What’s your mission in academia?
To help spread ideas of social justice and empowerment and to show the use of film and popular culture as powerful tools for achieving that end.
How did you become interested in your subject area?
Curriculum can be seen as the sum total of what students are (and are not) exposed to within an educational setting. That is much more than just readin’, ritin’ and ’rithmetic. It includes how we instruct and live, equity, justice, peace, community and other ideas.
What do students learn from you?
I hope they will learn that all institutions are complicated places and there are no simple answers. Teaching is a fundamentally human craft and in effect political, and no matter what, an individual’s values, beliefs and ideals will find their way into a classroom. Social justice and equity does not just happen; they are arduous and tenacious undertakings, and watching children and youth become more engaged and critical with their world is what makes this work worth doing.
What is your favorite aspect of your subject? Why?
I love the humanity of teaching and learning. There is a profound satisfaction in sharing in the process of someone learning something completely new or seeing something familiar in a new way. That alone is worth the price of admission.
What’s the best question you’ve ever been asked? What was your answer?
Q: “Is that John Coltrane, da-dee?”
A: “You know it is, Poot ...”
(... my 3-year-old son making me proud one evening when we were listening to John Coltrane’s “Blue Trane” ... on vinyl ...)
What most pleases you about society today? What most concerns you?
What pleases me most is that people continue to have faith in humanity and community. What concerns me most is that the people who call themselves leaders cannot seem to find new ways of approaching issues that have serious repercussions for us all.
What’s your current research?
I am beginning two lines of inquiry. First I am beginning to look at how South African teacher educators utilize film to discuss race, specifically Whiteness, with their students in order to offer a comparison of and suggestions for similar practices in the United States. And second, along with a few colleagues, we are looking at the intersection of curriculum, diversity and emotions in an area high school.
What’s a good text you recently read?
I am not bound to the printed text: Hunter S. Thompson’s “The Great Shark Hunt;” Stephen King’s “Misery;” Bill Pinar’s “What Is Curriculum Theory;” Guillermo Del Torro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth;” HBO’s “The Wire,” any season; and, definitely not least, Miles Davis’ “In a Silent Way.”
Who was your favorite professor? Why?
At EIU, Charles Blaich was the first that made me feel like I could succeed. Johnetta Jones helped me explore Black consciousness and culture. At DePaul, Stan Howard furthered the work of Jones. Stephen Haymes, Amira Proweller and Sandra Jackson opened my world to critical pedagogy and thought. And at MSU, Chris Wheeler helped me become more critical of multicultural education. Cleo Cherryholmes blew my world apart by exposing me to deconstruction, postmodernism and pragmatism. And Lynn Fendler helped me to rebuild it and showed me how the most important thing you can give a student is patience, caring and support.
What’s your best advice to students who want to succeed?
If you weren’t teaching, what would you be doing?
Either making movies or shooting pictures.
What would your tombstone read?
Husband, father, scholar ...
Photos by Scott Walstrom, NIU Media Services
Department: Teaching and Learning
Hometown: Peoria, Ill.
My degrees: Ph.D. in Teacher Education, Michigan State University; M.A. in Education, DePaul University; B.A. in philosophy, Eastern Illinois University
Arrived at NIU: 2007
I teach: Middle School Organization and Instruction, Creating Learning Communities
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