Teaching Philosophy
In today’s world of specialization, the value of a college education is often challenged. But in fact, that education has never been more important. To establish a serious encounter with the world of ideas, students must be grounded in the essentials of inquiry, analysis and independent critical thinking. Helping students achieve this grounding is one of the goals of the film program’s core curriculum, as it seeks to teach a set of critical and analytical tools for the study of film and audio-visual media.
I believe my own role within this curriculum is to help students learn how to see, feel, hear, and be more open to their surroundings, to enable them to find their own language and rely on their own creativity. That is why my teaching philosophy emphasizes dialogue, questioning, and active interchange between student and teacher in the classroom. That is how real learning and critical thinking takes place, both by teacher and student.
Personal experience has convinced me that to learn how to make films/videos, one needs to view a lot of them and discuss them afterward. Therefore, my film/video courses focus on four main areas:
- Screenings + discussion = To see
- Historical perspective = To know
- Critical perspective = To broaden
- Production = To make
I also believe it’s essential for a teacher to meet individual student needs by being flexible and creative. I acquired my MA in Cultural Anthropology from the Sorbonne and my PhD in Ethnographic/Documentary Film Studies with Jean Rouch in Paris, France, and had additional training at the French Cinematheque. As a foreigner studying in France, where I was the only American and one of the very few women in my doctoral program, I gained an intimate experience of being a minority. This experience and the fact that all of my interactions were with people from different countries (France, South Africa, India, North Africa, Venezuela, Equator, Argentina, and Australia) enabled me to connect easily with people from different racial, ethnic, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds. Having taught at state and private colleges, community colleges, and digital centers (which are a part of larger universities), I have adapted a variety of teaching strategies to accommodate the most diverse student populations, as well as the facilities, technology, and specific goals of the department.
My research interests are interdisciplinary in nature and center on how new technologies and culture intersect with questions of identity, gender, and migration. I am concerned with the way identity is being negotiated across cultural and political boundaries and am in pre-production on a video documentary entitled, “Dwelling in Displacement,” exploring cross-cultural representation and transnational identity.
But my greatest satisfaction as a teacher comes not only from helping students learn the skills they need, but also from inspiring them to share my own passion and enthusiasm. The true reward is in knowing that I have been a catalyst in helping them achieve self-discovery. T.S. Eliot said it best:
“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And to know the place for the first time.”