Sometimes I catch my students having a conversation that’s so on-point I have to stop and reflect with them on their collective progress. It only happens a few times a year, but when it happens it feels dope. “Y’all remember when you couldn’t figure out [now elementary concept that previously confounded them]? Now listen to us talk about [a far more advanced concept, that I learned about in college]. That’s wild!” Usually, they’ll chuckle and someone will quip something along the lines of “yeah bro, we sound smart now.” Then I groan, loudly. High schoolers are dorks like that, they love to ruin a moment.
I had one of those moments this week. Here in Abu Dhabi, I teach a Comparative Politics class. In the course, we talk about the political institutions and societal trends in six comparative states: the UK, Mexico, Nigeria, Iran, Russia, and China. This unit on political culture, we're looking at civil society organizations and how they strengthen democracies. Because I'm extra, I rotate in additional states each unit. So we’re also examining Indonesia and the Philippines and tracing their trajectories, along the path of democratization, from former colonies → authoritarian states → emerging democracies (or whatever you consider them now).
We Want a Revolution! No, Not Like That! This week students were assigned excerpts from Stephen Kinzer’s All the Shah’s Men. It’s a book about the twentieth century history of Iran and revolutionaries that toppled the Shah’s monarchical regime, only to find themselves under theocratic rule. I joked at one point that this is the downside of revolutions–you can topple the government in place but the faction that’s most organized is best prepared to dictate the terms of the aftermath. In the case of Iran, it was the Mullahs and Ayatollah Khomeni.
My opening question for discussion was “What do you think about the particular story being told by the Kinzer (the author) and what he chooses to include/exclude?” This is actually a fine question once their brains are warmed up but it was my opener and the silence afterwards was notable. But I leaned into it. Pedagogy nerds call it wait time. We sat there for nearly a minute before a student chimed in to reflect on the prevalence of male voices in the text. Then one by one the gears started grinding. Another talked about how the Mullahs were referred to several times but never really quoted in the text; they were seen but heard. Another student chimed in about the in-fighting between various reformist factions creating a power vacuum that allowed religious hardliners to take power, because they had a pre-established hierarchy. Someone joked about how the Shah's wives turned on him. Another explained that the tighter the Shah squeezed the weaker his coalition became. Others mentioned that whatever side was backed by the west was well-funded but lacked legitimacy in the eyes of the public. We went on for like twenty minutes on that question.
None of that wonderful conversation would have happened earlier in my career. One of the hardest parts of teaching (and life) is knowing when to shut up. Often our instinct is to fill the silence, when the silence is actually students processing. Earlier in my career, I would've tried to reword the question, gone on to the next one, or (God forbid) started answering it myself. I’m a deeply impatient person but I am more patient in the classroom than I am in my own life. It took me years to appreciate the power of contemplative silence in my classroom. But I get it now and I lean into it. I've been thinking more and more about the idea of silence lately. My new goal is to continue my reset from years of being hyper-online and lean more into the silence in my own life.