Philosophy of Practice, My Practice at Philosophy

Written as a series of responses, I weave study, art, and research together and consider them to be interrelated practices predicated on questions that can be continually asked about teaching.

How is teaching related to study?

I believe in the hope that teaching can harness the power of collaborative thinking to imagine a more sustainable and inclusive future—one that acknowledges doing as an integral part of study (Ingold, 2016; Dewey, 1938).

My teaching extends from a working conceptualization of study that is always already happening—before a call to order (Harney & Moten, 2013), before institutional borders. Like definitions, borders restrict where an idea of something ends and begins. Words, however, can be traced to their roots and described differently as they are pushed and pulled into new arrangements.

The word studio comes from the Latin root studium and means ‘to study’. The linguistic relationship between study and studios encourages one to consider what could happen in schools if classrooms were more centered in study and treated more like studios.

Teaching practices, like study, can be understood as they happen with others—in experimenting, conversing, playing, transforming, revising, and responding to what is present. My conception of study and teaching both rely on activity, movement, and interaction. How they happen, and the specificity of their interplay, always depends on where they occur.

Where does teaching happen?

I believe teaching happens everywhere. Upon hearing a story that begins with, ‘I was walking to school, when such and such happened’, I am immediately concerned with what happened because of the many ways contexts shape what is possible. Emphasizing such and such that happens rather than insisting on a planned route is full of intention. I intend to situate myself on a continuum of knowing where the goal is not to attain knowledge, but to wonder where, how, and why we think we know something.

I believe expertise is an essential part of teaching. I intend to acknowledge the expertise of all beings and things I teach. Reflective practices enable me to go back to all such and such(es) I’ve experienced (Wilkinson, 1982; Pinar, 2023; Pinar, 1975).

In doing so, I cultivate the belief that classrooms, like studios, are places where teachers and students try out and test ideas. Experimentation enables new and imaginative ways of doing things. Experimentation enables such and such to emerge. This is key because hegemonic neoliberalism does not serve all living beings equitably. When students and teachers imagine, experiment, and work towards new and alternative ways of being together, they must move their thinking beyond the walls of neoliberal institutional spaces if they have any hope of transforming what happens in and outside. Sometimes teaching happens in between a prescriptive path and the creation of another story. To respond to the needs of each moment, teaching requires emergent, experimental, and non-prescriptive modes of response. If teaching happens everywhere—in the unexpected, in the classroom, and in response to such and such that emerges—it is difficult to define teaching. Instead of crafting a definition I proceed by describing what I do and why I think it matters.

What intersects with my practice of teaching?

My teaching is influenced by my artistic and research-based practices. I study the work of artists, teachers, students, collaborators, writers, and visionary dreamers. I strive to be ethically responsive when and how I teach. By this, I mean to say that I commit to studying with the human and nonhuman relationships that become intertwined in the making of place.

I know imperfections and inconsistencies are intrinsic in all things we practice and make a promise to continue to work towards enabling individual and collective reflection that seeks to observe how the past, present, and future transforms what happens. I invite students to use the tools they already possess to address problems as they encounter them. In doing so, I hope to encourage a philosophy of intersections committed to emergent ways of knowing.

Why does this matter?

Much of what I believe and know has emerged from ways I study and practice alongside friends. Practicing includes all thinking and doing that leads to actions – following and responding to something or someone. I believe teaching is a practice. While practices are often personal and involve individual commitments, they are not necessarily solitary and certainly not committed to individualism. This leads me to claim and defend the idea that teaching is not something to be achieved, but rather to be practiced. It is a practice that involves listening to and being with people. This matters because in practicing these things we might strive to do what abolitionist, geographer, and teacher Ruth Wilson Gilmore claims is necessary for the survival of all species, and that is, to work towards the creation of life-affirming institutions.