Teaching Philosophy:
As long as I can remember, I have loved learning as a way to connect to the world around me. Growing up in rural Northern California, I was fascinated with the environment and all the ways that people interact with it. The strong Indigenous presence in my community helped me gain experiences that taught me the historic, political, and environmental consequences of colonial policies. Inspired by my upbringing I have gained expertise in collaborative governance and Indigenous environmental justice. The tools from both fields have helped me begin to untangle the real-world complex problems confronting us today.
Students today are confronted with climate change and environmental change on scales never seen before. These changes escalate injustice and threaten values of equity, justice, and health for all. To confront these problems, it is important that educators provide students with the tools to think critically, engage empathically, and work collaboratively. Learning spaces must reflect and experiment with how we imagine liberation and justice must look like in the future. As educators our role is to intentionally create a structure that allows our students to explore and grow. As a graduate student I have sought opportunities to create such spaces for my students through my experiences as a teaching assistant, guest lecturer, and instructor. From those experiences I have developed my own practices as an educator. The major themes at the heart of my philosophy are: creating supportive environments, connecting to on the ground issues, and community engaged teaching.
Creating Supportive Environments:
Diversity and justice are central to creating a supporting environment. Creating culturally relevant lectures and content is critical to student learning. It is important to move away from damage centered or deficit narratives around marginalized communities in the classroom so students do not internalize these beliefs about themselves or others. In addition to changing the narrative it is important to point out to students the many effective strategies marginalized communities innovate and implement to address issues in their communities. Communities of color are leading the climate justice movement and in addition to guest speakers I make sure that my students read publications from scholars of color and reports from community led organizations.
Connecting to on the Ground Issues:
My aim in teaching is to create an environment where students can explore the material and how it connects to their lived or professional experiences. I seek to empower my students with tools and knowledge that might help them think critically about issues confronting their generation. In the classroom I think it’s important to consistently connect concepts and theories to current issues to give students time to practice applying what they learn and contextualizing concepts where they occur in practice. When I taught NAS 198 Keepers of the Flame course on Indigenous burning practices in California, hands on field trips to visit Indigenous cultural burn practitioners to participate in burns was an essential part of the course. While there, students worked side by side with cultural fire practitioners, policy makers, researchers, and agency staff, all of whom provide their perspective and stories.
Community Engaged Teaching:
I believe that our classrooms should be embedded within the community to the extent that is possible. When teaching NAS 198 a class about cultural fire in California I thought it was essential to welcome California Native practitioners as guest speakers, field trip leaders, and guests at our culminating final project presentation day. Whether virtually or in person many of these community members showed up to support students and many continue to be in contact with students as mentors. In addition to inviting community, it was important for our students to learn how to create community connections as scholars. They learned about research ethics, engaging elders respectfully, and reciprocal ethics. Their final projects were multimedia projects that responded to a need they heard when speaking to community members about their experiences. These projects are highly cherished by both community members and students alike. This experience enriches student learning by creating experiences, relationships, and memories that engage the material they’ve learned in class. Students are able to place their experience within the broader context presented in class and are able to understand the unique and individual impacts of those broader contexts.