Philosophy of Teaching

My teaching philosophy is deeply rooted in the notions of love, community, and self-actualization. I advanced through elementary and high school quicker than many, thanks to a rigorous entrepreneurial family in the Bay Area, California. At that age, I was most interested in exploring and sharing. I remember learning new multiplication methods solely to show them to my friends at the back table of the classroom. I now can’t help but bring that same naïve enthusiasm to teaching my own elementary-aged children and inside my own higher education classrooms. My favorite moments, though, are my chances to share data science and analytics with an elementary-aged classroom where the takeaways are often raw and profound (e.g., "stop reading my mom's texts"). 

We as humans feel and express connection on a developmentally earlier and deeper level than we do language or logic. In the technological revolution, we have a beautiful unique opportunity to examine ourselves as individuals and, likewise, our connections to communities and others.

Love 

Sharing is an expression of love. At the core of teaching is the sharing of thoughts, opportunities, and new roads to self-expression. As teachers (especially in business), we sell the notion of a better, more lived life. We share that idea not from a position of power or influence, but from a position of love and care. When I teach data science, I share my own love for data exploration and the intricacies of human existence that are transformed and viewed through an algorithm. In understanding human data, we better understand ourselves and our own desires. We as communities are in a better position to express love as we iteratively discover the core of human existence through ancillary data collection.  

Community 

As teachers, we prod different worldviews, including our own, to pause and wonder in a way that often creates a stronger sense of community and awe. Whether those groups are a global community of scientific research, or the very political and spiritual communities we exist in, teaching naturally beckons our students to think about our current circumstances and values.  

I find the role of a teacher (and researcher) is anthropologically formed from community necessity rather than scholarly necessity. As we invent, share, and disperse our human myths, the teacher is who captures, catalogs, and codifies those experiences into timely lectures and lasting textbooks. This task may be partially self-serving, but it is rooted in a desire to prop up the community.   

Self-Actualization 

The act of learning is pure and curious. We learn to survive, but we compulsively dredge on even after it all makes sense because learning is a self-actualization; a task that brings us closer to divinity, or our true selves. Teachers are honored to play a small role in paths to self-actualization. Graduates are ideally a communal benefit to their chosen family, their neighbors, their country, and their human existence.  

Most importantly, critical thinking will always lead to the dissolving of oppression. A student who understands the world better will be better for the world. A teacher relentlessly and peacefully opposes oppression through the translational process of critical thought.  

(Special thanks to Dr. Georgi Rausch. Last updated: 8-24-2023)