My current teaching philosophy:
- Good teaching allows the teacher to become progressively unnecessary. I learned this from colleagues whom I admire.
- Valuable learning is the kind that prepares us to respond meaningfully to today's realities and tomorrow’s unexpected developments. I learned this from Abraham Maslow’s essays.
- Lasting learning has cognitive, affective, physical, and spiritual dimensions. I learned this through discussing ideas, listening for insight, praying for growth, and leaping toward possibility.
- Understanding allows us to keep much of what we grew up with. It also demands that we make room for equal and opposite traditions. I learned this from the few times I got it right, and the many memorable times in which I miss the message.
- Our teachers are everywhere around us. We become increasingly aware of them when we allow ourselves to become students. I learn this from my children’s kindness, from my wife’s strength, from my parents’ encouragement, and from my gracious mentors’ patience.
My teaching style:
- I spend a good deal of time attempting to build relationships of trust, so that together we can take responsible risks toward collaborative and constructive learning.
- In an environment of care, I endeavor to scaffold topical cognitive dissonance within learners, by engaging essential questions that cannot be answered without acknowledging nuance and complexity.
- I attempt to foster critically reflective pedagogies in order to problematize underexamined assumptions about learning.
- I direct learners toward readings and resources that offer insight, and then I ask learners to seek the soul of the matter.
- I attempt to support learners in using new understandings in advocacy of things that they suspect matter.