Teaching

Philosophy of Teaching

“Profound changes in the way we think and act must take place
if we are to create a loving culture”
(bell hooks, 2000, p. xxix).

What if we expressed critical qualitative inquiry is/as love?

We might situate our classrooms along local axes of need
and teach different ways of knowing
through de/colonizing epistemologies
and projects of the critical imagination
and ‘empathy and the imagination-intellect’
and acts and expressions of love.

We might pause in the midst of hate
to cook up something good,
something nourishing, made with love,
something to repair and sustain our souls.

We might collectively reimagine the foundations of social research
so that love might become ontology, epistemology, methodology, axiology, and pedagogy, too.

We might then contribute to a better world
by countering the changing tides of our historical present,
by teaching methodological diversity as methodological justice, and
by teaching critical qualitative inquiry is/as love.

Adapted from:

Ulmer, J. (2017). Critical qualitative inquiry is/as love.
Qualitative Inquiry, 23(7) 543–544.

Fotografía: Paz, amor, y esperanza [Peace, love, and hope], La Habana, Cuba

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