Sohrob Aslamy

My goal as an instructor is to cultivate students’ innate curiosity about the world, helping them evaluate the significance and interconnectedness of place, people, and environments. Students enter my introductory courses from a wide range of majors and backgrounds, often with little familiarity with geography. It is a pleasure and privilege to introduce them to the field through my classes, but I have learned that simply offering novel or interesting information is not enough. Around the third week of an introductory course, a student once asked me, “What exactly is it that geographers do?” I was, at first, taken aback—over the previous two weeks, I had introduced geography in the tradition of critical human geography, emphasizing that no place is neutral and that every landscape bears the imprint of power and its transformation over time. Reflecting more on that student’s question, I realized that while I prided myself on a critical exposition of geography, I had not made the “so what” of geographical thinking clear enough. Since then, I have sought to bridge that gap—helping students understand not only how to analyze the world but why such analysis matters. My teaching now centers on empowering students to envision the “so what” of geography by connecting abstract ideas to their lived experiences, interests, and aspirations.

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To help students see how anyone can be a geographer, I design activities that make geographical thinking tangible and relevant to their own lives. In World Urban Geography, for instance, we begin by drawing from students’ knowledge of evolving urban landscapes before introducing concepts like disinvestment, deindustrialization, and speculation around urban property. One student reflected on rising rents in her Brooklyn neighborhood and how they had altered the social character of her block; we used her experience, alongside similar reflections from classmates, to discuss gentrification and displacement in cities such as New York, Berlin, and Lagos. These conversations help students connect the structural processes we study to the realities of their own environments. I also incorporate guest speakers, podcasts, and short films to expose students to diverse voices and career pathways within geography and related fields. In Human Geography, we dedicate a week of class to the theme of “What Do Geographers Do?”, where students explore examples of geographic work—from urban planning and public health to storytelling and climate research—so they can envision how the discipline’s methods and questions intersect with their own academic and personal interests. These reflective and participatory exercises deepen students’ engagement with course content and allow me to respond to diverse learning needs.

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At SUNY Geneseo, my commitment to connecting theory and relevance has taken on new significance within a liberal arts setting. Teaching in both Geography and Sustainability Studies has deepened my appreciation for geography as a field of study that links environmental science, social theory, and public policy. My courses are designed to model this interdisciplinary spirit. In Human Geography, students create short “Earth Writing” podcasts analyzing spatial change in a place of personal significance, translating abstract ideas about power and place into creative, personal narratives. In Sustainability and Environmental Issues, students map sustainability policies and evaluate their social and ecological effects, developing spatial analyses that reveal the politics embedded in environmental practice. These projects build on an earlier World Urban Geography assignment I developed at Syracuse University, in which students mapped the social dimensions of urban issues—such as segregation, homelessness, or pollution—through original visualizations and accompanying analyses. Many of these examples, featured on my teaching website, have inspired subsequent iterations in my current courses at Geneseo.

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In designing these projects and assignments, I have come to see that an engaging curriculum must be paired with an equally supportive classroom environment. I prioritize open communication so that students feel comfortable expressing challenges with course material, participation, or workload. Student anxiety—often heightened by global and campus events—can easily spill into the classroom, requiring empathy and flexibility to create spaces of trust and collaboration. My experience teaching international and multilingual students through Syracuse University’s InterLearn Program taught me the importance of multimodal instruction: visual aids, interactive activities, and clear, stepwise assignments that sustain engagement across language and learning differences. I integrated these approaches to model how students could design their own micro-teaching presentations for the final project, using creative methods to communicate geographical concepts. By the end of the course, students took ownership of their learning, producing projects that reflected their own application of geographical thinking. Topics included speculative fiction and comparative film studies between China and the United States to the global geographies of fast fashion.

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I recognize that there is always more learning to do in the collective effort to build an educational experience that acknowledges the diverse backgrounds of students and the place of the university in the wider community. I actively work to create a classroom in which students feel they can share both suggestions and struggles. This includes recognizing that students may need responsive mentoring to connect their learning to personal experiences and career goals, or to process difficult emotions that arise when confronting challenging topics. For example, in a Human Geography course, I mentored a student struggling with significant anxiety related to climate change. Recognizing her distress after class discussions on environmental degradation, I encouraged her to attend office hours. Over the semester, we created a space for her to express feelings of helplessness that made it difficult for her to engage. Together, we explored the complexities of climate action, and she began to shift from despair to a more empowered perspective—recognizing that she was not alone and that there were opportunities to act collectively. This experience underscored for me the importance of addressing the emotional dimensions of learning, particularly when teaching topics like climate change that inevitably arise in geography courses. By the end of the course, she was an active participant in discussions, voicing a newfound conviction in collective action. Such experiences remind me that emotional learning and intellectual growth are deeply intertwined. To strengthen my ability to foster inclusive, supportive environments, I have participated in professional development workshops at Syracuse University on diversity-rich classrooms, universal design, and supporting students with disabilities.

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That student’s question—“what do geographers do?”—continues to guide my teaching, but I now see it as the most valuable question a student can ask. It reminds me that my task as an educator is not simply to deliver content, or even critique, but to make the practice of geographical thinking visible and worthwhile. Each course becomes an invitation for students to take up that question for themselves—to test, through their projects and reflections, what it means to do geography. My hope is that by the end of each semester, students leave my classes with a sharpened sense of how geography helps them locate themselves in the world. Not as detached observers, but as active participants in its ongoing transformation.