Parvin Peivandi

My Teaching Philosophy

My teaching philosophy is creating an educational environment for my students in which they practice to be open minded and respectful to all people from different cultures or races. In my pedagogy, I like to raise awareness about the importance of community and togetherness. My art projects hover over the concept of connection and integration.

I believe my Art is not separate from my teaching practice; In both art making and teaching art, I desire to make people connected through art and sharing the stories of different cultures. In my artworks, I usually talk about my passion of connection and communication with people. My art works express the struggles and the difficulties of living between two cultures and the labor of assimilation. Coming from Persian background, I put emphasis on the importance of togetherness in our community and want to invite the students to be more sensitive and respectful of different cultures.

In my recent art projects, I brought my art practices and teaching art projects more closely by bringing performance art as one of the most influential contemporary art practices to my pedagogy. I believe the successful pedagogy is an art by itself because it touches the heart of people and evokes their feelings and self-awareness. I want to set forth the idea of how our cultural bodies are also material in the process of making art and also responding to art. I like in my art pedagogy, delivering art, making art and responding to art overlap each other. I believe in a successful art educational environment, the artist and the teacher, the student and the instructor, the material and the concept all find the same status, meaning and matter. There is no authority or autonomy of one over the other. This is the moment that I strive for to level out any hierarchy or power structures in education.

I like the morality that exists in Chris Hedges quote, “ the true purpose of education is to make minds, not careers.” I think Hedge’s belief that “the measure of civilization is its compassion” is stunning. His idea made me think of my teaching philosophy that is based on increasing compassion and respect between individuals and students in this particular context, so I think I am on a right track in my educational endeavor. I aim to design contemporary art curriculum with more emphasis on collaboration and community art experiences.

I think the profession of teaching calls forth self-awareness and reflection in me and I consider mirror as my credo. The educational career lets me to have self-reflection all the time and try hard to improve my honesty with the world. I think as an art educator I am in constant dialogue with the world; world is reflected in me and me reflected in the world, this mirror needs to be spotless.