My mom recently pointed out to me that almost every summer job I had growing up involved teaching. Whether it was teaching 80 year-old ladies to use the internet at the Okanagan Regional Library, giving history lessons to grade threes at the Oliver Museum, or sharing the wonders of the Pocket Desert ecosystem with thousands of tourists at the Osoyoos Desert Centre, the common denominator has always been teaching.

Teaching has been my passport, justification, passion and excuse for learning, gathering, thinking about, sharing and unlocking knowledge about a wide range of subjects. It has allowed me to both inspire and be inspired by the curiosity, enthusiasm and collective wisdom of my fellow students, peers and citizens.

An Ethical Duty

As a student of environmental communication, I apply Robert Cox’s notion of a “crisis discipline” to teaching more generally, and like sustainability educator David Orr, I believe It is not education but education of a certain kind that will “save us.” In short, I believe that teaching has an ethical duty to enhance the ability of students to think critically as citizens, and to respond appropriately to both social and environmental signals that are relevant to the health and vitality of both human communities and natural biological systems. It’s serious stuff, but I don’t take myself too seriously.

Laugh and Learn

As a former amateur stand-up comic, I love making people laugh, and I rely heavily on comedy to introduce both levity and critical thinking to the learning process. Humour offers great utility in overcoming barriers to free thinking, and if used carefully, can broach difficult topics and discussion in a way that invites engagement.

Polytechnic Teaching

My career is marked by a commitment to working at the confluence of practice and theory, and my pedagogical approach is no different. My teaching relies heavily on recent, relevant, real-life case studies, and whenever possible I invite my students to problem-solve actual communication issues I am working on through my consulting practice (preserving client confidentiality).

By drawing on both professional and academic environments, I am able to maintain relevance and purpose in both my teaching and communications consulting practice, and students have identified this real-world application of theory and practice as one of the greatest strengths of my teaching style.