Philosophy & Methods
Liberatory Pedagogy
As an educator and mentor, my pedagogy draws from liberatory teaching philosophies and frameworks (e.g. Paolo Freire). It is an approach to scholarly teaching that employs intersectionality (e.g. Kimberlé Crenshaw’s methodological configuration) as an analytic framework through which to critically engage diverse groups of learners.
This involves contemplating multi-dimensionality and the interplay of numerous processes such as racialization, treatments of sex and gender, and class stratification, among other factors - in the study of key local and global issues, the structuring of opportunity and access, as well as in examining prominent modes of discursive, aesthetic, and collective identification.
Creativity and Collaboration
I have endeavoured to promote collaborative learning practices that foster space for the creativity of learners and their life experiences within the scope of curriculum design and aims.
This has facilitated greater awareness of the uses and concrete implications of learning dialogues and academic resources in the lives of learners. I encourage a sense of responsibility and ownership over the learning process. Critical thinking and intellectual rigour are indispensable requirements of the collective deliberations facilitated through my pedagogical practices.
Active Participation
The active participation of learners in group discussions is essential to the clarification of information and the mastering of concepts, so I encourage a dynamic, interactive learning environment. I view the teaching space as a site of respectful, democratic learning.
Students are encouraged to participate with self-awareness, mindful consideration of others, and accountability. Genuine curiosity or disagreements in the classroom sometimes run counter to preferred or ideal forms of expression, and it is the measure of respect and humanity communicated in these moments that often aides the ensuing dialogue.
My emphasis and teaching approach mobilizes conceptual clarification, related research and data, a deconstruction of argumentation patterns and basic underlying assumptions, and explanations of the historical trajectory of particular arguments and ideologies. In this process, I highlight the importance of individual and collective reflexivity, and our responsibility in producing cogent and defensible articulations of the world around us.
Self-Reflexivity, Critical Thinking and Defensible Arguments
Women’s and Gender Studies (WGS) as an academic discipline evolved from a context of social justice activism in the U.S. and Canada. The mass social movements of the 1970s and 1980s that organized for gender equality in Canada and the U.S. were also the catalyst for the introduction of feminist and Women’s Studies courses in universities. This history has meant that alongside the particular theoretical frameworks and research methodologies that typify WGS as an academic discipline, are also WGS forms of scholarship and teaching that reveal a consistent leaning towards matters of social justice.
The effect that this has had on the way that I promote learning is that self-reflexivity and the commitment to developing defensible arguments are key to the instruction that learners receive on the concepts and methods associated with critical thinking. Self-reflexivity is emphasized as crucial in the development of defensible arguments that speak to one’s intellectual allegiances. Learners are encouraged to thoughtfully consider their habituated ways of knowing; to develop a clear understanding of the multiple factors that have shaped their core values and beliefs; to assess what they believe they know, and the process by which they came to ‘know’ these things. Learners are then aided in locating this awareness relative to a broader landscape of co-existing viewpoints.
The practice of defensible argumentation I labour to foster is done via emphasis on critical self-understanding, combined with an informed comprehension of the larger landscape of debates within which one is expressing their viewpoint. The goal is to have learners understand how and why they come to value what they do (having assessed the extent to which their viewpoints can be reasonably substantiated), and to have individuals be able to clearly and defensibly articulate their intellectual affinities within the context of competing or opposed discourses.
Relevance to Daily Life
I have sought to understand the aspirations and experiences of my communities of learners within the context of the academic curriculum we have shared, as well as outside of the university environment. This includes having an understanding of the wage labour obligations, parenting and care responsibilities, and extra-curricular activities of learners.
I frequently enhance explanations of course material with examples tailored to the experiences, circumstances and interactions of particular groups of learners. I have co-written letters with my students in response to hate speech and gendered violence in our midst, and encourage learners to bring issues of relevance to them into the classroom. I am committed to continued work in understanding the lived experiences of learners, and to an ethics of mentorship tailored to their interests and passions.
Ultimately, my pedagogical aim is to expand the intellectual course of learners while facilitating the development of a ripened and responsible understanding of ourselves in the world.