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Teacher Profile
one dissolves and unlearns one’s identities to a point to the shared and personal knowledge. This “course
of emptiness that one discovers one’s true non-self – “a on thinking,” as Dr. Bammi calls it, helps students
completely creative and liberated being.”
learn about themselves, but within the bigger circle of
shared knowledge. To enable this, he says that he has
A Partnership in Unlearning
to take the backseat in a class because “the teacher is
It is this freedom of thought with a creative and critical like a partner giving ownership of the learning to the
approach enveloped in a happy disposition that Dr. students.” As a partner in their learning, he probes their
Bammi wants his students to strive for too, and not claims pushing them to think and question themselves
shy away from. A Bammi student would never have to further.
sacrifice his or her mind: “Sacrifice meaning giving way
to too many influences and conformity. I don’t want “It is a lot about unlearning because you learn so much
conformity; that would be the worst thing. On the from society by the time you are in high school, and
other hand I am not advocating for revolutionaries, but you haven’t had time to think for yourself. As teachers,
I want my students to develop their own minds and we get them to think about cultural practices children
find their own balance.” Balance is also a key ingredient believe unquestioningly. They need to step back and
in Dr. Bammi’s brand of teaching. On the one hand, he ask themselves what parts of their own culture they can
inculcates structure in his lessons, and on the other he accept, and what parts they can question.” This ability
encourages and enables creativity. Facilitating students to develop a student’s mind is also why he teaches
to create their own viewpoints and perspectives in a History because together with honing a student’s skills
structured way helps students create, what he calls, a in critical thinking, writing, and debating, it is a subject
“mental map, which is so important in how one deals that “attacks the complexity of situations, societies
with the world.”
and humans.” One of his students and advisees,
Phoebe Sun, recollects the Bammi teaching style with
Giving students the big picture through a critically fondness: “Even in our grade 10 History lessons, Dr.
and creatively formed mental map is especially pivotal Bammi utilized this kind of teaching method. He
in the IB Diploma Programme’s (IBDP) mandatory would ask us to think of opposing standpoints, reflect
course called Theory of Knowledge (ToK). It sets apart on commonalities, and abstract conflicting themes
the IB’s high school curriculum, used at Keystone, from these. He was training us to be more critical. Now
from any other international syllabus. ToK is not only in grade 11, this training has helped us and we are able
a mandatory course, but also an overarching subject to combine knowledge from different subjects and
in the IBDP. Every subject in the curriculum has a connect them into a knowledge network of our own.”
linking element to the ToK, “which guides students to
think and reflect upon how knowledge is constructed,” For Phoebe, this is not only Dr. Bammi’s style, but
explains Dr. Bammi. The course itself has evolved over also what sets him apart as a teacher. Teachers in
the decades with a shift from the individual knower the Humanities department think so too. “The most
52 The Keystone Magazine