Teaching Philosophy
I believe that education must help us understand the structures and forces that shape our world —and that education that does not explicitly engage with issues of power can also mask it, making inequality and privilege seem natural. This commitment has shaped my teaching in the United States, Uganda, and Rwanda.
Assistant Professor of Education and International DevelopmentFlorida State University
* all syllabi available upon request
International Development Education
In the era of globalization, international development agencies play a growing role in a number of arenas including educational policymaking and implementation in low- and middle-income countries, also often referred to as countries of the Global South. Some scholars position such transformations as a continuation of the Western colonial project, whereas others see them as part of a process that has produced new opportunities as well as limitations for individuals and groups. This is a cross-disciplinary reading seminar that engages with the international development education paradigm and the underlying assumptions and themes that guide it. This course draws from education and development scholarship in international and comparative education studies, development studies, feminist studies, and postcolonial studies among others to help students achieve an in-depth understanding of theories of international development and education. Students will be guided to reconceptualize and rethink theoretical frameworks and methodologies that construct and analyze settings outside “the West” as the subject of development and the target of international educational reforms.
Lecturer on EducationHarvard Graduate School of Education
* all syllabi available upon request
Bilingual Learners: Literacy Development and Instruction
Course Description
As the number of children who speak, or are exposed to, more than one language increases in US classrooms and in classrooms around the world, educators at all system levels and across varied settings must be prepared to provide high-quality, rigorous education to ever more linguistically diverse groups of students. Designed for researchers and practitioners, this course will focus on pressing issues related to bilingual students’ literacy and language instruction. The term “bilingual” in this course will be used to refer to a variety of students who have diverse and unequal experiences in more than one language and who speak or hear language(s) different from the societal language at home, but who might receive bilingual or monolingual instruction at school.
The course will provide opportunities to discuss and investigate the literacy development of bilingual learners and to learn and reflect about the efficacy of research-based reading methods in various instructional settings. A number of societal factors related to language and academic achievement will be explored as well: the many modes of being bilingual or multilingual, the experience of minoritized linguistic communities, the role of educational resources, and the impact of educational policies on bi/multilingual populations. This course will employ an interdisciplinary perspective, drawing on sociocultural, psycholinguistic, and educational frameworks of research.
Language and History at School: Colonialism and Neocolonialism in Education Development in Africa
Course Description
As European powers colonized regions of Africa in the 15th century, they often used schooling and formal education to exert control. The formal education systems they set up largely undermined traditional ways of knowing and sharing skills, and language was a central tool of colonial control as colonizers created education systems that imposed European languages and integrated these languages into institutions of power.
While formal European colonial control in Africa largely came to an end by the 1960s, former colonial powers of the Global North continue to exert influence over education systems in the formerly colonized Global South. Immediately following independence, this influence largely took the form of policies and practices forwarded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Today, some would argue that this power has been converted to ongoing influence in part through international education development, with INGOs, and bi-, and multi-lateral donors the engines of influence. There are growing efforts to tackle this persistent power imbalance through educational initiatives that take a more critical approach to education development, centering the experiences and leadership of local communities and education stakeholders.
In this course, students engage critically with the history of international education development and its connections to colonialism through the lens of language-in-education policies and practices. Language provides a particularly useful lens into the ways that school policies and practices exert control over children and families, intertwining local education systems with global systems of power. Students will be expected to complete three reflection memos about key themes from the course and connections to personal and professional engagement with education, respond to a partner’s reflections, and submit a final project connected to a topic, organization, or context of particular interest.
Equity and Opportunity: Citizenship and Nationality in Context
Course Description
Equity and Opportunity: Citizenship and Nationality in Context is part of the Identity in Context module series at HGSE.
Students in every module will:
- engage deeply with key concepts in equity, systems of oppression, cycles of socialization and privilege, and social identities within the context of education;
- connect and build meaningful relationships with each other while recognizing the multiple intersecting identities, perspectives and differences people hold;
- make progress in understanding and reflecting on our experiences; and
- discuss and imagine tools of transformation for particular contexts and communities.
Students will delve into core theories, practices, and texts that apply to all social identities, while also probing identity-specific topics and challenges. In this light, this module will consider how schools distribute and restrict educational opportunities to students based on their diverse political, transnational, postcolonial, (im)migrant, refugee, and other intersecting identities. In this course, we will specifically consider the role of schools as both sites of exclusion as well as sites of potential belonging and inclusion.
Students can expect to interact with each other and the teaching team in asynchronous and synchronous individual, small group, and whole group settings. Pedagogies and assessments will reflect core principles in educating for equity and opportunity, including inclusive facilitated discussions, active listening and learning, journaling, and case study inquiry. Students are encouraged to select into a topic that they have not spent much time studying formally as a way to explore the foundational concepts of equity and opportunity through a relatively new frame.
Teaching FellowHarvard Graduate School of Education
Interviewing in Qualitative Research
online
with Sarah Dryden-Peterson
Education in Armed Conflict
in person
with Sarah Dryden-Peterson
Proseminar in Education
online
with Meira Levinson
Projects and publications
Through a variety of qualitative methods including in-depth interviews, ethnographic observations, and document analysis, I seek to understand the relationship between language and education in contexts of migration.
