Guest Editorial: ARE YOU A TEACHER? OR AN INDOCTRINATOR?- Notes for a Memoir

I REMEMBER THIS CONTROVERSY A FEW YEARS AGO.

by Azly Rahman

The essence of the next level of progress is good teaching and how to train the young to be practitioners and generalists. And respect and appreciate diversity and social justice of course. 

We have poor communicators in universities these days who are only interested in forcing young minds to submit to ideologies.

My experience in the difficult dialogue of Black Lives Matter vs. All Lives Matter has revealed how much shallowness has pervaded the thinking of many academics who have stopped learning yet wish to continue teaching for economic survival. Slogans are what they feed on, and they feed each other in joyous festivity. Lifelong learning is abandoned.

Some of these people teach Anthropology, Critical Media Studies, Political Science, and Creative Writing—from faraway places such as Melbourne, Negeri Sembilan, Chicago, Bangi, Pantai Dalam, Penang, and beyond. What was the dissertation defense about, then?

So, it is a global network of one-dimensionalism, as the American Marxist Herbert Marcuse would term it, of those who ought to be teaching their students how to respect diverse points of view, as Voltaire would enjoin. We can't have our own "anthropological veto" on opinions we disagree with if we are teachers of Anthropology; we can't be blind to the way media has shaped our consciousness and rendered us hegemonized beyond repair if we are teachers of Critical Media Studies; nor can we teach our students the dangers of the "One-Single-Story" if we are teachers of Creative Writing while failing to respect multiple genres of storytelling and narratives. All of these represent faulty thinking in what we, as progressive educators, do in our work: developing the human mind in all its complexity.

Otherwise, we will belong to the new class of educators called the Academic-Talibans. Hopefully, we are not. Read some of the work on the idea of thinking by the American pragmatist philosopher John Dewey to have a sense of what teaching can and ought to be about.

Today, perhaps, those who have differing opinions are being ganged up upon and against. Even though the world of academia is about promoting dialectical thinking—seeing ideas synthesize from the actions of thesis and antithesis until one arrives at meaning, phenomenologically speaking. Alas, the greatest enemy of knowledge is ignorance, if not the illusion of knowledge, let alone the belief that it is the truth and nothing but the truth, even if produced by some billionaire on Wall Street somewhere.

Logic bubbles that celebrate uninformed and uninvestigated ideologies backed by some billionaire rogue currency trader are what these academics live in comfortably, knowingly or otherwise.

Our children in universities demand better instructors who would celebrate diversity in thinking rather than be stuck, presumably in awe, in classrooms run like thought-control camps in some jungle in Baling, Kedah, or Bentong, Selangor. There is more to teaching than just this method. Because as educators, all lives should matter, and all opinions should be respected and celebrated.

I enjoy all kinds of music: rock, jazz, classical, kronchong, dangdut, Rock Kapak Johor, rap, hip hop, and music that pleases my soul. I appreciate works of art that provide me with keys, windows, doors, and insights into different periods: Classical, Neo-Classical, Baroque, Rococo, Impressionism, Dadaism, and even Cubism, which is said to be inspired by the Fascism of the Third Reich.

I respect those with differing ideologies as they bring a wealth of ideas to humanity and contribute to the often intense discussions in my classroom—be they Marxism, Capitalism, Progressivism, Essentialism, or whatever new "ism" has emerged. I don't cancel them out nor call the owners of the ideas unpleasant names just because they express Opinions That Matter to them.

We do not—and should not—own the minds of the younger generation. Our job is to give them enough tools to master their destiny, based on a future in which the old will have died. Yes, the old will die with whatever ideology they have lived by.

I suggest these kinds of instructors take courses in how to teach—or not teach at all. By sanctioning, rationalizing, patronizing, and even lecturing on the virtues of violence in making radical social change, they do not deserve to be further employed by their institutions.

I wonder what they do in their classes. Do they fail students who express the opinion in class discussions that "all lives matter"? It is troubling to imagine this idea of indoctrination rather than "teaching."

(PHOTO: University of Nottingham, UK. Panel Discussion on the Future of Education, 2019)

Originally published in Azly Rahman’s Substack Writing Across Genere.

AZLY RAHMAN is an educator, academic, international columnist, and author of nine books on Malaysia and Global Affairs. He grew up in Johor Bahru, Malaysia and holds a Columbia University doctorate in international education development and Master’s degrees in six areas: education, international affairs, peace studies communication, fiction and non-fiction writing.

Subscribe Below: