How to Teach the Unteachable: International Relations faculty on teaching contemporary conflicts

How to Teach the Unteachable: International Relations faculty on teaching contemporary conflicts International Relations (IR) is rapidly becoming one of St Andrews' main attractions. The growing interest in IR is hardly surprising: pick any country in the world right now, and it’s likely they’re affected by some sort of crisis.  Dr Adam Bower has taught a third-year IR module on how international institutions address global concerns for about ten years, but the world he used to teach is changing. “The world has always been extremely complicated and sad,” Bower reflected. “There have always been conflicts and difficulties.” The past ten years, however, have seen an increase in volatile politics,  “and the changing world makes International Relations a dynamic subject poised on the edge of change,” shared Bower. Bower remarked on the “period of transition” that our world is currently experiencing.  According to him, “very senior policymakers, media personalities, etc.” acknowledge that change is occurring rapidly, and this grants us the opportunity to “think about what [change] means.” This can complicate basic parts of module construction, such as creating a reading list. Years often pass before an idea for an academic article actually makes it to publication, but conflicts change constantly. The literary lag sometimes makes it impossible for a professor like Prof Phillips O’Brien, who studies large interstate wars, to find relevant literature. “I mean, if you're doing the Russo-Ukraine war, there's not actually a good book on it yet.”  There are upsides to studying on the frontlines of International Relations, however. Dr Andrea Gilli’s third-year module, Technology and Strategy, takes advantage of unfolding issues to provide students with the skills to adapt to a quickly changing world. As a part of his module,  students create a plan for some sort of organisation, such as a non-governmental organisation or start-up. The students then work on data analysis to figure out if they need “to change direction lightly, or massively, when [they] see the things don't work.” For O’Brien, contemporary modules also help students widen their scholarly horizons, giving them the opportunity to examine “immediate government reports, [...] think tank reports, [...] news articles,” and “interviews.”  IR can be just as humbling for academics as it is changeable. Experts can spend years working on a theory just to be proven completely false the next day. O’Brien watched his sub-field experience this phenomenon a few years ago. He discussed how “there had been an assumption that large state war was [no longer] going to happen,” an assertion that has recently been proven categorically incorrect. The humility demanded by this discipline has, at least here at St Andrews, produced a grounded staff conscious of the impossibility of their subject. O’Brien recognizes the “vast[ness]” of the field and that he must “be upfront” about the fact that he “can only teach what [...] he know[s] about” and what he feels is useful to “add to the debate.”  For Dr Daniel Mobley, this humility is central to his instruction: “It's about trying to be aware of our own blind spots and making that clear to students as well.”  Other difficulties of teaching IR lie within the content itself. Modules will inevitably address difficult subjects like war and terrorism, and module organisers have found that the most effective method is to approach the subject, as Mobley put it, “head on.” “I don’t self-censor,” O’Brien said. “At the beginning of a class, I'm going to say, ‘Look, we’re going to be talking about horrible things like war crimes and deaths and all of that, and that’s what the class will cover because it’s war.’ And then I just teach.” This style of teaching allows lecturers and tutors to build a relationship with students founded on mutual trust. As much as students trust their instructors to handle sensitive issues with grace, the same is expected in return. Faculty do not shy from the hard conversations, and in response, students must step up and handle discussions appropriately. Bower noted that students may not get “enough credit,” especially when compared to “older people,” as they possess the sophistication and ability to “manag[e] their own navigation through the world.”  Mobley has also found his students capable of dealing with complicated topics, remarking that they can “appreciate the kind of complexity” that studying IR demands while simultaneously being aware of “unknowns” and “blind spots.”  Mobley encourages students in his Critical Securities modules to question not only what sources are saying, but the validity of the source itself – who says what, and why? When analysing critical lenses used within the field, he emphasised that “these approaches come from somewhere” and “facing where those come from and the inherent biases that might be within [them]” is important, because otherwise “we might be reproducing [a bias], even when we're not trying.” For Bower and Gilli, practical assignments provide students with the freedom to extend their studies to topics potentially underrepresented in IR. In Bower’s module, the final project requires students to “design a strategy to study a different institution” that they didn’t cover in class.  Gilli’s module provides his students a similar sense of academic freedom. He said that would “never work on something [that he’s] not interested in,” so he encourages his students to “investigate” their own personal interests. In the past, such projects have explored “how to defend democracy against disinformation in the global south, how to fight climate change, or [how to] promote renewable energy,” among other topics. Lecturers at the University of St Andrews are less interested in sugar-coating their material in a world that is constantly facing crises as they are eager to instill faith in their students and foster skills that could lead to positive change. As Gilli put it, “I just give them freedom, which is the best solution that I can give. I empower students.” Illustration by Kyla Biesty