I've been in a lot of classes.
My approach to teaching is shaped again and again by a diverse group of professionals, professors, and instructors emerging from a variety of disciplines. I believe strongly in using the classroom as a place to test new pedagogical tools. In humility and concern I approach my students as co-creators of the classroom, one that we all are called to secure as a place that creates theory and is constantly skeptical of its pronouncements that, if unchecked, often appear phallocentric, zealously prescriptive. While I consider myself a post-positivist in my relation to theory, not all serious academic spaces must have positivistic production as the primary aim. I privilege the production of questions and the critique of power relations in the classroom.
When I perform the role of teacher, I am guided by my own teachers.
I think of the socratic method I encountered in Professor Hurn's Contracts class.
I consider the careful guided discussion style of Par Engstrom at University College London vis-a-vis the joyful and daring styles of Stephen Pfohl and Jackie Orr (the importance of the visual; reflexivity) and Derek Greenfield (classroom as experimental space.)
I am warmed and awed by the booming and breadthful lectures of intellectual giants like Rob Kuttner and Deborah Stone.
I am drawn to the academy by the compassionate and earnest facilitation of Janet Boguslaw.
I am motivated by the teaching from experience and knowledge I encountered with Anita Hill.
You, reader, likely haven't encountered these figures. If I ever perform the role of teacher with you, you will encounter them. Naming them is important. This is my experience and my pedagogical genealogy. These past teachers, along with the inspiring co-facilitators I continue to find in my students, form my future professorial self. This burgeoning persona contains:
A desire to engage with students to co-create a theoretical space that is curious and daring on students' own terms;
A facilitation style that makes space for students to facilitate their own learning while using socratic-inspired tools judiciously;
An aim to create lessons that are structured in a way that students become comfortable and know what to expect each week, while at the same time being open to "flying the plane while in flight" despite the appertaining discomfort;
A willingness to speak from my own experience and theoretical viewpoint earnestly in a way that shares my knowledge capital and makes space for students to link, critique, and build;
And, a necessity to approach the classroom space in a compassionate, humble way that is conscientious of the different experiences, privileges, and statuses whose interaction in the classroom space is power-laden.