Education with Khalid Kadir
Are education and academia the same thing? How do they contrast?
In this episode of the Climate Front Line, we engage with Khalid Kadir. What makes him unique from the rest of the environmental or mechanical engineers is that Khalid is people centered.
University of California Berkeley
Regarded as the best public university of the world, UC Berkeley sits with a stunning view of the bay area. It is also located right on top of a fault line.
UC Berkeley is also famously known for hosting a number of student movements and speakers, during the civil rights era.
‘Everything is contested here’ Khalid shares as we have a cup of coffee in his office. He is a professor at UC Berkeley, and over the years he has gather the history of the land where the school resides.
Land Grants
As Khalid points out in our conversation, the United States granted land to the university for the purposes of conducting engineering and agriculture research. Both of which at the time were set benefit white farm owners.
This bring a big question mark over what the role of education is in changing the narrative of how we talk about climate change. Does education inhibit or support the struggle of those who are closest to the climate front line?
Academia
As our conversation with Khalid continued on a Saturday morning, you could hear the bells ring, and kids playing on the background.
One can imagine the parents and high school kids walking around the campus telling them ‘this will be the perfect school for you’.
Yet, as we discuss on this episode, there is a level of depersonalization that takes place in academic institutions. Listen in as we discuss we discuss how academia and education are different.
Khalid Kadir
Khalid is a teacher, and his favorite food is rice. When asked how he likes to spend time he answers:
My life is really structured around people more than things, ideas, or institutions. In some sense, I am more interested in being with the people I care about, in whatever form that takes, than I am focused on chasing a specific hobby, goal, or aspiration.
When he is not in a pandemic, you can find Khalid at a coffee shop reading a book or working.
While you are here
Hey, Alfredo here. I hope you all are enjoying these conversations. I wanted to let you know that I am going to start using Patreon for the podcast.
My intent with this show is to create content that creates good, by changing the mainstream narrative around climate change.
I would love it if you could be part of my community on Patreon because it will help me continue to generate this content. You will get access to the full conversations, behind the scenes, and maybe even a little gift.
What did you think of the conversation? Why do you think carbon catalyzes or inhibits the change in narrative? I would love to hear below!