Education for Empowerment

I believe that education is for empowerment.

Empowerment means that through education, students can gain a deeper
understanding of the world around them. My teaching is aimed at enabling
students to see the world through different theoretical lenses and
methodological approaches in social science, thereby understanding the complexities of the world they are living in. By encouraging students to actively engage in dialogues with renowned scholars from human history, pose difficult questions, and endeavor to craft answers, students will be able to develop their own way of seeing the world.

Empowerment means helping students respect, show compassion, and develop connections with people who are different from them– people with different race, gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. This includes people they encounter in daily life and those who live on the far side of the world. In an increasingly polarized world, realizing the interconnectedness among different people is the first step to bridging gaps and fostering meaningful conversations, which is one important goal that I want to achieve through my teaching.

Empowerment means providing an opportunity that allows students to better understand themselves. I want my students to be curious and reflective so that they can discover the self that they haven’t met before in the learning process. I believe that each student enters the class with a unique background. It is my responsibility, as an educator, to make my students realize that they offering a distinct perspective that enriches the teaching and learning experience in the classroom. Their knowledge, perspective and identities are therefore, to be celebrated.