Teaching

Statement on Teaching

I believe in a teaching philosophy and approach that invites our minds, hearts, bodies and spirits into a dialectical and reciprocal learning experience, scaffolded by critical thinking, social justice and inclusive-oriented principles, and praxis (theory+action+reflection). The best summary I have seen of the approach to teaching and learning that I espouse is one I learned as a student of Parker Palmer. He says: “Education is about healing and wholeness. It is about empowerment, liberation, transcendence, about renewing the vitality of life. It is about finding and claiming ourselves and our place in this world.”

Read my full Teaching Statement here

My wonderful students strike a pose for me in front of our Pitzer College murals (2017)

Classes (Fall 2006 – present)

PTZ ONT 101 Critical Community Studies *

PTZ ONT 110 Healing Arts and Social Change *

PTZ ONT 105 Research Methods for Community Change

PTZ ONT 170 Social Change Partnerships

PTZ ONT 170 Advanced Research Practicum (co-taught with Susan Phillips)

PTZ ONT 108 Individual and Social Wellbeing in Local and Global Communities (co-taught with Brian Carlisle)

PTZ ONT 106 Applied Methods in Qualitative Research

PTZ ONT 104 Social Change Practicum

PTZ ONT 110 Healing Ourselves and Healing Our Communities

PTZ SOC 78 Indigenous Peoples of the Americas: Identity, Resistance and Decolonization  (co-taught with Erich Steinman)

CGU ED573 Prison Education: Community-based Education and Social Change *

CGU ED574 Community-based, Participatory Research: Focus on Transformative Movement Organizing

* indicates that this class has also been taught as an Inside-Out Prison Exchange course.

All classes I teach are community engagement-based and place-based, and take place either in prison or in Pitzer’s local community center, CASA. Here are my Spring 2020 students in CASA’s smart classroom for “Research methods for community change” class.