My Teaching Philosophy

My teaching begins with a simple belief: learning is most powerful when it connects to who we are—our lived experiences, family histories, and personal identities. I see education not as memorizing facts, but as a process of critical engagement, one where students are equipped to read the word and the world. In my classroom, this means helping students understand the social, political, and economic forces that shape their lives, and to see themselves as active participants in shaping the future.

I design learning experiences that go beyond lectures and invite collaboration, dialogue, and application. Students work together to grapple with real-world problems, reflect on their own perspectives, and reimagine solutions. These approaches not only deepen their grasp of course material but also build transferable skills, critical thinking, cultural awareness, and collaborative problem-solving, that prepare them for complex professional and civic life.

My field, Family Social Science, demands an interdisciplinary lens. Financial lives are never just about numbers, they’re about cultural traditions, access to institutions, and the policies that govern opportunity. My teaching reflects this reality by encouraging students to approach issues from multiple perspectives: cultural, social, and structural. My goal is to prepare them to navigate a diverse and inequitable world with intellectual rigor, empathy, and the capacity to create meaningful change.