My teaching philosophy is informed by my unerring passion for equality.
The world my students are entering will be unlike anything I have ever known. The best thing I can do is help them prepare for whatever it is they might find on the other side. There will be surprises, challenges and set backs – but hopefully, and in part owing to the education I helped to provide, there will be nothing they cannot come back from.
I know the world they enter will at times be oppressive, unfair, and even cruel – but it is my belief that education is society’s greatest gap-closer. It can help break generation-long cycles of poverty, and help individuals challenge out-dated and reductive principles that have somehow found themselves institutionalised. An educated and informed citizenry that know abuses of power and travesties of justice as they occur are humanity’s best chance at making the world my students enter one worthy of them.
It may be lofty, or even self important to think this might all start in the classroom – but it invariably informs my educational practice. I want my students to be proud of what makes them different, unafraid to make mistakes and ask questions, and forever curious about the world they in no time flat are due to inherit.
I’m also quick to stress to students that expression isn’t always academic. There is something each of us brings to this world that is worthy and beautiful. It might be how they kick a ball, play an instrument, tell a joke, or what never ceases to amaze me, in the demonstration of empathy of one student to another. Expression, indeed intelligence, takes all forms.
I am committed to creating and fostering an environment for my students that allows for all forms of positive expression.
