DO NOT read this blog post

I just want to start by saying that if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t like what I have to say, then what you are doing here, on my blog? If you have issues with the way I write or what I address, then please it’s best for you to leave now. If you’d like to read on, then I wonder why you’re making the effort to choose to be offended. Perhaps you, like most Pakistanis, suffer from a severe persecution complex but are in deep denial of it (don’t know what that is? Click here!). I don’t know and I don’t care. What I do care about is that there are people who choose to come read me, make a big issue about what I say, and then cry about it. Funny thing is, these are the same people who’ll insist Rushdie did no wrong and that only idiots make a big deal out of not much. The irony is amazing!

I have a brilliant idea for you all. DON’T. READ. THIS. BLOG. Go here instead. It’s more up your alley.

You still here? Not willing to leave? Ok then. I won’t tell you what this blog is about. I’ll tell you about what it’s not. I’ve recently decided there are certain topics I should not write about because they have to do with the elite. And since we know the elite are our saviours and champions, I must not have anything but praise for them.

So the elite are our champions, I urge you: don’t buy this propaganda against them that circulates the internet from bitter, jealous, insecure fools. They’re the kind of fools who call them liberal fascists and spread lies to further their interests.

For example: no privileged Pakistani has ever actually killed someone while drunk driving. That rumour stems from the jealous middle classes who can’t afford champagne. I mean come on! Drunk driving hasn’t killed ANYONE. If it did, wouldn’t many people be serving time in jail? It certainly isn’t easy to get out of convictions if you’re rich. Not at all.

“Haan mein nay mara tha! I did his family a favour. They’ve probably never seen so much money!” has never been said with glee. Those words have never been uttered. No one is that insensitive. And, like I said, NO ONE has ever run over a sleeping worker on the side of the road and ended his life. No one. That’s all lies and propaganda. I mean they’re rich enough to have drivers to drive them. They don’t need to get behind the wheel while judgement is impaired. No one ever tempted to do that. Ever. Ever. Ever.

Similarly, no rich, self identified liberal Pakistani has ever given a bribe or received one. They are immune to the epidemic the rest of the society suffers from, our lords, champions and saviours! For example, they have never, ever, ever bribed powerful people in the industry they are associated with. They have never done any judges any favours. They have never made promises to any politicians. They certainly haven’t ever made a powerful network with the army wallahs (those scums!). They’re lily white. Don’t you ever forget that.

The elite are also the biggest feminists in Pakistan. If it weren’t for them, women would have no rights. We’d be sitting in our chaadar and char diwaari. We owe them everything. Don’t believe me? Just see how wonderfully they treat their women. No elite man cheats on his wife openly. No elite uncles molest girls or sexually exploits 18 year olds. No elite man beats his wife and they certainly don’t slap women across the face when drunk at parties. No elite man date rapes anyone. No elite man ever emotionally devastates a woman. No elite gay man has ever married a young girl & turned her into a baby machine for himself. No elite man pressures his daughter to marry someone to further his business interests. No elite man denies his daughter her right to education and gets her married instead. No elite families give grand dowries. No elite people truly think women are secondary to men. That’s why elite women have such high divorce rates: when they do accidentally marry an idiot (always “middle class”), rest assured NO ONE in their families gives a hard time or tells her to make it work. Rest assured they NEVER blame the woman. Rest assured they are nothing but an incredible support system. No elite mother has ever said: “deal with it beti, your father did all this to me too!” to her daughter and sent her back to beaten. That has never, ever happened. All elite treat women wonderfully. That’s why the elite women are so well adjusted and so wise. Anyone who says otherwise is a… yes, say it with me: jealous and insecure fool!

The elite are also the most hamdard people in Pakistan. They feel everyone’s pain on a profound level. They truly understand the poor people’s suffering. They cry for them. They treat them better than anyone in this society. Their servants have servants! Go to the back of any elite house and you’ll see a palatial area, fully air conditioned, nothing squalid or dirty. Their servants live like kings which is why no servant has ever stolen or gone as far as murdered their benevolent employees. After all, elite boys don’t get drunk, line up servants against a wall and throw water balloons at them. That has never happened.

