded me what I "learned" from Naeem Inayatullah -- and what I continue to learn from him in our email exchanges, social media exchanges, or rare phone call (and I think I've seen Naeem only 4 or 5 times since I graduated Ithaca College). Indeed, Naeem is never far from my mind when I am reading books. After all these years his ideas have become my own.
Oh -- what I learned: Underneath all my youthful bluster and professed patriotism and claims to know the truth, there was a learner and a thinker waiting to come out. I just needed someone to plant some seeds -- seeds of doubt. For it is doubt that leads to learning. And learning has no end point -- it is endless process of tearing down ideas and constructing new ones. Questions are more important than answers. Answers are an end point. Learning is dancing with one's doubt -- and dancing implies a give-and-take where one dance partner does not dominate the other. Let the "other" in, and you will learn to dance.
I learned some new things about Naeem in these pages, too. That he had a very serious health scare but didn't tell me about it until years afterward. That his father was an extraordinarily difficult man -- something I can relate to. He had no real relationship with his father and neither do I. The reader senses Naeem could hardly stand to be around his father and only did so out of obligation. I wanted more from these passages -- maybe an explanation as to how this relationship would shape Professor Naeem's method. If your father is a blowhard, then maybe you will avoid being a blowhard to your students, because you know they'll tune you out.
I also rediscovered that Naeem and I have things in common. As timid or unimposing (or even cowardly) as he may appear in a classroom, Professor Inayatullah has a certain arrogance about him, and the balls to speak his mind when he knows his audience isn't going to appreciate what he has to say. This results in moments of intense professional friction, when Naeem basically tells other academics -- in so many words -- they don't know what they're talking about. I, too, have always hated sitting in meetings with bosses and colleagues where I'm forced to listen to people who don't know what they're talking about but somehow feel qualified to tell me how to do my job.
At a chess club in northern New Jersey, our president would open every meeting with a list of announcements and blah blah blah. When he finished, I would raise my hand and say, "Does this mean Ann-Margret is not coming?" That's a line from "Full Metal Jacket" and no one in the chess club had any idea what I was talking about. It was my way of saying, can we start playing chess now?
Naeem was once invited to teach a class by one of his colleagues at Syracuse years before he wound up at Ithaca College. It was during the Iraq War in 1990-91. When it was his turn to begin "teaching," he instead read one newspaper clipping after another illustrating how the Third World viewed the U.S. war machine. It was his way of telling the assembled students and academics that university curricula are apologists for empire and he wasn't going to join that club.
I've always thought Naeem was a happy man, but decades of academic encounters seem to have left him exhausted. I could be wrong about this, but my sense after reading his book is that Naeem believes he has failed because so few have chosen to replicate his method. One is also left wondering why someone pursued a career in teaching if teaching and learning are impossible. There are happy and fulfilling encounters described in these pages, but also encounters that left the professor feeling broken or disillusioned. Or frightened by what he unlocked in a student's heart or mind. Naeem will always be somewhat of a mystery.
But I can say that I have love for Naeem Inayatullah, even though I am not sure he wants it. That's because the point of teaching is not be loved by your students. Hatred, embarrassment, humiliation open more doors to learning, provided one can recover from those wounds to step through them.
I will always be grateful for Naeem's influence on my thinking. But as he reminds students who thank him, it was us who did all the work.
To wit: imagine signing up for a course eager to hear what your teacher has to say. You ask a question. Instead of getting a direct answer -- or any kind of answer -- the teacher holds up a mirror (figuratively speaking). Mirrors do not lie. They do not distort. And this mirror forces you to see yourself mouth the words, to listen to your own words echo back at you, to the expression on your face when your claims do not land. The harder you press your point, the closer the teacher holds up the mirror -- yet you don't quite see his hands gripping the mirror's edges. The mirror compels you to ask, why do I believe such things? What needs are filled by my beliefs -- the ideas that awaited me at birth? Why do I think others want to hear my ideas? If I change my ideas, what comes of that image in the mirror?
Learning can be scary. Learning has costs. Learning breeds alienation. We resist this imposition from others. It takes a skilled person to show you how to overcome these fears and costs. And that is why I remember International Conflict with Naeem Inayatullah so vividly after all these years.
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
I cannot write a detached review of this book because I have known the author since 1995 and consider him a friend and mentor of sorts. Rating it with a certain number of stars seemed pointless, so I settled on three stars because giving it zero was not an option. Disclosure: when Naeem was seeking tenure at Ithaca College, he asked me to write a recommendation on his behalf. I gladly did so.
