Teaching Philosophy

As a Brazilian educator, I was first trained in critical pedagogy, following the precepts of Paulo Freire. For Freire, the classroom was a decisive political environment, in which learning even the most basic content involved a process of building from students' interests to invite them to critically assess the world, capacitating them to enact political autonomy. Inspired by Freire, I have developed an integrated approach to student learning engaging in grassroots strategies to ultimately improve critical thinking and deep learning skills through creative assignments. Using scaffolding assignments, I build an arch throughout the semester that begins with prompting students to critically position themselves inside and outside the classroom to a creative final project that draws directly from student's interests and autonomy.  ​

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These teaching strategies enact my commitment to education as a political gesture, making the day-to-day practices with the political content of the courses. By building from previous knowledge to stimulate autonomy and creation, the courses demonstrate to students the ways in which they are fundamental political entities, able to create and nurture their political values in the world they inhabit.