Teaching philosophy

My primary goal as a teacher is to teach students how to think. I believe that critical thinking skills are one of the most important tools that a liberal arts and sciences education offers to students. The study of ethics and moral dilemmas provides a vehicle through which I can help students learn how to exercise their own powers of critical judgment and moral discernment. These qualities are inherent in all people as part of our human nature, but they must be honed, developed, and exercised as part of the maturation process. These skills, critical judgment and moral discernment, are essential for young people to develop for they are skills that they will use in all aspects of their lives.

I believe that students learn in a variety of ways and consequently I seek to incorporate variety into my pedagogical approach. I use video, music, movies, slides, lectures, readings, internet, student presentations, class projects, journals, exams, and papers as pedagogical tools. Teaching is also a learning process and I have learned with and from my students about which of these media have worked well and how to use others more productively. While the classroom should not be viewed as entertainment, I do believe that the classroom needs to be engaging.

Experiential learning

I am also committed to the transformative knowledge that comes through experiential learning and I try to incorporate a variety of experiential opportunities into my courses. I believe that experiential learning provides an unparalleled pedagogical opportunity for helping students understand justice and injustice. The experience of working with, living with and talking with people whose social locations and life experiences are radically different from their own has gone further in transforming the intellectual understanding of oppression and injustice than anything students can ever read or hear in a classroom environment.

Student Reflection on Service Learning