teaching philosophy
Philosophy has the potential to profoundly impact students’ lives. My primary goal is to actualize this potential by encouraging students to connect the abstractions of theory to personal experience, thereby transforming their perception of the patterns that meaningfully structure their worlds. To achieve this goal I deploy several interconnected strategies which, taken together, enliven students’ engagement with texts that illuminate the perennial questions of human existence.
First, since my research is broadly based in the phenomenological tradition, my thinking proceeds from interrogation of time as lived, highlighting the role of temporality in meaning-making as well as in concrete action. Methodologically this implies continual emphasis on the situatedness of experience in specific socio-historical contexts, a situatedness anchored in bodies inscribed by power, affective experience, and language – to name a few. Given my commitment to research-led teaching, such considerations directly impact my pedagogical strategies and style.
On the other hand, I also credit the initial diversification of my research program to the ways that teaching shifted my perspective: on what philosophy is, does, and ought to do. Though extensive training in the history of philosophy first taught me to see “tradition” as a cohesive narrative in which key characters make exemplary contributions best understood in historical context, I now see the strengths and the weaknesses of this frame. In summary (and in brief): though there are clear merits to a genealogical approach to self-understanding driven by storytelling, canonization is neither a sufficient condition for memorialization nor the basis for a just principle of selection – of which texts or voices to highlight, and to which histories to bear witness. There is so much more to the story than is traditionally told.
I navigate this tension in part by teaching via the Socratic method, which holds that students should not be told what to learn, but taught how to learn – i.e., how to judge for themselves given the best information at their disposal. What constitutes the “best information” is unique to each case and often involves giving voice to dissension and/or erasure, understanding where the clean lines of a canonical narrative are ruptured, and following trajectories that lead elsewhere. But overall, I tend to design courses that first establish traditional fluency, then encourage students to embody a critical posture that empowers them to judge what they choose to carry forward – in their academic or professional careers, but most importantly, in their lives. Foregrounding what students feel is relevant to their lives cannot be underestimated in enticing them to study anything. But this is doubly true for philosophy, whose import I take to lie in establishing a coherent, compelling strategy for relating thought to life in ways that lead to flourishing. Thus, assessments and activities in my courses are designed to facilitate drawing connections between the theory students read and the experiential evidence of their lives.
Because those lives are saturated with media, each of my courses feature assessments that ask students to reflect on the connection between text and life as mediated by the internet, television, film, (fine) art, music, and current events. Students in my Aesthetics course, for example, participate in a class blog hosted by Wordpress that allows them to intuitively integrate media as they would on the social platforms with which they are already familiar. The first blog assessment asks them to apply Diotima’s speech in Plato’s Symposium to consider how they have been moved by the beautiful in their lives. Because of the virtual formatting of the assignment, students feel more at ease describing the direct link they’re tasked with forging between what they’ve learned from the text and their sources of inspiration. And, because sources of inspiration vary as widely as the passions they incite, students are presented with a diversity of perspectives, voices, approaches, and tones within their learning community that mirrors the diversity of readings assigned in the course overall.
Second, to ensure students achieve the connection to peers and professor that pedagogical best practices indicate is key to their success, I use micro-assignments to foster relation through dialogue within and between sessions. Micro-assignments like short video-selfies or learning-management platform discussion forums also enable me to measure how students are processing the conceptual frameworks I construct in the classroom to make sense of course material. I adjust forthcoming lessons on the basis of their responses, referring directly to them in class. This practice seamlessly rewards invested labor while reaching students who are less likely to speak up in person.
Such hesitancy to speak is of course compounded by the fact that as a discipline, philosophy tends to breathe rarefied air. To combat this problem, I teach through concrete examples – both my own and those I encourage students to venture in exploratory writing sketches frequently assigned at the start of class. I use these low stakes writing assignments to first show students that writing is a form of thinking they can use to chronicle their impressions. Then, I flip the classroom by asking them to share their thoughts, examples, perplexities, and provocations while I assemble a running list on the board. I address each point organically (not necessarily in order of submission), demonstrating through the connection of seemingly disparate thoughts the kind of cohesion we can arrive at when we make time to think (individually and collectively) after first impressions – to organize, integrate, and prioritize insight. This balances classroom time spent on lecture for conceptual comprehension with discussion-based interaction, but, most importantly, shows rather than tells students how to build a compelling take on a philosophical problem.
Finally, because students become accustomed to regular micro-assignments, they intuit major assessments to be (1) intrinsically connected to the kind of work we are continually undertaking to think more critically, (2) investigative ventures that deepen analysis of course materials with which students are already familiar, (3) occasions for creative or original thought, and (4) concrete vehicles for the improvement of written composition and argument construction. For all major assessments, students are furnished with a clear, detailed set of guidelines as well as the rubric I use to assess them.
