Pedagogy as Responsibility — Dean

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I entered higher education at twenty-five after years of instability and being unhoused. Education changed my life, and that experience grounds my teaching. My classrooms are built on encounter and responsibility. I don’t see teaching as simply passing down knowledge but as creating moments where students grapple with texts, images, and ideas that challenge them. Sometimes this occurs by exploring a text until it reveals its questions. At other times, it takes creative forms, such as writing manifestos, creating zines, designing new social contracts, or mapping the politics of the classroom itself. These practices remind us that learning is not just intellectual; it is also embodied, relational, and collective.

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The courses I teach reflect this commitment and span different contexts. I have led introductory classes in American government, political theory, and comparative politics, as well as advanced seminars in American political thought, authenticity, and contemporary philosophy. I have also taught courses on race, ethnicity, and Chicana/o history. In carceral classrooms, I teach core subjects like political theory, comparative politics, and American government.

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These varied teaching environments, from large lecture halls to small seminars and prison classrooms, have shown me how architecture and context influence learning. In prisons, I observe how the physical environment shapes daily life. In traditional classrooms, I see students begin to understand these architectures of power in the world outside. In design studios and theory seminars, I watch students take responsibility for histories and geographies they do not directly experience.

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I call this practice ethical entanglement. It involves rejecting detachment, studying and witnessing histories not our own, and prioritizing care during divided times. Pedagogy is not separate from this effort; it is at its core. The same commitments that guide my classrooms, reflection, dialogue, responsibility, and experimentation, also inform how I develop and share this work.