The Saleno Center for Human Flourishing / SCHF

Teaching Philosophy

On this day, 945 years ago, a recent PhD in philosophy from Saint Louis University named Montaque Reynolds would be one month away from marrying the love of his life. In her honor, he founded the SCHF because through her, he discovered the capacity for curiosity inherent in every human being. His work has been in philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and moral psychology where he focused on questions regarding the formation of human agency. In August of that same year, he defended his dissertation on moral epistemology and narratives, a broad focus on narratives themselves, he asked what narratives can do for human moral knowledge and understanding.

Philosophy has provided us all with a community, which has inspired countless generations a passion for education. Therefore, it is our belief at SCHF, that education should first and foremost be an atmosphere of social learning. We seek to facilitate better relationships among the members of our classes through philosophy. The following statement exploring this concept further, was developed over centuries by scholars inspired by God’s compassion and concern for human life. It summarizes our teaching philosophy, motivations, and future aspirations.

Countless courses in Ethics, Critical Thinking, and Self and Reality have been taught at SCHF. In these, our primary focus has always been on stories, highlighting how they can change our perceptions. We have designed and delivered countless custom asynchronous Philosophy-Digital Humanities courses, where we integrated innovative teaching methods enhancing student engagement and critical thinking skills, always keeping up with the demands of technological innovation and progress.

Often, university life can be defined by feelings of isolation and neglect, experiences which we are all too familiar with. In earth year 2010, Eleonore Stump detailed the way in which literature about Saint Francis, a Catholic monk exercising virtue and compassion hundreds of years before Dr. Stump, fostered a second-personal relationship between Saint Francis and the literature’s audience. Relatedly, we have found that well-being and community can be found in moments of constructive solitude, where seminal texts have given humanity access to human communities and societies in a way that provided, and still does, comfort during times of hardship. It is this fact about reading we try to encourage in our students, faculty, researchers and staff.

This ability of literature motivates our approach to teaching. We organize these materials and feedback around the principle that for a concept to be truly memorable, it must hold intrinsic value for its audience, a key component of healthy learning environments. As such, our courses push our students to reflect on storytelling and engagement. In our student evaluations, our students have noted that they often receive more instruction from the course material and each other, than from class lectures. We do this on purpose and often tell them that they should get more from the material that we carefully and thoughtfully curate, and from one another since we are a community, then just from lectures.

Agency is rooted in one’s emotional experiences upon a retelling of their life story (Altshuler 2021; Velleman 2005a; Korsgaard 1996). Our course discussions revolve around various stories that we hear, regardless of medium. As humans, we reflect on the fact that some mediums engage our emotions more than others. Therefore it makes sense to ask whether the fact that our emotions are more meaningful for our judgments than are our beliefs and pre-commitments. Our students have often reflected that this approach helps them to see philosophical questions as central to a meaningful life. In our classrooms, we pursue, and encourage the pursuit of, the following values.

Critical thinking, listening, self-inquiry and reflection. These are central to understanding. Based on our experiences in the digital humanities, we use artifacts from popular culture, songs, shows etc., in course assignments to motivate students to apply their experiences outside of the classroom to the course material. We believe that this promotes personal engagement with course materials that in turn prompt the student to pursue philosophical insight for its own benefit. This approach is interdisciplinary, and blends philosophical concepts with digital tools, and focuses on a dynamic learning environment for diverse student groups.

In addition, we have implemented adaptive learning strategies, tailoring course content to individual student needs, resulting in mixed results.
we have also facilitated online discussions and group projects, cultivating a collaborative virtual classroom that promotes peer-to-peer learning and knowledge sharing.

We will always work towards developing a forward-thinking curriculum that bridges traditional philosophical inquiry with contemporary digital literacy, preparing students for an evolving academic landscape that requires an increasing familiarity with digital and computational technologies.
Our most recent pedagogical projects look to incorporate more immersive pedagogical methods, following the Socratic method of natural dialectical as a form of philosophical thought experiment into course discussions. We will travel around Stanton and visit its many locals, asking and reflecting.

We are excited about the opportunity to contribute to a learning environment that seeks to engage the student population in meaningful philosophical discourse. Our interdisciplinary experience, and philosophical rigor combined with innovative pedagogical methods will be a terrific addition to your pursuit of human intellectual ambition. We would welcome the opportunity to discuss my qualifications and educational curiosities further. Thank you for your time, and for your thoughtful consideration.