Teaching Philosophy - Penny Harvey
“One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen can change the world
(Malala Yousafzai)
“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make”
(Jane Goodall)
“Philosophers have only interpreted the world the point is to change it”
(Karl Marx, Theses on Feuerbach)
When I teach, I do not just want to tell my students about powerful people and ideas; I want them to see that they can be powerful people and have powerful ideas. My classes focus on inequalities using an intersectional lens. With this emphasis, I want to inspire my students to become activists and to see the difference they can make in society. I also want to teach them to be allies; just because they do not face a particular inequality, it does not mean they cannot be an advocate for change. Finally, I want to ensure that my students leave my class with more than a grade. I build in learning skills that will be useful to them, regardless of their career path.
I teach my classes from a feminist pedagogical standpoint; therefore, I want my students to have agency in the classroom. I want to know: what elements of the course resonate with them? What makes them engage and what makes them want to learn more? I ensure that I keep a reciprocal dialogue about their learning experience by having early semester and midterm reviews and feedback opportunities. I address the responses to the evaluations in class to make sure they know I have heard their feedback. I will adapt my class, presentation styles, and some content depending on the needs of the class while still ensuring a diversity of learning styles are met. At the end of the semester I will give my students the opportunity to make edits/suggestions on my syllabus to inform how future classes may experience my course, I consider teaching a continual growth process and this interactive feedback process is central to my pedagogical growth.
When teaching, in addition to learning feminist theories; I ask students to apply concepts to popular culture and their own experiences so feminist theory is relatable, memorable, and importantly, applicable to future studies and careers. Engagement in my courses should be a catalyst for thinking critically about the world around them. Using theory in this way illustrates how students can apply theory to life outside of the classroom. For example, I have my students read poetry is not a luxury then in groups find tweets, memes, or other social media posts that advance or discuss feminist theory in everyday life. By thinking about feminist theory as something that can be produced by everybody, not just academics students begin to see how critical thinking and the production of knowledge are embedded in their everyday lives, both in and outside the classroom. It is important for students to see the applicability of the information and skills they attain in the course to other disciplines and (hopefully) their career.
Students learn in a variety of different ways. It is vital that in college we start to train our students to learn and engage with disciplines rather than only testing comprehension. Across all my courses I assign my students a variety of assignment types to address the multitude of learning styles across the student population. For example, my courses include traditional essay assignments, reflective assignments, creative assignments, presentations, as well as service-learning and community-based assignments. I use various mixes of these to suit the needs of the course. Varied assignments encourage students to see all of the different ways they can utilise material outside the classroom, while still providing them with an academic frame for the content. Further, I use a combination of lecture, discussion, multimedia, and activities to create a dynamic learning environment. By using a mix of teaching tools, I can serve all learning styles effectively.
Intersectionality plays a big part in the content of what I teach as well as the interactions within my classroom. Teaching at institutions like the California Institute of Integral Studies means my students’ identities and diversity make class discussions more valuable as it allows the class to gain a deeper understanding of different perspectives. I pay extra attention to ensure minority voices are center and heard in my classroom. It is important to me that all students have a voice, and they know the importance of that voice. I pay particular attention to making sure traditionally oppressed groups are not silenced in my classroom not only in class discussions but in the material I provide to the class. I select reading material that comes from a range of minority group perspectives and authors. To achieve diversity in my presentation, I combine my lectures with short video clips such as poetry readings, YouTube short films or song clips presented by a diverse body of people. In addition to this, I begin each course by discussing privilege and the importance of being aware of its implicit and explicit functions. By ensuring my students have some awareness of privilege I can create a more equitable and diverse classroom environment.
All classes have different personalities and needs; however, by trying to reduce the teacher/student binary and giving students power in the classroom, students are able to take agency over their own learning experience. I design my classes so that the more students put into the class, the more they will get out of it. I begin each semester by asking my students to reflect on why they are in the class and what they want to gain from it. My students are taught to think critically and to see that social injustice is not something that has to exist. Finally, through my classroom I want students to understand that they have the power to make a difference, and hopefully they will.