Abdurrahman Ahmad Wahab, an instructor at Soran University and a PhD student in Canada, has recently published a book titled: Swimming Upstream: Education from a critical lens.
This book presents a framework for studying, understanding, and researching education in Kurdistan that is not narrow and one-dimensional, so that education and academia are seen from a wider lens and engaged with critically. It argues that a multiplicity of approaches to pedagogy and knowledge acquisition is crucial if we are to avoid a narrow and mechanical conception of education. Since education is a complex process, it is important that we take different approaches to understanding the nature, meaning, value, politics and authority of knowledge and the methods of knowledge formation in the education process. The book is not trying to prove that any particular approach to knowledge acquisition, teaching and learning is correct. This does not mean that all epistemological understandings are equally valid, or that anyone can set standards and principles for education. Rather, what is crucial is that the process of education goes beyond the boundaries of positivistic views or the obsession with correctness and control, into cherishing a plurality of epistemologies.
This books uses critical pedagogy as its theoretical framework. This means that the education theories and practices mentioned in this book are analyzed and explained based on the principles of critical pedagogy. Also, by adopting this critical lens, the democratic principles of social justice, equity, inclusion, participation, and the discourse of anti-oppression and liberation are put at the center of the education process.
The book argues for the importance of seeing, analyzing and understanding the Kurdistan education process through this critical lens. Adopting this critical lens will lead to changing the paradigm and the structures on which education and academia in Kurdistan are established. It also leads to critically examining the education theories, practices and policies in Kurdistan that are usually unchecked and unquestioned within the public and academic discourses. Engaging with education from a critical lens means that we need to question and reconsider our established beliefs about the nature, aims, ambitions and scopes of education, pedagogy and schooling in Kurdistan.
Since education theories, policies and practices are complex, multidimensional and recursive processes, any project of education reform that aims at changing the established paradigms and discourses should also be complex, multidimensional and recursive. Therefore, the process of reform in education can never be mechanical and procedural. Rather, reform in the education process needs to engage everyone in democratic deliberations, critical and connected thinking processes and radical dialogue about the nature, aims, values, processes, practices, cultures and policies of education. And this is what the book really hopes to achieve. This book rejects the popular tendency in Kurdistan to present a number of points, basic direction or technical solutions for the reader so that he or he might apply them to solve issues in the educational system. The book actually argues exactly against such spoon-feeding, ready-to-use and how-to solution. The author believes that such views are what have been entangling and undermining various attempts of reform in Kurdistan education system and process. Through the arguments presented, the book hopes to stir some of the foundational beliefs and the popular academic and educational discourses that are usually gone unchecked and are being reproduced regularly in Kurdistan education system. The book also hopes to create a dialogue with the readers so that they start to question and critically engage with their most cherished beliefs and values about education, teaching and learning, and to arouse in them such experiences, curiosity and intellectual excitement that are much needed in radical educational processes.
PROFILE:
"Abdulrahman Ahmad Wahab" is a PhD student who studies sociology and educational system at Toronto University. He received his masters in English Literature at Massachusetts University in the USA. He also received his Bachelor's degree in English Department at Salahaddin University. Currently, he is an instructor at Soran Unieversity, and previously he had taught at Salahaddin, Jihan, and Ishik universities. He has published a number of essays and critical articles and researches regarding both literature and education in Kurdish and English languages in Kurdistan and outside Kurdistan.
Translated by: Karwan Özkürt