Teaching Philosophy
My work renders historical questions, perspectives, and stories socially meaningful for present populations. The opportunity to engage students in this process is an integral part of my work. My primary objective as a teacher is to provide students with a critical lens towards the humanities so that they may better locate themselves as agents of social change. My approach emphasizes experiential learning, the community partnerships, and project-based work.
Experiential learning engages students by underscoring the connections between theory and practice. Because of my own professionalization within archival and preservation based organizations, these activities center on providing students with opportunities for primary historical analysis, including:
- Conducting on-site architectural analysis of “the Mexican Village” in Los Angeles
- Analyzing the content of exhibits at the Natural History Museum
- Discussing historical methods with archivists at the Seaver Center for Western History
In any of these activities, I ask students to consider the various ways groups have worked to create historical narratives that shape the ways we understand racial difference. Recognizing the production of history as a process with material consequences challenges passive learning approaches to education and can spark debate regarding the stakes involved when making sense of the past.
I find that opportunities to move the classroom beyond campus resonate particularly strongly with students for whom the communities surrounding urban universities more closely represent their own ethnic or class identifications. For instance, in my coordination of the Building People’s History project, a semester long community partnership intended to draw public attention to a politically active archive in south Los Angeles, underrepresented students became active participants in discussion, stayed after class, and expressed interest in becoming majors. The visible presence of leaders sharing a similar background helped them connect with class materials, take an active role in the discussion, and envision a place for themselves in historical practice.
I draw upon my experience in public history and digital media to design project based assignments in my classroom. I often ask students to work together in small groups. Doing so helps them hone a sense of self-awareness and accountability as social agents whose ideas and actions affect others. In future courses, I will integrate my training through the Institute for Multimedia Literacy at USC. Digital media offers an exciting opportunity to examine the ways culture drives technology, experiment with methods for collaboration in a networked world, and explore the implications of emergent technologies for historians.
In closing, as a scholar with a commitment to the public humanities, I seek to make ethnic studies meaningful to students by applying its lessons to the analysis of contemporary landscapes. It is my goal to realize visions of praxis in the local times and places of people’s lives, both within and beyond the classroom.
There are three ways to navigate my teaching portfolio: