Teaching Philosophy
Kirsten’s teaching philosophy is strongly aligned with her counseling psychologist identity where she aims to engage in critical consciousness raising (Freire, 1970) through increasing awareness, knowledge and skills (Sue, 2001) of her students as they grapple with and explore social justice-related content in the courses she teaches. She believes that impactful and effective teaching focuses on both content of material and process of growth. Therefore, she conceptualizes learning as a two-prong process where students meet learning objectives and acquire knowledge while also engaging in personal exploration that will facilitate critical consciousness and growth. As an educator, Kirsten views herself as a “more knowledgeable” facilitator whose job is focused on identifying the bounds of students’ knowledge base so that she can help them meet learning objectives and grow personally and professionally. Broadly, her teaching philosophy emphasizes: 1) the importance of building a co-constructed community of learners, 2) an individualized developmental teaching approach, and 3) critical consciousness raising and critical thinking skills with her students.
Community of Learners
Impactful learning occurs when students have a safe, supportive environment where they can take risks and challenge themselves to stretch beyond their comfort zones. It is important that students are able to ask questions and share their own thoughts and perspectives without fear of reprisal. Kirsten works to negotiate norms of openness, respect, and collegiality that fosters a sense of community and mutual growth inside and outside of the classroom. Building a foundation of trust, authenticity, and compassion amongst students and between students and herself is of utmost importance as social justice focused courses often require extreme vulnerability and include difficult dialogues in every class as part of the learning activities and course objectives. Students enrolled in social justice focused classes often express fears and concerns about “saying the wrong thing” and can fall into the trap of staying silent as a result. This silence impedes students’ learning and successfully meeting learning objectives. To combat this silence, Kirsten builds in ample time for rapport and community building at the start of each and every class to facilitate student comfort. This comfort is essential in facilitating open, honest, and authentic communication about student learning between students, their peers, and Kirsten as the instructor.
Kirsten’s philosophy of teaching centers the idea that students form a community of learners. Classes are built on co-constructed knowledge and every student has expertise to contribute to the class discussion. Learning is a sociocultural process where students construct new knowledge through a combination of their previous knowledge, new experiences, and challenging interactions. Kirsten disengages from white supremacist ideologies in her classes by empowering students to have confidence in their own contribution to the course and encouraging students to share their lived experiences, their perspectives, and their reactions to course material. This is especially important for Black, Indigenous, other Students of Color (BIPOC), and other marginalized students who are often silenced and invisible in predominantly white and dominant spaces. She teaches students about social locations, power, privilege, and oppression and they learn that the course content applies to each and every one of them. In this vein, Kirsten holds all members of the class responsible for their own learning and the learning of their peers.
Simultaneously, Kirsten holds students in her classes to the highest standards and expects that they will engage critically with the course material and be able to articulate the arguments within their assigned readings and course content. She infuses discussion-focused activities in all of her classes because discussion allows members of the class to add new perspectives and ideas and facilitates co-construction of meaning within the learning environment. These opportunities provide students with practice and tools to take what they are learning in the classroom and engage in effective discussions about social justice issues with people in their broader social network including friends, family, and peers.
Individualized Developmental Teaching Approach
Kirsten believes in the importance of an individualized developmental teaching approach where she considers her students’ developmental level when planning her courses. She also believes that students enjoy diverse learning exercises that challenge a “one-size-fits-all” approach. Kirsten often incorporates a variety of teaching styles and modalities into her classes including lectures, discussions, simulated learning experiences, experiential exercises, group-based learning activities, and multimedia resources. Her students seem to value this approach, and its effectiveness is reflected in their learning outcomes. Every semester, Kirsten surveys students in her courses and she often changes the way she presents her course materials and information based on responses from this student survey. Thus, her approach to teaching is constantly evolving depending on the needs of her students. Students frequently comment in her course evaluations that they love that she surveys them and adapts her course activities and course presentations based on feedback they provide her.