Did you know that the money the elite spend on their grand weddings is nothing compared to how much charity they give? Also, these weddings aren’t grand displays of wealth at all. We stupidly think so because we’re too poor to know any better. We’re also wrong to believe that these weddings puts pressure on all other classes to do the same. We’re totally wrong in thinking that if these events were less ostentatious, others may not feel so pressured. When the other classes choose to sacrifice their daughter’s education in order to give her a grand wedding, then they are the idiots for making the wrong choice. Elitism had nothing to do with it.

Our elite are NOT hypocrites. No, not at all. They praise me for criticising everyone they don’t like, but lose it when I comment on elitism. You see, dear readers, I’m the one who doesn’t know any better. I’m wrong. I’m just plain insane about this but not much else.

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Engaged pedagogy

On Saturday, I delivered a talk on applying critical thinking skills in the classroom to 450 teachers in Islamabad. Here is the write up I’ve sent them.

Is this image familiar? It certainly spoke to me. This is how I felt about education as a child in Pakistan but not later, when in an International Baccalaureate sixth form college. As a student of the International Baccalaureate whose base was weak in critical thinking (thanks to the private Pakistani schools I had attended), I struggled. But even today, I remember much of what I learnt. I retained it. I still remember my tedious critical thinking classes, taught in the form of a compulsory subject called Theory of Knowledge. I still use what I learnt there. Did I just get lucky? Or was it because I was no longer part of a passive education system?

We, Pakistani teachers, are passive educators and today I appeal to you to band together to get rid of this system for it has too many disadvantages. It promotes authoritarianism, suppresses thoughtful inquiry and has a negative impact on creativity & imagination. Furthermore, it doesn’t teach students how to “learn to learn” or make informed decisions. It creates a culture of dependency and it certainly doesn’t motivate. Can we even call this real education? I certainly can’t.

Children are born critical thinkers. We, the adults, actively suppress that skill they are born with. According to bell hooks, “thinking is an action” but our children are taught to fear it at home and in schools. As a result, they reach college unprepared and struggle with critical thinking courses. Many are unable to think critically and some are unwilling. They are scared of philosophy and say it is “useless”. It is a struggle to teach them and it is a struggle for them to learn something so basic: how to think. Should it have to be?

Currently, we live in a culture where lecturing is the norm and we believe that it is important to lecture. It is, after all, a skill they must learn. However, lecturing is a passive activity which has many drawbacks. I know I’m not the only teacher who believes that lecturing is counterproductive. It discourages participation because it isn’t easy to make a connection with listeners. It is incredibly boring. The message we are sending non critical thinkers, who cannot be active listeners, seems to be “learning is NOT fun kid, and you better know it from the start!”

In order to break this culture, we should move away from lecturing to interacting. According to bell hooks, “engaged pedagogy begins with the assumption that we learn best when there is an interactive relationship between student and teacher.” Students become active participants but they must be provided a safe space where everyone is free to respectfully disagree.

So what can we do? Here are a few tips:

Make this a golden rule: our job is to teach, not preach. Always be open minded and be aware of your biases & prejudices. Don’t be judgemental (but be skeptical) and always be open to new ideas and perspectives.

Don’t be scared of being challenged by a student. Students should be free to disagree or ask clarifying questions. That is how they will learn!

If a student asks you the answer to a question you don’t know the answer to, say “I’ll look it up & get back to you”. It is much better than giving misinformation or silencing a curious mind. Remember that we’re human and it’s ok to expose our humanity to our students. We are not robots and we shouldn’t be afraid to share our stories or emotions. We shouldn’t be afraid of not knowing an answer. It’s certainly better to be respected for being human than it is to get faux respect out of fear.

Encourage your students to work towards the solution of the problems you’ve posed instead of spoon feeding them. Even if they can’t solve the problem in class, don’t answer it. Let them go find the answer. One may come and give it to you herself in the next class!

Encourage and teach argumentation instead of only debating.

Expose students to diversity and alternate perspectives even if you don’t agree with the alternate perspectives. You owe it to them!

Teach logic and promote logical thought.

Encourage creativity in all subjects. It’s possible! As a student of IB higher level math, I had to complete a portfolio which I found incredibly tedious. I later realised it was very valuable.

Please do allow the students to use their imaginations and be creative.

Insist on small class sizes.

We, teachers, should be lifelong learners. We also teach by example: stern, unbending, judgemental, paternalistic attitudes aren’t conducive to critical thought!

