Pedagogy

My teaching methods have been influenced by several key experiences in my professional development. The first was my year as an instructor in the expository writing program at Johns Hopkins, which taught me the Harvard “Expos” pedagogical method. The second was my year-long fellowship at LeMoyne College, where I encountered the Jesuit philosophy of cura personalis (educating the whole person) and the grading method of “learning contracts.” Finally, my time at Abington College, a minority-majority institution with an extremely diverse student body, has also challenged me to expand and refine my teaching methods with a strong focus on student success and engagement.

For me, calling what I do “a pedagogy of the soul” opens up a cluster of evocative ways of speaking. It helps me to articulate an intention to engage in teaching in ways that aim toward development in the intellectual, political, moral, interpersonal, aesthetic, and poetic arenas. Pedagogy of the soul is not about a specific set of techniques, activities, or technologies, and it can never be prescriptive. It is more of a “heartset” than a mindset.

Publications

Below are some of my additional publications thinking about how we can contribute to healing, community building, empathy, and spiritual renewal at the deepest level for the current generation of students, as well as for the academy at large:

  • 2021, “Buddhist Healthcare in Philadelphia: An Ethnographic Experiment in Student-Centered, Engaged, and Inclusive Pedagogy.” Religions 12.6. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12060420
  • 2021, “The Role of Buddhist Studies in Fostering Metadisciplinary Conversations and Improving Pedagogical Collaborations.” Religions 12.1. https://dx.doi.org/ 10.3390/rel12010001
Press