Now, to my review/memories/observations:
I met Naeem Inayatullah when I walked into his International Conflict class at Ithaca College in fall of 1995. I was an obnoxious 20 year old, and he was a new professor at the school. I remember the day I signed up for the class: international conflict? Sounded like something I'd enjoy. I had never heard of the teacher with this funny last name. As mentioned, Professor ihn-'EYE-uh-'TOO-luh was new, so there was probably little my advisor could have told me about him. (His name is correctly pronounced ihn-'EYE-tuh-luh).
Reading Naeem's memoir "Pedagogy As Encounter" took me back to that classroom three decades ago. I remembered the faces, the desks formed into a circle, Naeem pacing outside the circle, the time I yelled during class accusing him of embracing an "anti-American" agenda, an outburst for which I apologized to Naeem in front of everyone the next time we assembled.
I remembered the life-changing book he assigned us, "The Conquest of America" by Todorov -- a book that remains on my shelf to this day.
I recalled the time Naeem began limiting my comments/interjections so that other students could get a chance to speak (a tactic he's used on others), and I remembered that I didn't care what anyone else had to say because I wanted Naeem to answer my questions/barbs and tell us what he thought. And this he mostly refused to do. Naeem refused to impose his ideas on us. Nothing imposed from the outside could ever be legitimate, ya see?
Professor Inayatullah never professed -- never delivered a single lecture. He had a fear of public speaking, making his career choice a bit odd, no? Class was a discussion session about the assigned readings, but they often turned into therapy sessions. More on that in a bit. But "International Conflict" was liberating -- I could speak my mind! I called out. I cracked jokes. I argued.
"Pedagogy As Encounter" is a series of somewhat organized anecdotes and remembrances about Naeem's life and teaching career. Many are no longer than a few sentences describing some classroom interaction or an especially troubled or creative student who sought Naeem's counsel in his office. I was pleased to learn that I was not the most difficult student Naeem ever dealt with -- not even close. In fact, some of the interactions he describes are disturbing.
I often found Naeem's method frustrating, but I never confronted him in his office or in the hall in such a manner that made him fear for his personal safety. Nor did I break down in tears because his class brought some past trauma to the surface. Such episodes fill the pages of this slim volume which is (thankfully) mostly bereft of the theoretical jargon to which less than 0.001 percent of the world's population can relate.
I wondered who might enjoy reading this book, other than Naeem's former students and professional academics who can relate to the difficulty of teaching. The stories are designed to illustrate his teaching method -- a method Naeem wants others to replicate -- which is based on the premise that teaching and learning are impossible, at least in the typical way we think about these things.
From his epilogue: "Anything might happen if we treat pedagogy as encounter. Anything. Is this why so few of us take pedagogical risks and why teaching remains so undertheorized? If we do not police, if we do not securitize the classroom with the military geometry of rows and columns, if we do not benumb them with our lectures, if we do not threaten them with grades and attendance policies, anything might happen. The full plethora of human emotion might emerge, forcing us to practice at being a human being without a license..." p. 127
Not what you expect from a political science class, huh? More like therapy, psychology... or self-discovery.
So this book reminded me what I "learned" from Naeem Inayatullah -- and what I continue to learn from him in our email exchanges, social media exchanges, or rare phone call (and I think I've seen Naeem only 4 or 5 times since I graduated Ithaca College). Indeed, Naeem is never far from my mind when I am reading books. After all these years his ideas have become my own.
Oh -- what I learned: Underneath all my youthful bluster and professed patriotism and claims to know the truth, there was a learner and a thinker waiting to come out. I just needed someone to plant some seeds -- seeds of doubt. For it is doubt that leads to learning. And learning has no end point -- it is endless process of tearing down ideas and constructing new ones. Questions are more important than answers. Answers are an end point. Learning is dancing with one's doubt -- and dancing implies a give-and-take where one dance partner does not dominate the other. Let the "other" in, and you will learn to dance.
I learned some new things about Naeem in these pages, too. That he had a very serious health scare but didn't tell me about it until years afterward. That his father was an extraordinarily difficult man -- something I can relate to. He had no real relationship with his father and neither do I. The reader senses Naeem could hardly stand to be around his father and only did so out of obligation. I wanted more from these passages -- maybe an explanation as to how this relationship would shape Professor Naeem's method. If your father is a blowhard, then maybe you will avoid being a blowhard to your students, because you know they'll tune you out.
