My Work As An Educator

Teaching Philosophy 

The boundaries between my teaching and creative practice are fairly thin. As a highly engaged instructor, I bring my humanity into the classroom by being present. I regard the individuality of each student, and resist urges to engage in inauthentic performances of authority.  I acknowledge the body in the classroom as well as the mind, and offer meaningful feedback, modeling a professional expectations towards one’s work I have found to be valued by my students. I am not always an easy teacher in that I tend to push against students’ tendencies to take the easy way out when something they imagine is not coming together as they would like. While supportive, they can count on me to be honest about what I see in their work, to ask hard questions, and to steer them in the direction they say they want to go. I am training them to be leaders in their field and want students to be prepared for the rigor of 21st-century challenges, to constantly reimagine what they are capable of, be nimble, and to consistently reset the expectations they have for themselves.

My Top 5 books as Reference for Decolonizing Curriculum

Teaching to Transgress: Education as a Practice of Freedom | bell hooks

Pedagogy of the Oppressed | Paulo Freire

Making & Being | Susan Jahoda and Caroline Woolard / BFAMFAPHD.org

A Third University is Possible | La Paperson (K. Wayne Yang)

The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study |  Stefano Harney & Fred Moten