Glad you are here:
“If we want students to truly learn, we need teaching methods that work, not slogans that sell.”
Hi there.
I am Umes Shrestha, an EdD Scholar (Educational Leadership: Curriculum and Instruction) from Westcliff University, USA.
I’m a teacher (15+ years) and a teacher developer (8 years) from Kathmandu Nepal, currently working at King’s College, Kathmandu.
I am the Head of the Center for Innovative Learning and Pedagogy (CIPL) at King’s College.
At King’s College, I also teach Managerial Communication, Business Communication, and Academic Writing to Grad and Undergraduate students.
I am also a co-founder of Unlearn Academy.
I think I was a ‘traditional’ teacher during my initial days, then I think I became a ‘progressive’ teacher later. Now I believe I am neither. Both of those are meaningless labels for me. (On the educational philosophical level, I would be somewhere in the optimistic skeptic range.)
As a teacher, however, I lean more into evidence-informed teaching, experimenting and figuring out which approach is more effective and meaningful under certain conditions.
Here at Substack, I write about issues related to teaching, learning, and sometimes about education and communication.
I intend to reach out to teachers, educators, or anyone interested in "how learning happens" and "how teaching happens". I stay away from the narrative of “how learning SHOULD happen”.
Likewise, I usually separate myself from talking about education, simply because it is such a broad topic, intertwined with politics, ideologies, and emotionalism.
I find that there are so many cute philosophies around education but as pedagogy, they are rather ugly.
I point out the ugliness, criticize the "wish lists" in education, and talk about the realities, and how learning actually happens.
In this process, I'm still learning, reflecting, implementing, sharing, unlearning, and relearning. I will most definitely make some mistakes and assumptions. I will own them all.
If this makes sense to you, do subscribe and share.