Consistently excellent teaching evaluations, nomination for teaching awards, and recognition by students all reflect not only the success of these practices, specifically, but of their contribution to the overall goal: transformative educational experience.
First, since my research is broadly based in the phenomenological tradition, my thinking proceeds from interrogation of time as lived, highlighting the role of temporality in meaning-making as well as in concrete action. Methodologically this implies continual emphasis on the situatedness of experience in specific socio-historical contexts, a situatedness anchored in bodies inscribed by power, affective experience, and language – to name a few. Given my commitment to research-led teaching, such considerations directly impact my pedagogical strategies and style.
On the other hand, I also credit the initial diversification of my research program to the ways that teaching shifted my perspective: on what philosophy is, does, and ought to do. Though extensive training in the history of philosophy first taught me to see “tradition” as a cohesive narrative in which key characters make exemplary contributions best understood in historical context, I now see the strengths and the weaknesses of this frame. In summary (and in brief): though there are clear merits to a genealogical approach to self-understanding driven by storytelling, canonization is neither a sufficient condition for memorialization nor the basis for a just principle of selection – of which texts or voices to highlight, and to which histories to bear witness. There is so much more to the story than is traditionally told.
I navigate this tension in part by teaching via the Socratic method, which holds that students should not be told what to learn, but taught how to learn – i.e., how to judge for themselves given the best information at their disposal. What constitutes the “best information” is unique to each case and often involves giving voice to dissension and/or erasure, understanding where the clean lines of a canonical narrative are ruptured, and following trajectories that lead elsewhere. But overall, I tend to design courses that first establish traditional fluency, then encourage students to embody a critical posture that empowers them to judge what they choose to carry forward – in their academic or professional careers, but most importantly, in their lives. Foregrounding what students feel is relevant to their lives cannot be underestimated in enticing them to study anything. But this is doubly true for philosophy, whose import I take to lie in establishing a coherent, compelling strategy for relating thought to life in ways that lead to flourishing. Thus, assessments and activities in my courses are designed to facilitate drawing connections between the theory students read and the experiential evidence of their lives.
Because those lives are saturated with media, each of my courses feature assessments that ask students to reflect on the connection between text and life as mediated by the internet, television, film, (fine) art, music, and current events. Students in my Aesthetics course, for example, participate in a class blog hosted by Wordpress that allows them to intuitively integrate media as they would on the social platforms with which they are already familiar. The first blog assessment asks them to apply Diotima’s speech in Plato’s Symposium to consider how they have been moved by the beautiful in their lives. Because of the virtual formatting of the assignment, students feel more at ease describing the direct link they’re tasked with forging between what they’ve learned from the text and their sources of inspiration. And, because sources of inspiration vary as widely as the passions they incite, students are presented with a diversity of perspectives, voices, approaches, and tones within their learning community that mirrors the diversity of readings assigned in the course overall.
Second, to ensure students achieve the connection to peers and professor that pedagogical best practices indicate is key to their success, I use micro-assignments to foster relation through dialogue within and between sessions. Micro-assignments like short video-selfies or learning-management platform discussion forums also enable me to measure how students are processing the conceptual frameworks I construct in the classroom to make sense of course material. I adjust forthcoming lessons on the basis of their responses, referring directly to them in class. This practice seamlessly rewards invested labor while reaching students who are less likely to speak up in person.
Such hesitancy to speak is of course compounded by the fact that as a discipline, philosophy tends to breathe rarefied air. To combat this problem, I teach through concrete examples – both my own and those I encourage students to venture in exploratory writing sketches frequently assigned at the start of class. I use these low stakes writing assignments to first show students that writing is a form of thinking they can use to chronicle their impressions. Then, I flip the classroom by asking them to share their thoughts, examples, perplexities, and provocations while I assemble a running list on the board. I address each point organically (not necessarily in order of submission), demonstrating through the connection of seemingly disparate thoughts the kind of cohesion we can arrive at when we make time to think (individually and collectively) after first impressions – to organize, integrate, and prioritize insight. This balances classroom time spent on lecture for conceptual comprehension with discussion-based interaction, but, most importantly, shows rather than tells students how to build a compelling take on a philosophical problem.
Finally, because students become accustomed to regular micro-assignments, they intuit major assessments to be (1) intrinsically connected to the kind of work we are continually undertaking to think more critically, (2) investigative ventures that deepen analysis of course materials with which students are already familiar, (3) occasions for creative or original thought, and (4) concrete vehicles for the improvement of written composition and argument construction. For all major assessments, students are furnished with a clear, detailed set of guidelines as well as the rubric I use to assess them.
Consistently excellent teaching evaluations, nomination for teaching awards, and recognition by students all reflect not only the success of these practices, specifically, but of their contribution to the overall goal: transformative educational experience.