An individualized teaching approach is important especially as Kirsten teaches social justice focused diversity courses. Each semester when she teaches PSYC 435, she has students who come to the class with wildly different levels of awareness about power, privilege, and oppression. She routinely has discussions with students who are struggling with their mixed feelings of defensiveness, denial, sadness, and acceptance of their own privilege and oppression. During these discussions, Kirsten recognized that each student is at a different point in their personal and professional journey. During these discussions, she validates the students’ frustration and normalizes their feelings. She also provides guidance and mentorship through sharing her own journey to understanding privilege and oppression as a counseling psychologist. Kirsten facilitates a discussion of identity development models and explains that each student’s personal and professional growth journeys are unique. Lastly, Kirsten utilizes the variety of student reactions to foster a sense of community where all perspectives are valued and important. In this example, Kirsten’s role as a teacher necessitates an understanding that students’ knowledge, experiences, and needs may differ from student to student and should be validated accordingly.
Critical Consciousness Raising
As a licensed counseling psychologist, social justice advocate, and educator, Kirsten is committed to preparing future leaders who are passionate about social justice advocacy work. She focuses on consciousness raising (Freire, 1970) with all of her undergraduate and graduate students to help them challenge and unlearn the dominant white supremacist narratives pervasive in our society, while centering the experiences of marginalized communities who are often silenced and ignored. Simultaneously, she uses principles of Black feminist thought, and critical theories to promote the liberation of all oppressed communities. The learning objectives in her courses center on increasing awareness, knowledge, and skills of students so that they become more critically engaged citizens working to challenge and correct inequalities faced by marginalized individuals. Aligned with Freire’s (1970) pedagogy, students in her classes become more aware of their own biases and assumptions while being exposed to new knowledge about systems of oppression. Students in Kirsten’s classes also learn skills to challenge white supremacist norms and engage in advocacy efforts to work toward the liberation of oppressed people.
Kirsten infuses new knowledge and information about structural oppression, marginalized communities, and intersectionality in her course content and challenges students to critically engage and question the dominant narratives in the media and privileged communities they belong to. Students in her PSYC 435 class learn about racism, sexism, heterosexism, cissexism, classism, ethnocentrism, religious oppression, and ableism, often for the first time in their lives. Confronted with new knowledge, students become more aware of the history of oppression in the United States and how interlocking oppressive systems work to keep marginalized people oppressed. Kirsten engages her counseling psychology doctoral students in her PSYC 676 and 668 courses to examine how diagnosis and assessments can be harmful for BIPOC and other marginalized clients, and teaches students to use a feminist framework when approaching diagnosis and assessment. The doctoral students in her courses use these discussions to build their scientist-practitioner-advocate identities as they work toward socially just clinical work with their diverse client caseloads. At the end of the semester, students in all of Kirsten’s classes begin to identify the ways that they can use their new awareness, knowledge, and skills to engage in advocacy efforts. Students often reflect on how her courses fundamentally change the way they think about psychology and human experience.
Bridging Research and Teaching Goals
In summary, Kirsten’s identity as a counseling psychologist and a scientist-practitioner-advocate informs her teaching philosophy rooted in growing communities of learners, using developmental frameworks to understand students’ needs, and critical consciousness raising with undergraduate and graduate students. Social justice topics are infused in all of the courses she teaches and her research and advocacy goals of growing social justice advocates informs her teaching approach in her undergraduate and graduate classes. As members of Kirsten’s classes, students gain awareness of their biases and assumptions, increase their knowledge of privilege and oppression, and learn skills to engage in advocacy and activism. As an educator and change agent, Kirsten’s goals are to train these students to be better global citizens and to equip them with the tools needed to engage in activism and advocacy at local, state, and national levels.
References
Boatright-Horowitz, S. L., & Soeung, S. (2009). Teaching White privilege to White students can mean saying good-bye to positive student evaluations. American Psychologist, 64(6), 574–575. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016593
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Herder and Herder
Sue, D. W. (2001). Multidimensional Facets of Cultural Competence. The Counseling Psychologist, 29(6), 790–821. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011000001296002