TEACHING STATEMENT

Teaching is essentially a collaborative experience between professor and student.  Together, we discover, learn and make connections between a students' culture and the immediate community and that of others.
Since traveling abroad to South Asia for the past 15 years to lecture and conduct creative research I have been able to involve my students in a number of cross-cultural opportunities. Among these include global exchange exhibitions and critiques via zoom. (See my Tedx Talk, “Against the Grain: Teaching Printmaking & Drawing in India”).  Another collaborative and active teaching method is what I call the five senses pedagogical approach in studio art courses. In a studio class, such as printmaking, I remind students to rely not only on the appearance of the ink, but to listen to the sound of the sticky ink as it is spread over the smooth glass palette. In an active class room demonstration, I compare the sound of the brayer rolling across the ink to that of a distant rain storm on the horizon, and then to the introduction to Beethoven’s 5th Symphony - the staccato (ta-ta-ta- taaaa!). My teaching approach also ensures that students with different learning modes all have equal access to course information, materials and demonstrations. I ensure that expectations and directions are clear and consistent in my classroom so that all students have equal access.