About | Reflections

EDUCATION

Professor Said wrote several papers about his views on education, which evolved considerably during his six decades of teaching. In addition, his archives contain detailed memos and letters to American University presidents, provosts, and deans about new ways to expand and improve upon the University’s student offerings and experience. This section contains a good representation of these writings.

A cornerstone of Said’s teaching philosophy was his strong belief that all of us are teachers and learners. Academic work is an integrated process and a journey between student and teacher with each learning from the other. For Said, the teacher is a facilitator and not the ultimate authority –“Humility must not be allowed to perish with years and accumulated experience.”

Said believed that education doesn’t just involve theoretical and abstract thinking but also needs to allow for experiential learning both in and outside of the classroom. He developed programs and encouraged students and faculty to volunteer in the local community, applying their skills to real world issues. He frequently argued that educators have an obligation to the communities beyond the campus.

As an extension of this view Said wrote: “…the university should best combine the roles of social participant and critic. At present, the fiction of scholarly distance from society is just that, a fiction. The kind of education that the contemporary world needs is one that is constantly inventing and creating new solutions to the world’s increasingly complex and massive problems. The university must become the vanguard of the formulation of rational alternatives for a humankind and a planet experiencing the challenges of rapid change.”

Putting his philosophy into practice, Said earned a reputation as one of The American University’s preeminent lecturers, receiving dozens of outstanding faculty awards. But perhaps his success as a teacher is best captured by a commonly repeated refrain in student tributes and evaluations: “taking a class with Professor Said changed the trajectory of my life.”

Selected Writings

Conflict Resolution and Spirituality | Abdul Aziz Said and Nathan C. Funk | The Fourth R, Vol. 74, September 1996

Education | Abdul Aziz Said | American University, 1990

Education in Action | Abdul Aziz Said | circa early 1970s

Educating for Global Citizenship | Abdul Aziz Said | February 2004

Learning and Teaching | Abdul Aziz Said | circa late 1990s

Listening and Speaking | Abdul Aziz Said | February 2005

My Dear Students and Fellow Faculty | Abdul Aziz Said | American University, October 1970

Our Debt to the Past and Our Responsibility to the Future | Abdul Aziz Said | American University, 2004

Said 50th Anniversary Remarks | Abdul Aziz Said | American University, August 2006

Student to Teacher Relationship | Abdul Aziz Said | circa late 1990s

“ ‘Education’ is coming to mean the process by which all of us can interact with the world in all its complexity and with one another. ‘Education’ is the process of constant cultural creation of a world culture, and of the deepening, the fostering, and the expression of the many cultures of the world community.”