Teacher as Nomad, Teacher as Emissary: Peripatetically Negotiating Temporality, Locality, and Culture Across Transnational Knowledge Spheres

Abstract

The international teacher—one who is teaching in a foreign land or teaching foreign students in his own country—is at a nexus of cultures, subject-specific knowledge, geopolitics, and economics. Globalisation of the higher education employment market, increases in overseas study rates, the advent of English as a dominant language of education and research, and the expansion of remote/distance learning have expanded opportunities for the sharing of information and ideas by educators and students. At the same time, these trends pose challenges that cannot be ignored by the physically, pedagogically, or virtually peripatetic teacher. This paper will consider the balancing act undertaken by teachers of Western origin (or educational provenance) who teach primarily or exclusively in English and who provide instruction to non-Western students either in Western or non-Western institutions, in-person or online. It will eschew contemporary neo-colonialist and neoliberal assumptions of knowledge transmission and development, reframing these experiences, obstacles, and opportunities within the historical narrative of the Indo-European knowledge exchange; the ancient tradition of itinerant preachers, mendicants, scholars, and schoolmasters; and the multi-polarisation of world power. Finally, teachers will be presented with a means of developing historically and culturally informed, robust, expedient, and sensitive didactic and discoursive techniques.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0222/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>