Teaching Statement & Philosophy

Throughout the years, my teaching philosophy has been to create a safe environment where students can engage in enthusiastic yet rational discourse from a position of radical openness. By radical openness I refer to our ability to approach a topic with an openness to being wrong and to have our minds changed. Additionally, I incorporate case studies and role-playing games in all my courses to foster creativity and facilitate the understanding of more complicated topics.

As an instructor, I have worked on my teaching philosophy through three main objectives: 1) creating a sense of community in the classroom, 2) diversifying the course content, and 3) helping students develop their critical thinking skills.

The Classroom as a Community

It is essential that my students feel comfortable and safe in my classroom. Philosophy can be better learned and taught through discourse. I have managed to create an atmosphere of comradery between the students by introducing discussion activities in every class. Every day, I present my students with a thought experiment, a case study, or a question as simple as: “Do you agree with what I just said?” and ask them to discuss it with the people around them. By the midpoint of the semester, they have usually discussed so many different topics with their colleagues that they feel comfortable enough to start disagreeing with each other and sharing their opinions more freely.

Diversity & Inclusion

Diversity is a central part of my teaching and a necessary step in achieving the type of insightful and comprehensive discourse I wish my students to engage with. I make diversity a priority through the diversification of the course’s readings and the inclusion of Diversity Statements on my syllabi. When possible, I include thinkers of color and of different ethnic backgrounds in every section. This provides me with the opportunity to introduce lesser-known figures to my students and introduce different perspectives to the studied topics. Philosophy is usually seen as one of the most racially homogeneous disciplines, but it does not need to be. There are many thoughtful philosophers from different backgrounds with great theories. Hence, it is crucial for me that my students leave my classroom having learned about some of them and understanding that philosophy is for everybody.

Encouraging Critical Thinking

I aim to help my students develop the necessary critical thinking skills to practice the type of radical openness inherent in my teaching philosophy. Throughout my courses, students engage in rational discourse and learn to construct logically sound arguments. I consider it a successful semester when students leave my classroom being able to challenge what they are being taught, find fallacies in famous arguments, and can ask interesting questions and offer critiques. I start all my courses with a lecture on identifying fallacies and readings on critical thinking. Moreover, as part of this exercise on critical thinking, I present them with case studies where they can identify the studied theories and apply them in everyday decision-making.

Teaching Through Role-Playing

For the last four years, I have been developing and testing different role-playing games that can be integrated into the classroom to facilitate teaching philosophy to undergraduate students in a fun and dynamic way. Reviews conducted to past students have shown the positive effects of the developed games, some of which used mechanics from Dungeons and Dragons and others from the Quiet Year.

I will be presenting my strategies and sharing some of the games I have developed at the 2025 Pacific APA Teaching Hub.

Teaching Experience

  • Instructor of Record

    Introduction to Philosophy at IIT (Forthcoming, Spring 2025)

    Environmental Ethics at IIT (Fall 2023 & Fall 2024)

    -      This course was constructed around the question: What do we owe nature? Through it, students study the different values that have been assigned to nature (from anthropocentric value to intrinsic value).

    Applied Ethics at IIT (Spring 2024)

    -      This interactive course permitted students to apply different moral theories to an array of moral dilemmas that we encounter daily. Moreover, it served as an introduction to the different ways in which ethics can be applied to diverse fields of study, from medicine and technology to business.

    Healthcare Ethics at LUC (Spring 2023)

    -      This course was a combination of theoretical knowledge, through the studying of a variety of theories and frameworks, and the application of such knowledge, through case studies, games, and discussion.  

    Philosophy and Persons at LUC (Fall 2022)

    -      I introduced students to a multitude of questions on epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics. Beyond diversifying the course with authors from different backgrounds, I have implemented role playing games into the course to help the students develop their participation skills and their ability to consider the position of other people.

    Ethics at LUC (Fall 2021- Spring 2022)

    -      As part of the curriculum, I taught the classics like Kant’s deontology, virtue ethics and utilitarianism, while still diversifying the syllabus by integrating voices from oppressed groups (e.g., taught on intersectional identities, care ethics, disability theory) and decentering Western thought (e.g., introduced Mengzi as part of the virtue ethics tradition and dedicated a section to Ethics of Liberation).

  • Teaching Assistant

    Philosophy and Persons(Spring 2021)

    Ethics(Fall 2020)

    Environmental Ethics (Writing Intensive) at LUC (Fall 2019- Spring 2020)

    Social and Political Philosophy (Writing Intensive)at LUC (Fall 2018- Spring 2019)