“The classroom, with all its limitations, remains a location of possibility. In that field of possibility we have the opportunity to labor for freedom, to demand of ourselves and our comrades, an openness of mind and heart that allows us to face reality even as we collectively imagine ways to move beyond boundaries, to transgress. This is education as the practice of freedom.”
– bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress (1994: 207)
My view of education as a holistic, critically engaged, and always evolving process stems directly from my anthropological training. Much like my research, my pedagogy is influenced by critical theories as well as pedagogical theorists including bell hooks, John Dewey, Paulo Freire, and Henry Giroux. Building on their insights and methods, I conceptualize and practice teaching as an exercise in reciprocity, an opportunity not only to teach but also to learn.
Pedagogical Approach
My approach to teaching is grounded in honoring and valuing students’ diverse life histories by recognizing they are not empty vessels to be filled with knowledge. Instead, I view my primary role in the classroom as creatively guiding, advising, and facilitating learning processes. I also find humor is an invaluable tool for encouraging engagement. I like to show students how much fun I have teaching in the hope that my excitement rubs off on them, drawing them into the course content and creating a sense of community.
I endeavor to build learning communities in the classroom in several ways. I start each class meeting by briefly checking in with students, asking how they’re doing, and inviting them to share anything that’s on their minds. Students are strongly encouraged to find ways to collaborate and cooperate on their coursework, and to facilitate this I regularly employ discussions and small group work in class, as well as semester-long group projects.
My pedagogical orientation rests on a foundation of trust, radical openness, honesty, and transparency. I cultivate and model intellectual empathy and intellectual humility by owning and learning from my mistakes as well as showing students that it is okay to be wrong since that presents opportunities for learning. This approach challenges us to use mistakes as an impetus for questioning and building knowledge. I emphasize the importance and value of taking risks and learning from failure in my classes through project-based learning practices, which recognize that learning is an active and iterative process profoundly shaped by sociocultural factors both in and out of the classroom. In some classes, I provide “open assignments” where students choose the form and content of their weekly work based on sets of questions or topics I provide to guide their attention. In addition to traditional assignments like essays and annotated bibliographies, students have chosen to create infographics, vlogs, podcasts, and informative letters to friends to present their analyses in ways that are more accessible to a larger audience than typical academic work. In smaller classes, I meet with each student individually at the end of the term to discuss their performance and reflect on their learning progress; these meetings are optional in larger classes.
My anthropological training has taught me the value of building rapport with people. It has also instilled in me the importance of reflexivity and the recognition of positionality. I regularly solicit feedback (with the option to send anonymous feedback) on my teaching and on my courses throughout the term. I incorporate useful student feedback into the current course as best as I can. While my courses are highly rated by students in end-of-term evaluations, I find that constant self-assessment that incorporates student ideas and criticisms is the most effective way for me to create engaging learning environments. When I make it clear to students that I value their viewpoints by incorporating their feedback, it only strengthens our rapport with one another, which helps to continue community building in the classroom. I also regularly read scholarship on critical pedagogy and seek out like-minded colleagues to discuss teaching ideas or issues to revise and improve my pedagogical approach.
Teaching Anthropology
No matter what course I am teaching, I always incorporate a critical anthropological approach that acknowledges the commonalities among human societies while celebrating their diversities. For example, when I teach courses on gender and medicine, I take a biocultural approach that explores the complicated interactions of biology and culture as they relate to individual bodies and social structures. An anthropology of gender and medicine must also attend to issues of material culture, history, and language. Thus, I incorporate readings from across anthropological subdisciplines and cultural contexts to give students a sense of the diversity of beliefs and practices concerning bodies, health, and gender. In course assignments, I encourage students to seek out examples of the interactions of gender and medicine from their own lives or the lives of people they know so they can connect course content with lived experiences. In an effort to build rapport, I draw on my own personal experiences as a queer person in medical environments to help students understand some of the ways the American health care system is still riddled with heterosexism.
Teaching across three different universities (the University of Memphis, the University of Arizona, and The University of Texas at San Antonio) over the past decade has provided me with myriad opportunities to practice a critical reflexivity in my pedagogy by seeking and incorporating student and colleague feedback, which is a vital aspect of my continued growth and development as an anthropologist and as a teacher. I continually adjust and improve my pedagogy through tailoring my teaching practices to a diverse student body, and I have been especially influenced by teaching first-generation students at these institutions. The students in my classes have widely varying backgrounds, some with little formal academic preparation and others with a lot. I try to identify students who are underprepared at the start of the term by using student surveys. I then monitor their attendance and work throughout the semester. In my experience, students often do not know to whom they can turn when they start to slip, and they begin to feel a sense of shame when they make mistakes or fall behind. When I notice this happening, I reach out and offer guidance, support, and understanding. Regardless of students’ preparation level or amount of time in college, I believe it is important to educate them on matters related to university structure and operations so they can fully benefit from every available resource. I spend time in my classes informing students about available campus resources, and I encourage them to “get their money’s worth” by regularly using them.
Many students come to university with clear ideas and expectations for their education and future careers, and I see my role as helping them to achieve their goals while also challenging them to think in different ways that go beyond their expectations. One of the strengths of anthropology is its ability to describe and “bring to life” different worldviews, and I draw on this strength in getting students to think critically and differently. I enjoy finding creative ways to adapt my teaching to make all students feel invited and important in the classroom. I spend time in my classes providing students with information about university and community resources and make explicit my availability for helping students achieve their educational goals.
Mentoring and Advising
One of the greatest joys of my teaching career so far has been working closely with students on their own projects and helping them further in their educational goals and careers. I work with students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels on a variety of projects, including thesis and practicum advising and committee work, mentoring undergrads through grad school preparation, and helping graduate students develop research projects.
I encourage any students who are interested in working with me to reach out to me.
Concluding Comments
Teaching is as much a learning process for me as it is for students, and I will always approach teaching with the same open-mindedness and respect that I expect from students. I want my teaching and mentoring activities to inspire a sense of liberation and freedom in students. The most profound courses for me as a student were those that helped me better understand myself and my own positionality in the world—I sought out courses on gender to learn about myself as much as to learn about gender. This deep critical reflexivity is the vital lifeblood of my pedagogy. My goal with any student engagement, whether in large classes or one-on-one informal meetings, is to encourage and model kindness, charitableness, openness, honesty, good-faith engagement, and self-reflection. To me, these are the values that, in the words of bell hooks, enable us to face reality and recognize the possibilities for transgressing its boundaries.