Diversity Statement (Abridged)

 

My commitment to diversity, equity, and justice in education is rooted in lived experience, not abstraction. Early in my teaching career, I taught Jaron, a bright, creative seventh grader navigating questions of race and sexuality. When Jaron tragically took his own life, I came to understand that education cannot remain theoretical—it must be life-affirming, protective, and inclusive. His story continues to shape my work as an educator and scholar, driving my dedication to building classrooms that honor and empower all students, particularly those whose voices have been silenced or erased.

 

In both K–12 and higher education, I cultivate democratic and inclusive spaces that center diverse perspectives and foster critical inquiry. While trauma-informed practice is vital, I resist reducing marginalized identities to pain alone. My pedagogy celebrates resilience, creativity, and complexity alongside struggle, affirming the fullness of human experience.

 

Drawing on culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1995) and reality pedagogy (Emdin, 2016), I co-construct instruction with students, entering their worlds to create equitable, authentic learning experiences. My work is guided by Freire’s (2000) vision of education as the practice of freedom and Pinar’s (2012) insistence that curriculum engage identity and history without reduction. These frameworks remind me that inclusion must be relational and ecological—connecting the social with the environmental.

 

I understand diversity and DEI work as acts of resistance and transformation, not compliance. Inspired by standpoint epistemology (Harding, 1991) and affect theory (Ahmed, 2012), I center lived experience and emotion as sources of knowledge, while Foucault (1977) and Butler (1990) remind me that teaching is always political and identity is always becoming.

 

Ultimately, my approach to diversity extends beyond inclusion—it is about transformation. Through critically compassionate, ecocentric, and dialogical pedagogy, I aim to foster learning communities that affirm difference, confront inequity, and prepare students to engage ethically and imaginatively in shaping a more just and sustainable world.