Teaching Philosophy
My basic goal as an English instructor—based upon a philosophy I call meta-pedagogy—has been to make students aware of the educational process itself. Students are encouraged to become active participants in the construction of course syllabi, organization of class activities, and the conveyance of knowledge. They are encouraged to consider the implications of educational policy making and pedagogical presentation so that they might become more critical of the practices that affect their own acquisition and use of knowledge. I have focused on helping them to strengthen their convictions and stressed the importance of articulating those convictions in a variety of settings.
My experience as a teacher has taught me that students often perceive educators not as people working to help them, but as obstacles or stepping stones between them and their futures. I’ve come to realize that such (erroneous) perceptions are partially the result of their detachment from or non-participation in the educational system. Most students go to class, take their tests, complete their core requirements, and fill out their SRTEs because they are asked to do so but not because they understand the reasons for doing so. However interested they may be in knowing those reasons, they are often conditioned not to ask about them, not to question the purpose or efficacy of traditional or non-traditional pedagogical methods. I have been impressed by the positive reactions of students once they are comfortable enough to ask these “forbidden” questions. For example, the first question I always receive from composition students is “Why do we have to take this class?” Several years ago, my response was typical of the unsatisfactory answers that are usually given: “Because every job requires written communication skills, etc.” Now I assign interview papers that each student must complete. The student must arrange for an interview with a person in her prospective field (a dean, employee, professor, etc.). She must explain to the interviewee the class she is taking, and then she must question how it will be useful down the road. Without exception, students return to class after the interview more determined to work and appreciative of the concrete answers they’ve discovered.
I have embraced an interdisciplinary, multi-media approach to teaching in order to stress the connections between fields of knowledge that students often perceive to be unrelated. For example, in “Introduction to Shakespeare,” we move from an in-depth examination of each play to musical and artistic reconstructions of Shakespearean drama such as Mendelssohn's Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream and Henry Fuseli’s painting of the same title. My classes integrate music, film and television clips, and trips to local art collections to stress the complex pervasiveness of ideology and the exciting inter-connections between cultural media. Students begin to see knowledge as dynamic and alive, not fixed and static.
By focusing students on the learning process, I help them to understand the highly complex factors that influence my assessment of their performances. They begin to feel as though they can understand and control these factors as well. Grades are less frightening as a result. They become markers on a quite accessible pathway to improvement and success. As a teacher, I have tried to empower students while maintaining fairly rigorous standards of excellence.
