My teaching philosophy is a combination of theories from three influences: Paulo Freire, John Dewey, and Louis Althusser. In Freire, I value the emphasis on nurturing critical consciousness in students and in breaking down the traditional hierarchy between the instructor and the pupil. From Dewey, I borrow the importance of an experiential approach and the need for greater interactivity. In Althusser, I see a powerful epistemology that places all knowledge production and acquisition within the social totality, informing us that what we learn and how we learn it is always determined by (and determines) the political, social, cultural, and economic spaces.