PHILOSOPHY OF TEACHING AND LEARNING*

Dr. Deidre Hill Butler, Department of Sociology 

“Learning is not a spectator sport.” 

Aaron Douglas The Creation, 1927

Because I believe in participatory and active learning, this course will only be what YOU make out of it.  I see my role as the facilitator of a learning community of which I am but one member.  I have something to teach you just as you have something to teach me.  We can all learn from each other.  Sometimes some of the most lasting insights students have taken from my courses have been those which students have learned from other students.  I have provided a structure within which we can pursue this journey of learning, and I come prepared to bring my insights to the table, but I also come eager to hear yours.  I expect you to come eager to contribute, to learn from me, and to learn from your peers.  Your peers are no less members of this community than I am, and what they have to say is just as important.  I fully expect each class discussion to be guided by the intellectual concerns of us all—not just my own.  If you complain that we rely too much on student discussion then you have missed the entire point of this learning experience!!!    If you want to come to fill a seat and take notes while I tell you what you should know for the test, then you have come to the wrong class, and I urge you to drop the course immediately.  If we take such an approach, then we have effectively disempowered students from thinking critically and creatively.  I am here to give you a sense of your own intellectual power.

Take control of your learning—let’s begin the journey!!! 

*inspired by bell hooks’ Teaching to Transgress