<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a while since I wrote something like this here. I suppose it\u2019s because these kinds of things always leave me with a strange mix of excitement, embarrassment, and a certain discomfort. But anyway, here it goes: I\u2019ve written a pamphlet (or at least that\u2019s what I\u2019ve called it in almost every conversation I\u2019ve had about it, because I still don\u2019t quite see it as an academic book in the usual sense).<\/p>\n
It\u2019s titled Teaching is Deciding. University Teaching Beyond Method (Ense\u00f1ar es Decidir, la docencia universitaria m\u00e1s all\u00e1 del m\u00e9todo, it is written n Spanish)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Over the years, many colleagues \u2014especially from university and secondary education (yes, Xenia, you)\u2014 have asked me to recommend \u201ca good manual\u201d for \u201chow to teach.\u201d Something to get started. Something to help them find their bearings. And I\u2019ve always felt a bit uncomfortable in that conversation.<\/p>\n Not because there aren\u2019t good books. There are, and many of them. But I\u2019ve never been fully convinced that recommending one was really the best entry point. Because very often those manuals \u2014even the good ones\u2014 make you enter pedagogy as if you were diving headfirst into something overwhelming: concepts, frameworks, terminology, structures\u2026 that, if you\u2019re not already inside, can feel more intimidating than inviting.<\/p>\n And I wanted something else.<\/p>\n Something closer to a conversation than to a manual. Something that doesn\u2019t tell you \u201cthis is what you need to know,\u201d but instead places you in a position from which to start thinking. Something that doesn\u2019t force you to adopt a language or a way of seeing from the outset, but allows you to enter gradually, without feeling like you\u2019re getting everything wrong all the time.<\/p>\n This text started as exactly that: loose notes, questions that didn\u2019t quite close, fragments that kept coming back \u2014expanded through a deep process of reflection that was partly sparked by my electoral adventure :-D). Many of them came from memories of conversations with colleagues, from classes, from readings, or simply from that uncomfortable feeling that there are things in teaching \u2014in how we talk about it, in how we think about it\u2014 that we accept as valid far too quickly.<\/p>\n For quite some time, I actually had no intention of sending it to any publisher. I simply started writing it and thought I would upload it somewhere \u2014maybe here on the blog or share it in a talk. Not because I thought it wasn\u2019t \u201cfinished\u201d (that feeling never really goes away), but because I wasn\u2019t sure it made sense as a book. It was more of a text I needed to write in order to organise my ideas, to clarify things for myself, to see how far some intuitions I\u2019d been carrying for a while could go. The chapters were short, and I didn\u2019t want to fill it with citations\u2026 just write.<\/p>\n Before even considering sending it anywhere, I decided to do something that felt more important: to get it out of my head.<\/p>\n And once it was out, being who I am, I shared it with three friends. But not just any kind of friends. Three of those you don\u2019t consult to have your ideas confirmed, but precisely for the opposite. The kind who read carefully, generously, and with whom I have enough trust to know they won\u2019t be condescending \u2014and that we respect each other enough not to lie. The kind who will tell you something doesn\u2019t hold, even knowing how much you\u2019ve put into it.<\/p>\n The idea was quite simple: to see whether the text had any life beyond my own frame. Whether it made sense. Whether it irritated for interesting reasons or simply because it wasn\u2019t well constructed. Whether there was something there, or just an accumulation of more or less well-written intuitions.<\/p>\n What mattered most was that all three agreed on something I wasn\u2019t at all sure about: that the text deserved to exist out there.<\/p>\n I still had plenty of doubts (and I still do), but at some point I decided to trust that external judgement more than my own inertia (although I admit I\u2019m still not entirely sure whether that says more about the text or about their patience as readers). In any case, it is now in the editing process at Transmedia XXI,<\/a> whose editorial team has decided it\u2019s worth publishing \u2014which, honestly, still feels a bit strange to say out loud, but at the same time fills me with satisfaction.<\/p>\n The idea is to have a small print run, but for the text to remain open and available for anyone who wants to read it\u2026 with a CC license, but with the care of an editorial collection I deeply respect\u2026 that was clear to me from the very beginning. Because, ultimately, I strongly believe that this is the way it makes the most sense for it to circulate. That\u2019s why it will remain open \u2014both the book and the audiobook.<\/p>\n And yes, I could write a more or less structured summary of what it says. But honestly, I\u2019m more interested in telling where it comes from\u2026 and why I call it a pamphlet. Because some texts are born with the intention of being books \u2014in academia, we know that well. This one wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n During the time I\u2019ve had it \u201cin between,\u201d I\u2019ve called it a pamphlet not only out of caution, but out of honesty. Because this text does not aim to organise the field, nor to offer a complete map, nor to become a reference for anything. It does not seek to close conversations, but rather to open them. To unsettle things a bit. To provoke questions where sometimes there are only inherited certainties.<\/p>\n This \u201cpamphlet\u201d is, precisely, about thinking pedagogy without taking it for granted. About questioning some of the things we do \u2014and especially how we justify them\u2014 in teaching, particularly in higher education, though not only. About looking with a certain suspicion at our routines, our discourses, even our good intentions. It\u2019s not a text against anyone. But it\u2019s not a neutral text either. And, at its core, it also comes from a very specific discomfort.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know if this is that text, but at least it is the attempt.<\/p>\n As I\u2019ve hinted, I\u2019ve also recorded the audiobook\u2026 and I hope it will be available very soon\u2026 I\u2019ll keep you posted, that\u2019s for sure.<\/p>\n For now, both the written text and the audiobook are only available in Spanish \u2014they were conceived and created in that language\u2014 but they are written with the hope and intention that anyone, from anywhere, might still find their way into them.<\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s been a while since I wrote something like this here. I suppose it\u2019s because these kinds of things always leave me with a strange mix of excitement, embarrassment, and a certain discomfort. But anyway, here it goes: I\u2019ve written a pamphlet (or at least that\u2019s what I\u2019ve called it in almost every conversation I\u2019ve Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,22,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ensenanza-on-line","category-reflexiones","category-trabajos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lindacastaneda.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lindacastaneda.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lindacastaneda.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lindacastaneda.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lindacastaneda.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2642"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.lindacastaneda.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2651,"href":"https:\/\/www.lindacastaneda.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2642\/revisions\/2651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lindacastaneda.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lindacastaneda.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lindacastaneda.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}