Teaching Philosophy
"But the truth is: regardless of what society we are in, or what world we find ourselves, it is impermissible to train engineers or stonemasons, physicians or nurses, dentists or machinists, educators or mechanics, farmers or philosophers, cattle farmers or biologists, without an understanding of our own selves as historical, political, social, and cultural beings - without a comprehension of how society works. And this will never be imparted by supposedly purely technological training."~ Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Hope
My teaching methodologies emerge from direct engagement in the past 5 years with over 1,000 undergraduate university and art school students. As an artist working with computer programming, electronics, sound, and video software, I’ve taught topics addressing the theory, philosophy, and history of technology as well as its creative deployment in the arts.
My teaching utilizes new media as a means to bring historical, situated, and fixed knowledge to life. To call forth objects from the past into a contemporary cultural milieu. My approach is multimodal, an adaptive model which is formed as much by the subject matter as by the students whom I am teaching. I seek a creative commons with my students as a means to encourage them to apply classroom knowledge to everyday life, and by articulating the importance of their role in digital culture and its widespread impact on the future.
We live in an age of unparalleled mediation. As a teacher, I find my greatest challenge involves inspiring students to disengage from their intensely mediated realities long enough to connect those realities to the larger world in which they exist as thinkers and makers.
Historical context must be given to a technologically driven material culture whose automation is operating at epistemological levels, restructuring the societies in which we live. I point out that knowledge is not simply a matter of fixed truth, but an amalgam of situated knowing, contextual awareness, and cultural adaptation, especially in the digital age.
I create a pedagogical process engaged by instructor and students alike. In the classroom,
I inspire students through participation and dialogue as a means to process and render the course material resolute. I encourage the development of student-led presentations and projects, technology demos, and shared resources to bring current trends to bear on the historical, philosophical, and theoretical contexts of culture and technology. In-class demonstrations and student-generated projects address not only the pragmatic experience of technology, but also engage a dialectical consideration of our epistemological assumptions and values, in addition to derivative, alternate, and/or opposing viewpoints.
