There are many ways to conceptualize a teaching philosophy. First and foremost, the mental image I have is one that comes from years ago when I worked weekends in a place that had a great deal of monitoring to do, and not much activity. Saturdays, there were low budget Chinese-made martial arts movies on. A prevalent theme was the school that made the students suffer, struggle, and work. Students often did not appreciate their efforts or the demands made upon them, until their fighting skills were put to a real test in the streets or wherever the movie script put them. Those who had it easy were quickly defeated while those who worked won the day.  Aside from the suffering, I look upon the purpose and function of teaching and education similarly. I want students to be well prepared so they prevail when put to the real test out on the streets, in the workplace, and as citizens and leaders.

ACCESSIBILITY
    Another element of my philosophy is to make information accessible, while also holding to professional expectations of language and terminology usage. I have put lecture notes on the Internet so that students can get the material direct from me. This helps reduce the time spent giving dictation in class and frees us up for description, discussion, and elaboration of the content and process. There are also links to other sites which I have identified as relevant or useful.
    A few years ago I was asked to present on disability and how to define it. I found no satisfactory definition in the literature, so I developed one that essentially centers on Access.  I have defined disability as "A restriction of access to information, activity, or opportunity" (Westra, 1993).  We can enable or disable people by the ways we make information available to them, or keep it from them. This continues to influence my thinking.
    On the other hand, I do not believe in spoon feeding students. I make certain things easy to access while other things students must dig for or struggle with. I do not provide study guides, and I know that I frustrate students by refusing to narrow down the range of information to study by providing study guides. In Adolescent Psychology, I tell students that one of the central themes of adolescence is the insistence that they engage in meaningful and relevant activities. I mimic this in class by creating an assignment in which the guidelines are to investigate a topic relevant to the study of adolescence and relevant to their own interests and produce some gradeable product. They are not restricted to a traditional term paper, nor does there even have to be anything on paper at the end. They are free. This creates great distress in students, but provides not only an outside learning opportunity, but helps meet my goal that they encounter an experience common to adolescents: get the freedom you demand, then have to deal with it!
    On the other hand, my Child Development assignments have the goal that students create a clinical assessment of a child's development in a manner they may be called upon to do in a professional role. The assignment is laid out very specifically, including headings, sub-headings, the nature of information that belongs in each section, and so on. I also have resource materials and positive examples on reserve in the library. The structure of this project is narrowly defined, freeing students to work on the observational and writing skills I want them to develop.

WRITING
    I have been invested in student writing since I started teaching. There have always been writing requirements in my courses. I believe that writing helps students to externalize their thoughts and make concrete what seems a swirling whirl of ideas and images.
    Writing is also a practical skill that our graduates will need to do well in order to be successful in whatever field they pursue. It is also a life skill.
    My investment in writing has taken me into serving on the GenCat Writing Assessment Cadre and its spin-offs, the Writing Intensive Cadre and the WritingPage Portfolio Assessment Cadre.

APPLICATION  ORIENTATION
    For most of our students, psychology is neither passion nor professional pursuit. The majority take the course in order to check off another box on their degree requirements form. It is my contention, that students need to be able to learn from the introductory course what they will be able to use later on. This includes Critical Thinking and Evaluating of psychological information to be intelligent consumers, and to be able to use psychological principles in their lives, where ever they may end up.
    For example, learning about Classical Conditioning by seeing how Pavlov got dogs to increase their drool output seems irrelevant to students (and to me) because most of us can't see how this would be useful in our lives. I want any dog I am around to drool less! However, to see the use of Classical Conditioning in such things as TV ads and even the process of falling in love seems to not only make more sense, but also extend the concept into their lives. I also demonstrate how using Classical Conditioning to create a fear of the street in young children can be more effective than spanking. This way, students get a rational extension of the concept to their lives.
    One of the papers for General Psychology involves having students examine how Psychology is present in their own Field of Interest. This also helps them to see how the class is valuable to them.

