Professor
Teaching Philosophy
My role as an educator began when my family and I migrated to the U.S. As an immigrant youth raised in poverty, I served as the translator/interpreter, and thus cultural broker, for my family as we interfaced with unfamiliar social service systems. This determinative experience has guided my drive “to prepare individuals to develop, deliver, and administer public, nonprofit, and private social services with the goal of improving the quality of community life” (SWHS Mission). Because teaching is a key component of the SWHS and WCHHS missions (SWHS T&P Guidelines [SWHS TPG], pp. 1–2), I have placed a great deal of emphasis in making my courses applied, relevant, and meaningful. Applied (A): I facilitate experiences for students to connect theory-to-practice and vice versa, so that learning can be achieved in multiple modalities. Through experiential exercises or applied projects, students are able to test, build, or expand their skillset so they are more confident when transferring those skills to the “University of Life”. Relevant (R): I engage students where they are and help them see how the course material is relevant to their personal lives. I believe that once they see value in the personal they will be better able to connect it to the professional. Meaningful (M): My aim with each class, and individual student, is to create a level of rapport so that meaningful learning takes place, in and out of the classroom environment, and beyond their enrollment in my class. Hence, my teaching philosophy is rooted in equipping my students, better yet, in “ARMing” them, as emerging HS professionals and community members, to be positive change agents in the areas of their passion. In doing so, they too will be translators/interpreters of information and can broker relationships and opportunities that will benefit their clients, agencies, and communities.