I also rediscovered that Naeem and I have things in common. As timid or unimposing (or even cowardly) as he may appear in a classroom, Professor Inayatullah has a certain arrogance about him, and the balls to speak his mind when he knows his audience isn't going to appreciate what he has to say. This results in moments of intense professional friction, when Naeem basically tells other academics -- in so many words -- they don't know what they're talking about. I, too, have always hated sitting in meetings with bosses and colleagues where I'm forced to listen to people who don't know what they're talking about but somehow feel qualified to tell me how to do my job.
At a chess club in northern New Jersey, our president would open every meeting with a list of announcements and blah blah blah. When he finished, I would raise my hand and say, "Does this mean Ann-Margret is not coming?" That's a line from "Full Metal Jacket" and no one in the chess club had any idea what I was talking about. It was my way of saying, can we start playing chess now?
Naeem was once invited to teach a class by one of his colleagues at Syracuse years before he wound up at Ithaca College. It was during the Iraq War in 1990-91. When it was his turn to begin "teaching," he instead read one newspaper clipping after another illustrating how the Third World viewed the U.S. war machine. It was his way of telling the assembled students and academics that university curricula are apologists for empire and he wasn't going to join that club.
I've always thought Naeem was a happy man, but decades of academic encounters seem to have left him exhausted. I could be wrong about this, but my sense after reading his book is that Naeem believes he has failed because so few have chosen to replicate his method. One is also left wondering why someone pursued a career in teaching if teaching and learning are impossible. There are happy and fulfilling encounters described in these pages, but also encounters that left the professor feeling broken or disillusioned. Or frightened by what he unlocked in a student's heart or mind. Naeem will always be somewhat of a mystery.
But I can say that I have love for Naeem Inayatullah, even though I am not sure he wants it. That's because the point of teaching is not be loved by your students. Hatred, embarrassment, humiliation open more doors to learning, provided one can recover from those wounds to step through them.
I will always be grateful for Naeem's influence on my thinking. But as he reminds students who thank him, it was us who did all the work.
October 26, 2022
Disclosure: Naeem Inayatullah was my professor and continues to be a mentor and friend. That's what made me pick the book up. But it's not what made me read it multiple times, and send copies to a dozen friends.
This book is essential for anyone who believes that there must be a different way - not just for teaching (I am not a teacher), but for relating to other humans in any interaction where there is a power dynamic. As a musician, I'm regularly in interactions where the power is either with the audience (who want me to perform for and entertain them) or with me (who is the "star" for the moment) ... both dynamics are exhausting. As a parent, I regularly find myself in these teacherly moments described in the book. When the opening lines of the book undermine the entire nature of these relational moments, we realize how transactional they've become. What else could there be? In contrast to the author Robert Greene's basic premise (that all conflict must result in domination by one side or the other), Naeem asks, what if the encounter itself (and not what comes of it) is the important part?
The entire format of the book - it's laid out in curated collections of vignettes - creates the experience of an encounter with the author's story and family, with his ideas, and even his students and colleagues through the years, not to mention that it feels like the result of the author encountering himself in his own methods. It contains innumerable mind-blowing insights: some infuriating, some tear-inducing, some confusing and obtuse, and some that made me laugh out loud, and each unique to my relationship/encounter with the work. The margins of my copy are littered with notes as I talked back to Naeem and lived in the encounter of reading it. There is vulnerability, anger, joy, awe, and humility.
No two people will read this book the same way or have the same experience of it. Even if you hate it, it will still be a success because you or me liking this book is not what matters. What does it shake loose in us to read it? What of our own nature does it reflect to us? What does it excavate from our own history and education? (For a small example, I was shocked to discover my own deeply-held beliefs about the respect a teacher automatically deserves through reading the vignettes where students acted entitled and dominating towards the author. I spent time sitting with this and traced its positive and negative impacts through my history and present.)
As another review said below, the books asks us to consider that the power may already be with/in us to know what we need to know. (Of course this is not meant to imply we inherently know the atomic mass of Mercury. The book is focused on learning that challenges (or upholds) our foundational sense of self/society/history etc.) What if our curiosity in our encounter with one another can draw that out better than an authority figure? And what if it's better to work together to investigate than to (try to) pull each other across the rift between us?
"Teaching is impossible. Learning is unlikely. Encounter is the remainder." I've already started putting it into imperfect practice in my musical and parenting life, and as I said, I've sent a dozen copies of this book to friends and family.
