Research and Teaching Philosophy

My work as an Assistant Professor of Art Education is located at the intersection of race (or ethnicity), place (environment) and culture as manifested in visual culture. Consequently, I use visual culture studies, postcolonial theory, place-based education, becoming minoritarian, critical multicultural, intercultural, critical race theory, and ecojustice lenses to look at a variety of visual experiences that create and mediate culture. These include traditional and contemporary sources of fine art, indigenous art, children's picture books, films, comics, graphic novels, advertising, and the built environment - particularly retail edutainment. However, my primary focus is on visually reading multicultural children's picture books to explore embedded social and environmental constructs.

I embody this research in my teaching practice based on these three principles: First, I believe in practicing a pedagogy of pleasure predicated on the belief that if students find personal meaning or enjoyment in what they do they will do it a lot and inevitably get good at it.

Second, I design my syllabus to incorporate Vygotsky’s theories of scaffolded learning whereby students develop greater skills by building sequentially on prior skills, and Dewey’s theories of experiential learning so that students can connect their learning to both personal experiences and their communities at large through democratic participation.

Finally, my teaching philosophy highlights the importance of context and community in students’ lives and in the world surrounding art production. Thus, I create classroom experiences using the perspectives described above to promote social justice and environmental awareness by connecting personally meaningful skill-building projects with issues pertaining to culture and place. We do this by contextually studying the work of historical and contemporary artists whose art is relevant to issues of power, culture, community, or environment, such as Diego Velasquez, Francisco Goya, Fred Wilson, Art Spiegelman, Barbara Kruger, Ann Chamberlain, Andy Goldsworthy, Kathryn Miller, and George Littlechild among others. Each class we discuss art education readings related to social or ecological caring, and study an artist, a multicultural picture book, and other visual culture sources, such as films, cartoons, and advertising, to show the interrelationships between art and culture. We then create meaningful art projects that frequently work directly with community organizations or benefit the local community.