On the first day of my American-government course I often play a little trick on the students. I throw one of them out of class.
Admittedly this is not among my kinder acts as a teacher. It comes from posing the questions of what is politics and where does it take place. Usually most of the class identifies politics with the actions of government rather than a process of influence involving power and authority in any number of social settings, including the classroom. So some unsuspecting student answers that, no, politics doesn't go on in this class. In response the teacher feigns anger and asks him or her to leave. The plan is to stop the student at the door, ask why he (or she) is obeying, and encourage a more energetic discussion of authority and politics at a university. Or at least that was the idea.
Two years ago, in my second semester of teaching at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in Qatar, I attempted to stage this performance in a class of mostly Arab students. When done in the United States there is a range of responses, from surprise to smirks to quiet calculations of how soon they could transfer out of this wack job's class. But that day, in the wealthy Persian Gulf emirate, I saw looks of pain and horror on the faces in class. By ordering a student out of class I had stepped over a strict line of courtesy and pride. I had also stumbled over these students' elevated respect for teachers. Their discomfort at my disapproval was a reminder that I was in a different culture with a tradition of esteem for teachers.
That was at least one mistake I never repeated.
Let me say upfront that I like teaching in Doha. My students are generally bright, attentive, and fairly hard-working, with a diversity of backgrounds. (How many American universities have a handful of students in every class who have actually experienced wars from Bosnia to Beirut?) Despite an appearance of uniformity, my students are no more monolithic in their political views than those at the average politically correct liberal East Coast college. A professor's academic freedom is not questioned. Even on the no-go topic of Israel, we had a debate last fall on the power of the Israeli lobby in America, which seemed, to their teacher at least, to provoke a range of student views.
In a discussion of teaching in a foreign culture, the temptation is to stress the contrasts, to elevate the exotic to a prominence not deserved. In fact, most of what passes for my daily acts of education are similar to what any American college professor would recognize. And the young men and women in class are also easily recognizable. Some are bright, some aren't; some work hard, some don't. They have the customary range of abilities and interests and identities. Many are mature and motivated, others are occupying space, just fulfilling a family's expectations.
Having been admitted to a well-known American university requiring English fluency, these are privileged students, tomorrow's leaders of the Middle East. Today this gives them the appearance of "global teenagers" plugged into current films, phrases, and fashions, as separate from their boomer teacher as their American peers are. And the student-teacher relationship is not one where either side necessarily reveals vital truths to the other. The few hours a week of our encounters are constrained by grades, ambitions, and honest confusion. Differing goals and self-images seldom encourage candid communications, whatever the cultural similarities or differences.
This leads to the recurring question among the faculty about what exactly we, and our students, are doing here. For me, after a career in Washington spent organizing and lobbying, analyzing and writing about politics, Doha represented a welcome chance to get back to teaching at Georgetown, my alma mater. With our kids out of the house, if not quite out of school, and a wife willing to travel, the move made some sense.
More general motives are usually adapted from the old British imperial credo of God, Gold, and Glory to suit the more secular goals of liberal scholars. Promoting interest in intellectual inquiry, in religious tolerance, and in an openness for dissent and debate all while making a comfortable living in an interesting foreign setting takes in a good deal of ground. For the students the debate was summed up by one social-science colleague, an American, who thought the students' Western loyalties were only an inch deep while their Muslim and Arab traditions composed their deeper roots. Another colleague, a Muslim, thought the religious and ethnic traditions were the surface parts while the Western cultural and consumption patterns were the more profound. I have no idea.
On the most apparent visual level, these students are not Americans. The Qatari boys wear long white robes, the thobe, while the girls cover their hair and wear the black abaya. Other students usually dress in the Western uniform of jeans, with many of the Muslim women at least covering their heads. Dress reflects custom and may or may not indicate a religious bent. The students vary in their devotion. A number go to daily prayers; most take the month of Ramadan seriously enough to show the strain of fasting during the daylight hours, while feasting at night. Perhaps because of the dress, the halls of the campus reflect a certain restraint, even dignity, not found in American academe.
Faculty members have complaints, and what professor doesn't? Structure is often expected, and therefore needed, in the classroom. If attendance isn't enforced, absence and tardiness become problems. Work habits, or the lack of them, are blamed on a privileged background. Of course spoiled kids are not exactly unknown in the higher reaches of American private education. Despite being widely traveled, many of the students show a surprising lack of curiosity about foreign lands, people, and culture.