This book is essential for anyone who believes that there must be a different way - not just for teaching (I am not a teacher), but for relating to other humans in any interaction where there is a power dynamic. As a musician, I'm regularly in interactions where the power is either with the audience (who want me to perform for and entertain them) or with me (who is the "star" for the moment) ... both dynamics are exhausting. As a parent, I regularly find myself in these teacherly moments described in the book. When the opening lines of the book undermine the entire nature of these relational moments, we realize how transactional they've become. What else could there be? In contrast to the author Robert Greene's basic premise (that all conflict must result in domination by one side or the other), Naeem asks, what if the encounter itself (and not what comes of it) is the important part?
The entire format of the book - it's laid out in curated collections of vignettes - creates the experience of an encounter with the author's story and family, with his ideas, and even his students and colleagues through the years, not to mention that it feels like the result of the author encountering himself in his own methods. It contains innumerable mind-blowing insights: some infuriating, some tear-inducing, some confusing and obtuse, and some that made me laugh out loud, and each unique to my relationship/encounter with the work. The margins of my copy are littered with notes as I talked back to Naeem and lived in the encounter of reading it. There is vulnerability, anger, joy, awe, and humility.
No two people will read this book the same way or have the same experience of it. Even if you hate it, it will still be a success because you or me liking this book is not what matters. What does it shake loose in us to read it? What of our own nature does it reflect to us? What does it excavate from our own history and education? (For a small example, I was shocked to discover my own deeply-held beliefs about the respect a teacher automatically deserves through reading the vignettes where students acted entitled and dominating towards the author. I spent time sitting with this and traced its positive and negative impacts through my history and present.)
As another review said below, the books asks us to consider that the power may already be with/in us to know what we need to know. (Of course this is not meant to imply we inherently know the atomic mass of Mercury. The book is focused on learning that challenges (or upholds) our foundational sense of self/society/history etc.) What if our curiosity in our encounter with one another can draw that out better than an authority figure? And what if it's better to work together to investigate than to (try to) pull each other across the rift between us?
"Teaching is impossible. Learning is unlikely. Encounter is the remainder." I've already started putting it into imperfect practice in my musical and parenting life, and as I said, I've sent a dozen copies of this book to friends and family.
September 4, 2026
“No one wants to learn, but everyone has an insatiable curiosity.”
“I vowed to meet them at their own desires.”
“Teaching works analogically. Making a point requires us to travel away from it.”
“ as with art, so also with pedagogy: the best route is long and indirect, the orbit, and not the vector.”
“Build on the rift”
A truly radical way to approach education, but reading this book and knowing some of the young Naeemians genuinely has me wondering about some of the intractable issues at the center of the modern American education system.
The absolute core of the pedagogy, in my interpretation at least, is generosity and trust. This is opposed to the current style which is eternally distrustful of the student while simultaneously being distant from them in their most fragile and impressionable moments. This is what’s most inspiring: the answer to our questions, the solution to the problems every teacher knows, feels deep in their soul is here, it’s always been here, and it’s right in front of us.
I certainly have critiques of the book, though. The decision to make this both a guide to pedagogy as well as a personal memoir makes it impossible to let the pedagogy stand on its own, a demonstration that I think would’ve helped assuage some critical readers.
My biggest critique, or more accurately my biggest worry, is that the lack of moderation here leads to the presentation of a pedagogy that simply cannot be adopted by even a notable percentage of teachers. It would only take one set of hearings, one barrage of news stories for a misinterpretation of the potent messages in this book to be used as a rallying cry to not just restrict the academy, but to hollow it out entirely.
So, perhaps the best course is for this book to influence a small handful of Naeem’s most loyal disciples. They will inevitably influence their own handful of future teachers, and with each generation, with each permutation, the hard edges can be shaved off, the unique styles can shift, but the trust and generosity at the core can continue. Not a sprint, but a marathon. I hope it can last.
“I vowed to meet them at their own desires.”
“Teaching works analogically. Making a point requires us to travel away from it.”
“ as with art, so also with pedagogy: the best route is long and indirect, the orbit, and not the vector.”
“Build on the rift”
A truly radical way to approach education, but reading this book and knowing some of the young Naeemians genuinely has me wondering about some of the intractable issues at the center of the modern American education system.
