By Mia Costales
It was an unusually warm Thursday in Arcata and the hum of cars speeding past the D Street Community parking lot were reminiscent of the buzzing of cicadas. Nestled in the shady spot beneath the eyes of the Josiah Lawson memorial mural, community members, students, and the occasional canine friend gathered in anticipation for today’s lesson. At noon, Rouhollah Aghasaleh opened the discussion with an anecdote about their perception of toxic positivity — a concept so normalized in the American learning system. Aghasaleh invited the group to question why a classroom learning about genocide should remain positive in light of such cruelty. They questioned why students should remain optimistic when there are chalkboards in Palestine covered in blood instead of chalk.
“It’s okay to be mad, it’s okay to be angry, it’s okay to be depressed, it’s okay to be stressed, anxious,” Aghasaleh said. “All of those are valid emotions. We need to acknowledge them.”
Aghasaleh first got their foot in the door in 2009, teaching in higher education professionally in Iran. However, their career can be traced further back to teaching in afterschool programs and summer camps in high school. In 2011, Aghasaleh immigrated to the U.S. to get their doctorate degree in educational theory and practice at the University of Georgia. They have been teaching at Cal Poly Humboldt as an assistant professor since 2020. Here, they have taught seven courses, including; multicultural special education, bilingual theory and methods, integrated math and science in elementary school and queer across cultures. However, due to their presence on campus last April during the Pro-Palestine protests, the university has placed them on a temporary suspension which prohibits them from being on campus and communicating with students.
“We don’t have to seek happiness all the time,” Aghasaleh said. “‘Oh, let’s do something fun.’ Why? Let’s do something not fun. Let’s do something, you know, for reflection”
This suspension is expected to last until Oct. 28, but a decision on if it should be prolonged is still up in the air. It is also important to note that while Aghasaleh was on campus during the Siemens Hall occupation, their role was not to protest but instead to ensure the safety of the students that were protesting. Because of their suspension, Aghasaleh has been holding community teach-ins at noon on Mondays and Thursdays since Aug. 26. They are able to interact with students during these lessons as they are considered community members in this setting.
Over the course of the lessons, Aghasaleh has assigned readings like Living a Feminist Life by Sarah Ahmed to inspire discourse on theory and its applications in the real world. Last Thursday’s topics of discussion included conversations about the implicit and explicit sexism, racism, homophobia and transphobia that dress codes perpetuate and what feminism means to us. They also touched on binary oppositions, pairs of related terms that are opposite in meaning, and the dichotomy between self and other. Aghasaleh encouraged attendees to share examples of binary opposition created by patriarchal, capitalist, and colonial structures, such as the dichotomy of man versus woman. When the group wasn’t discussing theory, they were in smaller groups sharing things that were on their mind or exchanging resources.
“Education is a very conservative spot, is a very conservative structure,” Aghasaleh said. “That’s the nature of education. Governments have been using it to socialize, to keep the class and other hierarchies and privilege systems that they had. What I’ve been doing is to work within and against [the structure] and that’s so exhausting and that’s so tough. And you are all familiar on some level with that, working within and against.”
These teach-ins have gained some traction in the Arcata community, partly in thanks to social media accounts like @humboldtforpalestine and @calpolyhumboldtmemes on Instagram, both of which have posted information on Aghasaleh and their teach-ins. Some professors have also encouraged their students to attend the teach-ins in solidarity with Palestine and Aghasaleh. Staffers for the Toyon Literary Magazine (ENG 460) attended last Thursday’s session with the goal of getting inspiration for their newest volume of the magazine. The theme for this upcoming volume of Toyon is Dispatches from the Global Intifada.
“I really think it’s a powerful model for what a decolonized classroom could look like,” Chrys Furrer said, an editor for Toyon. “There isn’t a hierarchy between student and teacher. It’s really open and fluid, and it’s more conversational and less about having someone lecture or talk down to someone. There’s a lot of invitation for discussion and reflection.”
According to posts circulating online, Aghasaleh’s teach-ins will continue until their suspension ends. Their end-goal for the teach-ins is to foster a safer and less harmful learning environment, as well as aid people in the critical analysis of lived experiences. They hope to teach with cultural and personal relevance to students and encourage people to think about the ways we can all lift a little bit of burden off of the shoulders of our peers.
“Just because I have read a few thousand more pages and I have done twenty more years of teaching doesn’t make me right,” Aghasaleh said. “You could be right. And I listen to you and I’ve made corrections; I’ve made serious adjustments in my teaching. Many teachers, many schools want obedient students. I’m not one of those.”
All quotes attributed to Aghasaleh were not spoken directly to Mia Costales or any student journalists. All quotes were transcribed from their lectures at the teach-ins.
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