Teaching Philosophy

     My more academic interests include reading and writing creative non-fiction for personal, commercial, and artistic purposes. Given my decades-long study of the life and work of Hunter S. Thompson, I unabashedly refer to myself as a member of the “Gonzo Community.” I even made a mecca to the author’s childhood home of Louisville, KY. While I am no longer an acolyte of Thompson’s lifestyle choices, I continue to follow the philosophy of The Gonzo Way. My literary hero took his own life while I was in graduate school. Hunter S. Thompson was suffering from chronic, trauma-induced, orthopedic pain very similar to my own when he shot himself. At the time, I was deep into my study of his writing and editing methodologies. I was trying to apply the defined and identifiable characteristics of his “gonzo” style to different styles and genres of writing. Arguably, I was attempting to unnecessarily legitimize the author’s work to my “less gonzo” peers. I was working to keep myself from following Thompson's self-destructive path. In complete transparency, for some time, my primary field of interest was self-preservation through my education.

     Over a decade after Thompson’s death, I found myself in an unexpected career as an educator. Not surprisingly, another decade later, I remain academically gonzo. I am discovering new educational, academic, and pedagogical applications for those literary, theoretical, and esoteric ideas I developed in graduate school and through personal experience. Through this personal and academic evolution, I have created a “Dr. Seuss Literary Criticism” methodology. For the decades I have worked on this project, I have been introduced to a world of teaching techniques, models, and philosophies that have become my new gonzo laboratory. While continuing to grow my interests in reading and writing non-fiction in this now familiar educational milieu, my personal interests and activities in creative non-fiction and gonzo literature have evolved into the development, eventual publication, adapting, and publicizing my “Dr. Seuss Literary Criticism” methodology. Now, my primary interest has become less about self-preservation and more about others’ educations.