Pedagogy
More than a matter of "school," pedagogy concerns the health of the individual and the journey of learning. Unfortunately, the word is also bound up with a history of inequality and institutional structures that made and continue to make education available for a select few. In this post, I discuss this history by excavating the word "pedagogy" and forward the claim that good pedagogical guides don’t lead students to specific answers that have been validated ahead of time; rather, they lead them into a given situation and then help each student hack his/her/their own way out. By the time students reach the other side, they will hopefully have discovered something through the act of grappling with big questions.
Related Links:
Related Links:
- Joanne Zerdy and I co-facilitated a teaching experiment that culminated in the article, "Bootleg Education: Para-Pedagogical Experimentation Outside the University Setting." Designed around the theme of "listening," this experiment led to fascinating discoveries about the potential for critical, creative, and rigorous thinking outside of "school."
- Early in my teaching career, I decided to reflect actively on my pedagogical methods. The blog post entitled "Do With Me: Thoughts on Teaching" shares some of the insights I made early on and that I still think about nearly a decade later.
- The practice of dramaturgy is closely related to the practice of pedagogy. For my colleague Wade Hollingshaus and I, however, there are some important pitfalls to avoid when thinking through the educational dimensions of theatre-making. We elaborated on our beliefs in the article, "Emancipating Dramaturgy: From Pedagogy to Psychagogy."
Experimentation
Teaching and learning are forms of experimentation. When teaching, I place the utmost importance on designing new kinds of assignments, bringing in atypical subject matter, constructing interactive discussion methods, and finding new ways to construct educational pockets outside of traditional learning environments. These links offer a glimpse of my various educational experiments.
- "Pop-Up Performance Philosophy (an experiment in doing-thinking)." Riffing on the Abandoned Practices of Alan Read, Matthew Goulish, and Lin Hixson, I instigated a call to open a pop-up Performance Philosophy event that took place in May 2019. Revisiting an abandoned structure for a previous conference application, this pop-up event investigated the ruins of that failure. Click here to read the synthesis of the event that includes contributions from 5 clusters around the world, from Turkey to Staten Island.
- "Embodied Reading Group." Seeking to combine our grief work and our intellectual explorations, Joanne Zerdy and I designed and facilitated an "embodied reading group" based on David Grossman's book Falling Out of Time.
- Invisible College. Based on the group of the same name that originated in 17th-century England, my work with the "invisible college" is intended to construct a network of thinkers who pursue individual research projects but collaborate in a broader project to re-think what precisely education might be.
Online Classes
Race & Philosophy.
A self-paced class that introduces students to key concepts in the philosophical treatment of race. The readings come from interviews published in the New York Times conducted by George Yancy. They interviews were designed to reach the wider reading public, regardless of educational background. At the same time, the ideas raised throughout the interviews are deep enough to stimulate advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty members, especially those seeking to expand their knowledge of this important subject.
Write Brightly.
A course for academics who want to strengthen their writing. Over the course of six modules, this self-paced course helps to dynamize and enliven academic writing through exercises and video lectures. In addition to in-depth treatments of description, analysis, theorization, the use of secondary sources, and style, "Write Brightly" introduces students to many different types of artistic expression, academic argumentation, and modes of verbal expression.
A self-paced class that introduces students to key concepts in the philosophical treatment of race. The readings come from interviews published in the New York Times conducted by George Yancy. They interviews were designed to reach the wider reading public, regardless of educational background. At the same time, the ideas raised throughout the interviews are deep enough to stimulate advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty members, especially those seeking to expand their knowledge of this important subject.
Write Brightly.
A course for academics who want to strengthen their writing. Over the course of six modules, this self-paced course helps to dynamize and enliven academic writing through exercises and video lectures. In addition to in-depth treatments of description, analysis, theorization, the use of secondary sources, and style, "Write Brightly" introduces students to many different types of artistic expression, academic argumentation, and modes of verbal expression.
