Teaching Philosophy

     I once believed that my decision to become an educator was a natural choice, an inevitable step in a logical sequence of moments that made up my life.  After all, I reasoned, hadn’t the majority of my years been spent on the other side of the classroom, following rules and absorbing knowledge? What could be more natural than a smooth transition from the role of student to teacher?  Thankfully, I had the privilege of studying under the guidance of several English and education professors who challenged me to rethink my naturalized view of both teaching and reality itself.  The questions they posed helped me gain a fresh perspective, creating a lens of fluidity and possibility where there once stood unyielding, immutable walls.  Suggesting the metaphor of anthropology, these mentors encouraged me to understand education as a whole culture unto itself based on human decisions rather than eternal laws.  As a consequence, when I now walk across a college campus, enter a lecture hall, or reflect on a course syllabus, I no longer see the manifestation of the natural order of things; instead, I recognize an institution, a public space, or a document with functions and agendas that must be analyzed.

     It is this questioning of the ways our realities are organized that I attempt to spark among my students.  Perhaps one of the greatest dangers in this process is casting myself as a lone, consciousness-raising hero leading his followers from a dim cavern to the realm of enlightenment.  As I have grown as a teacher, I have learned the importance of creating a space that enables students to bring their knowledge, experiences, and insights to our discussions.  Within this collaborative framework, I aspire to “read” the world with my classes, examining the factors that shape our writing, literary texts, popular media, and the events unfolding around us.  In doing so, I invite students to investigate the intersections between their personal lives and the political world, with the hope of building a small community that makes good on the potential to positively impact the larger community beyond the classroom walls.

     Of course, this pedagogical emphasis on critically reading the world necessitates that I regularly question the goals and values embedded in my own assignments, syllabi, and lesson plans.  The most concrete instance of reflecting deeply on my own teaching practices was sparked by the pedagogical philosophies of other instructors right here at St. John’s Institute for Writing Studies.  During my first semester here, I was originally skeptical about the emphasis on personal narrative that a number of my colleagues brought to English 1000C.  I was concerned that such an approach would only reify the kind of solipsistic perspective that I try to encourage students to resist.  However, upon thinking further about personal narrative and talking to IWS faculty, I have realized that writing about the self can serve as an incredibly effective means for getting students to see their lives as part of a larger, complex social fabric.  Hence, I now include in my English 1000C classes an essay assignment that prompts students to connect the personal and the political.  Doing so has enabled me to achieve the kind of robust student engagement cited by composition instructors who base their pedagogy around memoir and other genres of personal narrative. 

     Finally, as another example of thinking critically about my own teaching philosophy and practice, I have started to reflect on the concrete outcomes of encouraging students to connect their lives to the complex social/political dynamics surrounding them.  As much as I have been heartened by the thoughtful kinds of personal, argumentative, and analytical writing my students have been doing on issues of a social/political nature, it is only within the past several years at St. John’s that I have realized this is not enough in itself.  After all, what is the value of raising social consciousness if students’ engagement with the political world is not fostered beyond the walls of the classroom?  Thus, in an effort to productively link the work students and I do in class to the “outside world,” I have been actively integrating academic service-learning (AS-L) into my courses.  For the past four years, my students and I have done volunteer work with HandCrafting Justice, learning about the ethics and politics of fair trade along the way.  As a result, a number of my students have composed compelling papers on related issues such as sweatshop exploitation and America’s obsession with cheap consumer goods.  Other recent AS-L experiences integrated into my courses include collaborating with Immigration Advocacy Matters, a nonprofit organization focused on language and immigration policy, and the St. John's Office of Sustainability.  It is my hope that these service experiences will foster rich learning and writing opportunities for both my students and myself. 

  Arbor Day 2013: St. John's Tree-Planting Initiative