My Philosophy of Teaching
I understand my role as an educator primarily as that of a mediator between my students and the reservoirs of wisdom that constitute our collective intellectual inheritance. I am a mediator in the sense that I help these sources speak to my students, and I help my students speak to them. This is a highly relational approach to education in that it is a process of bringing my students into ever deeper relationship with the authors we read, a process which is itself sustained by my own relationship with those authors, my relationships with my students, and my students’ relationships with each other. I believe that it is through this dynamic nexus of relationship that students learn to love wisdom most fully.
Practicums
What I value most about teaching philosophy is that I get to inform my students’ lives. One way I do this is by assigning practicums. For example, for their final project, I have had my ethics students test Aristotle's theory of habituation by experimenting with traditional practices of character formation. Many students have shared that this project was deeply formative, not only to their intellectual development, but also to their lives more broadly.
From teaching evaluations:
“The practicums and reflections were the best part of the course because they helped transition what was learned in class from nebulous ethical concepts to real-world, tangible concepts that I could investigate and experience in my own life.”
“Through this course, I was able to get a deeper understanding of ethics as well as reflect on who I am as a person. It allowed me to understand my roles in life and allow me to figure out who I am.”