Stream-of-Consciousness Seminars

The first day of class was not what I expected. From those whose authority I trusted, I had been told to expect a harsh, hierarchical rigidity in Indian higher education. Show your professor the highest respect. Expect only the lecture format. Don’t ask challenging or probing questions in class. Wait until you meet the professor in his – and yes it will likely be “his” – office. These were the pieces of advice I received.

Upon arriving in Delhi, I quickly learned that the mother of the family I’d be staying with was indeed a professor of economics at the University of Delhi. When I walked into my first class – Sociology of Education in India – the professor immediately asked a musically inclined student to come to the front of the class and lead everyone in John Lennon’s “Imagine.” Afterward, he asked the class to engage in introspection on their own childhood experiences with education. A dialogue quickly began, with Professor Pathak only moderating. Dr. Pathak is a philosopher by nature, breezing into class five to ten minutes late, a thin woolen scarf around his neck. He offers lectures that sound more like well-structured philosophical treatises. There is never an “um,” or even a pause. He has no notes in front of him. Yet every word is carefully chosen. His lectures follow a progression that is neither completely logical nor in the least bit chaotic. If we walk away having not heard a story about two debating mystics on the Ganges, or not witnessing the quotation of a dozen lines from a T.S. Eliot poem, it has been an unusual class.

One thing is certain: Most of the students in my class have never had the opportunity to question their education system the way they are encouraged to at Jawaharlal Nehru University – a graduate institution frequently called “the Harvard of the East.” This is why theoretical discussions of “what education means,” where Pathak expects engagement with the likes of Durkheim and Parsons, often devolve into tired diatribes about how “education has come to just mean rote learning,” or non-generalizable anecdotes about some textbook in Gujarat. But the open format of Professor Pathak’s class has also shown me a new kind of seminar. What happens in the seminar classrooms of the United States often resembles debate. Students construct a “point” to make, formulate a logical progression of ideas that will “prove” that point, and then proudly perform their articulation. Here, the shape of classroom discussion takes a stream-of-consciousness shape. If a student says that he doesn’t have anything concrete to say, Pathak will reply, “sometimes there is beauty in chaos.” And often the “points” made in classroom discussion are more like journal entries, or even a Romantic period poem. At first the incoherency of these moments irritated me, but I’m now beginning to see the way that Professor Pathak, in his infinite wisdom and intense ability to listen, garners genuine knowledge of his students through their soliloquies. Perhaps I will make it one of my goals to hear people in this way.

PS: Pictures coming soon. Thanks for your patience!