Finally, please feel free to email me at nabiha@theknowledgefactory.org I am happy to share my resources or answer any questions.

On Women’s Day

Happy International Women’s Day! If you don’t know what it is and why it is an important day for many people around the world, read this.

This morning I went with Women’s Action Forum to the lawyer’s convention for women’s day. Needless to say, I was disappointed. The rhetoric used by the lawyer’s today was appalling and their knee jerk defence of each other even worse.

It started off badly. The first speaker was a woman who, we assumed, would be speaking about women’s rights. That was not the case. The speaker basically used women’s rights as an excuse to glorify religion. She started off by telling us that Islam was perfect and granted women all their rights. If we implement it, we won’t even need to struggle for our rights. Miraculous I tell you! Forget the fact that there is no consensus on this or sharia in general. Apparently these abstract concepts are ALL we need.

She also reminded us that Islam blesses women with male guardians. I don’t understand why she needed to make this point unless she wanted to remind me that it’s ok for men to treat me like property since they are, after all, divinely appointed to be my guardians. I fail to see what the point of bringing this up was other than to please the patriarchy, which I’m not ok pleasing or praising, especially on women’s day. And I’m not sure she knows that there are many Muslim families around, like my paternal grandmother’s, where men are NOT considered our guardians or superior to us.

Her argument was the same old tired argument we’ve heard too many times before such as “Islam is a pro-woman religion because the first person the Prophet disclosed his chosen state to was a woman, his wife” and “Islam grants women more rights than other religions”. Furthermore, she just made these statements without clarification or without even emphasising what “Islam” she was referring to. Instead of focusing on women’s issues, she was blindly praising only one religion and insisting that it was the only one that gave women’s rights.

In her zeal, she actually started ranting and confusing facts. She consistently referred to Hazrat Khadija as “Khadija Fatima” and at one point, she looked like she was short of breath. It was religious fervour at its finest. She was ranting and raving. It was ridiculous to say the least.

Do I need to even get into why this is problematic on many levels? One of the WAFers who was with me is a Christian. She felt extremely upset and insulted. Her religion was being demeaned to promote the dominant one was the “feminist” religion. We failed to see why religion was even brought up. Why oh why can’t we simply have a discussion on women’s rights without dragging in religion but not culture? Indeed religion grants women’s rights that are then denied to them culturally but justified through religion. For example, there are many, many pious Muslims in Pakistan who truly believe that it’s ok to deny women an inheritance or honour kill women. There are many who believe that it is their religious sanctioned right to deny females education even though that is a gross violation of religion. Religion and culture are intertwined and cannot be separated conveniently.

As luck would have it, WAF was called to the stage right after this maddening drama and Gulnar gave an excellent response. She looked at the lawyer straight in the eye and asked “what kind of hypocrisy is this? If men are meant to be our guardians, why are YOU out here in the public sphere?” She also called out the whole religious rhetoric and why it’s problematic. “Why did you lawyers assume that there’s only Muslims in the audience? We have minorities in Pakistan!”  she declared and here she touched a raw nerve: in order to appease the crowd and win the audience over, we Pakistanis play up the Islam card without considering how those who don’t agree will feel.

Now a pause to address my trolls who are probably foaming at the mouth while reading this: I am not advocating or saying that religion denies women’s rights. I’m saying that using the language of a religion severely limits discussions on women’s rights. And here’s the thing: rights are rights. No one needs to deserve them and no one needs to bless them upon people. For this reason, they should firmly remain in the realm of the secular.

I also want to add here that the atmosphere did not feel like a safe space for women at all. There were many men around and I was extremely pleased to see that. However, there was a very obnoxious man at the back who was making sexist remarks and NO ONE said anything to him. When Jugnu Mohsin, who was sitting next to me, got up to speak, he heckled her. I turned around to object. The female lawyers nonchalantly excused it by saying “oh ignore him. He’s mad!” Really lawyers? I never had much faith in you as a community bringing about change and now I have it even less than ever. And the only positive thought I’ve had after this is “I’m so glad I changed my mind and didn’t go to law school!”

Post script: I’m sorry this is so badly written. I’m tired because I haven’t been sleeping properly. Last night, I only got 4 hours of sleep even though I need a full 8 hours. I wanted to write this today though because I knew that if I put it off, I wouldn’t have written it at all because I’ve got a hectic week up ahead.