The Art of Teaching in the 21st Century by Umair Razzaq

₨1,500.00

Umair Razzaq has spent the last twenty years in classrooms—first as a teacher, and later as someone who trains other teachers. Back in 2018, while still finishing his degree in English Literature, he wrote his first book, Lyari on the Rise.

These days, alongside his own teaching, he spends a lot of time talking to new and aspiring teachers about something close to his heart: how to use technology in the classroom without letting it take over the human side of teaching.

For Umair, good teaching has always been about people first, technology is just a tool that should help, not replace, that connection.

Technologies should not aim to limit our capabilities, but to boost them up. For the last five hundred years, we have been witnessing remarkable collaborations between technological functionalities and emotionally charged humans. From the invention of the printing press to the internet, these tools have been inevitably enhancing our daily tasks in more efficient ways. The invention of the telescope extended our vision, playing an important role in advancing our understanding of the cosmos. The invention of engines, on the other hand, amplified our physical strength, and we have been able to conquer distances with the birth of advanced modes of transportation.

But the recent obsession with Artificial Intelligence has led us into the labyrinth of a wrong discourse, making us imagine waking up the next morning and finding out we are no longer useful and relevant. Sadly, teachers are on the frontline of this misleading gossip, and therefore, teaching as a profession is being viewed as yesterday’s news and suffering from this toxic narrative. This book defies this notion and helps us understand that the age of automation is yet another episode in human history that will likely add to our capabilities rather than force us towards human obsolescence.