The  HOME SCHOOLING  CONNECTION
    My wife and I have been involved in home schooling for educational reasons since our oldest child was five. My original reluctance was overcome when I started examining some of my own experiences in schools and some of the things that are happening in local elelmentary schools, as revealed in students' papers and stories from class visits.  I have attempted to bring into my classes the best of the advantages of home schooling and criticism of traditional schools, while also playing on the strengths of our set-up here at Longview.
    One of the essential things this has caused is the general questioning of what we do, why we do it that way, and why not some other way.  For example, why do I lecture? Why do I allow certain tangents and off-topic discussions? Why did I formerly try to predict dates of exams months in advance when we rarely ended up having them on the predicted day?  Why is a standard term paper the way to assess students and their learning? Why use multiple choice tests? And the list continues.
    I have made some changes in my teaching as a result of this examination, and it has informed my discussions with colleagues on the hows and whys of our teaching. I also introduced the critique of traditional schooling to my Adolescent Psychology course by dropping the traditional textbook and introducing two popular press books. One, from a sociology background in Patricia Hersch's A Tribe Apart. The other is Grace Llewellyn's The Teenage Liberation Handbook. In the Teen Lib Handbook, Llewelly essentially writes to high school students about how quitting school to become autodidactic home schoolers might be a better alternative. It is not about dropping out, but rather pursuing a process that is more personally relevant and rewarding, and takes a hard look at why we do things the way we do in education - both things that work and things that don't.  I was asked by more than one colleague whether I had tenure before bringing such a thing into the classroom, but students have been unanimously in favor of the change. Because most of the student in this course are future teachers, they also respond with some trepidation at first, but then see how the questioning and criticism may help inform their approach to teaching and to dealing with students who may feel bored or a lack of meaning in their schooling.

MULTI-CULTURALISM
    Multi-Culturalism is a big buzz word lately, but I have been invested in getting students to see how our way of doing things is typically one way rather than THE way. I was introduced early in life to a variety of cultures, from my Father who taught people in preparation for the Citizenship Examinations. I took coursework in Anthropology in college and traveled through 49 of the 50 U.S. states and nations on three continents.
    As an example of how this applies in my classes, I have always tried to get students to look at such things as our assumptions about what is normal by looking at various cultures. My Dutch relatives were disgusted by my mixture of peanut butter and jam on the same bread because they would not mix salt and sweet together; it isn't "normal." Food typically gets a more profound reaction than other cultural differences, and students can often see how their sense of normal might be questioned in other places.
    Every one of my courses has been infused with information from cultures other than White, middle class, mid-America, etc.

SOCIAL JUSTICE
    I make a point of holding to the values of social awareness and social justice. This means making a point of questioning the -isms we live with. While it has become vogue to tout Black History Month and Women's History Month and the like, I find it vital and challenging to address current social justice issues and to bring them to students' attention. Particularly, I draw from the struggles for Lesbian/Gay/Bi/Transsexual issues and rights and the rights of people with disabilities.  I use examples from both of these struggles in class and challenge students to think of how people feel in these struggles as similar to how people felt about Black Rights at the time of "I have a dream" rather than in the security of 40 years later when we know how the chips have fallen.
    As I see it, part of the college experience is to have one's personal history and social values called into question, not necessarily changed, but challenged so they can be modified or held to after thoughtful consideration. Consequently, I feel justified in addressing such issues as part of the curriculum when appropriate and challenging students' perceptions on these and other issues.

THE  STUDENT - AS - ADULT
    I keep roll as a formality and for accountability for administrative reasons. I don't require students to justify their absences, but tell them they are responsible for what they miss whether they were sick, at a funeral, or at the lake. This treats students as adults, removes the pressure to make up lies, and gets me out of having to determine whether an absence was acceptable or not.  They can do one make-up exam, but not the final.

PITHY  QUIPS
    I have found it helpful to have a collection of little sayings on hand that help either to explain my methods or to disarm students who are getting distressed about the work and expectations they are being expected to perform. Following are some remarks I have found myself saying repeatedly through the years.

• You'd almost think this was college or something.
• When you are applying to transfer, or get a job, do you want the interviewer to look at your transcripts and say (mockingly) "Oh, you went to Longview"  or (in an impressed manner) "Oh, you went to Longview."
• If it is in the book, or discussed in class, or in outside assignments, it is fair game for the tests.
• There is no set page length for papers. Make sure you have created a well written document that covers the subject. If you've done that, you're done. If not, you're not. If you aren't sure, then seek help.
• Do what you CAN do before you complain about what you CAN'T do.
• There's no such thing as Common Sense.
• A test is just a test. It is not a measure of your worth and value as a human being.
• Of course you are graded on spelling, grammar, and punctuation in addition to the content. Think of the content as a manufacturer's product that you want to ship overseas and the writing as the ship that will transport it. Every error in the writing is like a hole in the ship. You can get by with a certain number of holes, but if there are too many leaks the boat will sink before it reaches port. Likewise, you might have terrific content in your paper, but if the English keeps it from making sense, that content won't be delivered. (This one was misquoted in the Time/Princeton Review article that featured Longveiw as College of the Year 2001)