My Teaching Philosophy

My goal as an educator is to take up as little space as possible. Let me explain.

I take my complex and intensive responsibilities to facilitate and oversee genuine learning seriously; however, I do not subscribe to a classroom model that relies on the teacher to construct and convey knowledge to her passive and waiting students per Paulo Freire's description of the banking concept. On the contrary, my belief is that engaged, authentic learning happens when students take responsibility for and interest in the information I am asking them to confront and wrestle with. My pedagogical approaches rely on a constructivist view of learning, which pushes students to employ their own knowledge and experience to process information in meaningful ways. My hope is that my students will engage themselves in the search for and construction of their own understanding, taking up space and asserting their unique identities in our time together.

Accordingly, in my role as a teacher, I choose to partner with my students, coming alongside them and joining them as they work independently and with one another to seek and assemble their own knowledge and meaning. My goal is to do as little of the teaching as possible; instead, I focus on facilitating scenarios, environments, and opportunities that encourage independent, original thought and discovery on the part of my students. This approach repositions me, in Alison King’s words, from the traditional role of the “sage on the stage” into the more complex and nuanced position of the “guide on the side."