The absolute core of the pedagogy, in my interpretation at least, is generosity and trust. This is opposed to the current style which is eternally distrustful of the student while simultaneously being distant from them in their most fragile and impressionable moments. This is what’s most inspiring: the answer to our questions, the solution to the problems every teacher knows, feels deep in their soul is here, it’s always been here, and it’s right in front of us.
I certainly have critiques of the book, though. The decision to make this both a guide to pedagogy as well as a personal memoir makes it impossible to let the pedagogy stand on its own, a demonstration that I think would’ve helped assuage some critical readers.
My biggest critique, or more accurately my biggest worry, is that the lack of moderation here leads to the presentation of a pedagogy that simply cannot be adopted by even a notable percentage of teachers. It would only take one set of hearings, one barrage of news stories for a misinterpretation of the potent messages in this book to be used as a rallying cry to not just restrict the academy, but to hollow it out entirely.
So, perhaps the best course is for this book to influence a small handful of Naeem’s most loyal disciples. They will inevitably influence their own handful of future teachers, and with each generation, with each permutation, the hard edges can be shaved off, the unique styles can shift, but the trust and generosity at the core can continue. Not a sprint, but a marathon. I hope it can last.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 2, 2022
This book is both a delightful memoir and a necessary reflection on the form and function of higher education when it is clear that the magnitude of the world’s problems and sheer plurality of ideologies and possibility of interpretation make teaching impossible, and that the sober, at times painful (ferocious) discoveries one goes through when actually learning implies that nobody wants to learn. Finally, it offers also a possibility: the classroom as a space for encounter, of sharing needs and working together beyond the illusion provided by hope (of acting anywhere that is not right within the confines of empire).
In a remarkable commitment to his own method, Naeem follows it throughout his book. He writes about something he cares about: how to be a teacher. He does so as he encouraged his students to do: blending personal discovery with rigorous critical thinking, navigating the pains and absences (including the fundamental inicial absence of a mentor who would guide him on how to start his journey as a teacher) that forged his approach to pedagogy with the ferocity required of those who commit to learn. The result is a book that is (1) very precise in proposing a pedagogical approach that responds to the inherent impossibility of teaching (2) generous in sharing not only conclusions, but a peak behind the curtain, the pains and doubts through which they were forged and (3) genius (and once more generous) in how by reliving his encounters on the page, he multiplies them in the infinite possibilities left to the interpretation of his readers.
I was Naeem’s student. I thought I was always brave, and became painfully aware, in his class, of each and every moment in which I, in fact, wasn’t. To this day, good 15 years later, whenever learning hurts—and it repeatedly does—I remember, thanks to him, that “learning is a kind of ferocity against a prior self.”
In a remarkable commitment to his own method, Naeem follows it throughout his book. He writes about something he cares about: how to be a teacher. He does so as he encouraged his students to do: blending personal discovery with rigorous critical thinking, navigating the pains and absences (including the fundamental inicial absence of a mentor who would guide him on how to start his journey as a teacher) that forged his approach to pedagogy with the ferocity required of those who commit to learn. The result is a book that is (1) very precise in proposing a pedagogical approach that responds to the inherent impossibility of teaching (2) generous in sharing not only conclusions, but a peak behind the curtain, the pains and doubts through which they were forged and (3) genius (and once more generous) in how by reliving his encounters on the page, he multiplies them in the infinite possibilities left to the interpretation of his readers.
I was Naeem’s student. I thought I was always brave, and became painfully aware, in his class, of each and every moment in which I, in fact, wasn’t. To this day, good 15 years later, whenever learning hurts—and it repeatedly does—I remember, thanks to him, that “learning is a kind of ferocity against a prior self.”
August 19, 2023
If you are looking for a book about teaching, but without the textbook feel, this is for you.
We are built by and develop from relationships. The people we encounter and make connections with define our existence. Inayatullah captures this so well through his reflections with students, his personal narrative, and his understanding of music, global politics, pedagogy, and people!
Not only a compelling human narrative, but also a great guide for revolutionizing your encounters and pedagogy!!
We are built by and develop from relationships. The people we encounter and make connections with define our existence. Inayatullah captures this so well through his reflections with students, his personal narrative, and his understanding of music, global politics, pedagogy, and people!
Not only a compelling human narrative, but also a great guide for revolutionizing your encounters and pedagogy!!
May 8, 2023
Fascinating memoir on a storied career. Makes me realize I've never honestly studied or considered my teaching methods, which have not been tested as this author's have. I would have enjoyed his courses. And, the challenge.
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