Pedro M. San Antonio

Pedro Miguel San Antonio
Phone: (313) 317-4010
E-mail: psanant@hfcc.edu
Office: L-205
Building: Liberal Arts
Fax: (313) 317-6690.

Teaching Philosophy

"And gladly wolde he lerne and gladly teche."

--- Geoffrey Chaucer, General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales

"All education has an intention, a goal, which can only be political. . .  So we find ourselves confronted with a clear option: to educate for liberation or to educate for domination."

---Paulo Freire, quoted by Bell Hooks in "Pedagogy and Political Commitment: A Comment"

At the risk of letting someone else's words define my teaching philosophy, I'm going to let those two quotes stand for my extended thoughts on the matter.  Suffice it to say that I love teaching, love my students, love learning, and want everyone I meet to comprehend the joy and value of inquisitiveness, of intellectual curiosity.  Teaching critical thinking and writing -- in other words, teaching how to ask questions -- becomes the best way to liberate individuals.  Sometimes this is a difficult process, but it must always yield an exquisitely joyful result.

Bio

I was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico (but lived in the adjacent town of Carolina) not long after The Beatles released Rubber Soul, but before Revolver came out.  I grew up happily listening to American and British popular music, as well as salsa bands like Roberto Rohena & the Apollo Sound, El Gran Combo, Ismael Rivera, and La Sonora Poncena.  I played baseball and basketball, and like all Puerto Ricans, believed Roberto Clemente to be a saint.  I still do.  I moved to Iowa before turning eighteen and graduated from Coe College in 1987.  A year later I earned my master's degree from The University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.  That's where I live now, and between then and now I lived in Syracuse and Cleveland, teaching at various places along the way until I happily landed here.  I share my days with my wife, three children, and two dogs.

Teaching Activity

One of the good fortunes of teaching here is that I've been given the opportunity to teach all sorts of classes within the Division.  I currently teach developmental writing courses, college-level composition, and a handful of literature courses: Introductions to Literature and the Novel, Children's Literature, and Shakespeare.  Within that range I get to spend a great deal of my time studying all aspects of the English language.  On any given week I might be asking students to identify the parts of a sentence, lecturing on Shakespeare's Globe Theater, discussing the film The Apartment, and explaining how to incorporate narratives into argumentative essays.  Eventually, a great deal of the teaching and learning happens during office hours, where students can bring individual works and questions and receive one-on-one attention.