The Qataris who make up almost half of our 140 students live at home. (The rest of the students are mostly from the Middle East and South Asia.) The Qataris' family lives are private matters not shared with the foreign faculty. Perhaps because families are so central, students tend to compartmentalize their education, restricting how much of their day they wish it to occupy. Not much socializing goes on between faculty members and students or, in general, between expats and locals. Faculty members live fairly close to the Education City campus that Georgetown shares with five other American universities teaching disciplines ranging from business (Carnegie Mellon) to medicine (Cornell). Foreigners live in their guarded compounds, and Qataris live with their families. (In between, the majority of the population, workers from South Asia, live in sparsely furnished all-male dormitories, walled off from both the foreign professionals and local citizens they serve.)
Attempts to scale these barriers even with typical American campus activities have only slowly been accepted. Recently some Georgetown students started a club that sponsored after-hours meals for informal chats between students and faculty members. One evening last fall, the group, called Brain Food, brought takeout food to my house to talk about the presidential election. Of the dozen students who showed up, none were Qatari.
That is not to say that within the classroom there aren't wide-ranging discussions with students who are smart, funny, articulate, and diverse. This diversity embraces women. Education is firmly co-ed, unlike most local schools and colleges run by more traditional local authorities in the Gulf. More than half of Georgetown's student body is female, and they are smart and motivated. They join in class debates and appear willing, even eager, to argue their points of view with male classmates. However they may be treated in the rest of society, and whatever ideas Westerners arrive with concerning the issue of women under Islam, these college women expect to be treated as equals, and on the campus they seem to be. If they are intimidated by men or a male-dominated culture and religion, I haven't noticed.
Many of the teachers here have ties to the people, culture, and religion of the region. Understandably their sympathies lie in the region, but the danger to teaching quality lies in constructing a self-selecting faculty that is narrower, ideologically and politically, than would exist on a more diverse American campus. Some teachers are at the end or the beginning of their careers, and an overseas posting for a few years is viewed as a short-term boost to their plans for the future. The salary supplement for teaching overseas is a clear incentive, and, when combined with free housing, rent received from a home back in the States as well as other perks can double one's salary in the United States. Alas, expenses are also higher in the Gulf. Chances for travel — always by air to elsewhere — are not only abundant but also necessary in a small desert country where the temperature hits 120 degrees in the summer.
Whatever the motives for being in Doha, family issues are always present. Single people have to handle the isolation of a small city in an unfamiliar culture that frowns on alcohol and displays of affection between the sexes. (No holding hands in public.) Married couples have problems with spouses who frequently have difficulty getting a job, keeping busy, or finding friends. Families with children have to find places for them in private schools, which can be both limited and expensive. But, as the phrase goes, if you have a problem money can solve, you don't have a problem. With the availability of inexpensive housekeeping and child care, stipends for education, as well as large houses and SUV's, expats can overcome most of the challenges. And most seem to stay longer than they planned to when they arrived.
Our mandate is to reproduce the same standards and content that exist at Georgetown's main campus in Washington. In our case that means granting a B.S. in foreign service — educating students in international politics for careers in world affairs. Academic freedom may not be up for debate, but what we are doing and whether we're succeeding certainly is, among a faculty that may overthink and overrate the university's mission. Is the education appropriate? Are we as a foreign faculty missionizing or mirroring a conflicted region? How relevant are we to students in blending their traditional values with modernizing habits of the heart? Both the questions and answers overflow with ambivalence.
The worse part of teaching in Qatar may actually occur before arrival: in the worried expectations of friends and family when they first hear of your pending departure. Arabs have a bad press in America, and that can lead to sincere concerns about physical security and intolerance. While generalizations about an admittedly volatile region should be minimized, the surprises in being here for three years are almost all on the positive side. And for a faculty that includes priests, Jews, and other nonconformists, the response has been welcoming and, assuming a degree of discretion, accepting. People of this region seem to want what we have to offer and are willing to put up with the eccentric baggage that Westerners inevitably bring with them. It's not a bad deal for either side, so far.
Gary Wasserman is a professor of government at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in Doha, Qatar, teaching international relations and American government.
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