amber L. katherine, professor of philosophy 
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courses: 
PHILOS 1 - Introduction to Knowledge & Reality
PHILOS/POLSC 52 - Modern Political Thought
communications:
Office Location: 135 E Liberal Arts Bldg. 
Telephone Number: (310) 434-3539
Campus Mail: Slot for instructors, 102 Lib Arts Bldg. 
Mailing Address: Santa Monica College, 1900 Pico Blvd, Santa Monica, CA 90405.
Email Address: KATHERINE_AMBER@smc.edu 
HOME PAGE: http://homepage.smc.edu/katherine_amber/
Please feel free to contact me to help facilitate your learning. 
Please be patient and persistent in your efforts to make contact. 
If you would like to meet in person please come to the People's Office Hours. I am available for personal appointments on a limited basis.

People's Office Hours FALL 2004:  (South end of Cayton Cafeteria)

       Mondays & Wednesdays 1-2 p.m. 
       Tuesdays & Thursdays 3:45-4:45 p.m. 

If you are considering one of my courses, please read this:
Although I do not expect any previous knowledge of philosophy, I create challenging courses. My courses call for a readiness to read vigorously, write daily, and dialogue with others. Our work is to develop a daily practice of critical thinking. Academic success depends on stretching and exercising your mind. All students welcome. 

TEACHING STATEMENT by Amber L. Katherine, Professor, Philosophy & Gender Studies, Santa Monica College, 11/07/2002 

When students report that school feels more like prison than a place of possibility, it’s a problem. When knowledge is dissected by disciplinary boundaries, packaged in homogenized textbook chunks, and crammed for regurgitation on demand, schooling can undermine learning. As a critical thinking instructor, I am committed to creating classroom spaces within which academic study can become a challenging and liberating intellectual journey with immediate relevance to the life experiences and goals of community college students. My teaching encourages students to think for themselves about the pressing problems of our times and motivates them to develop critical thinking practices that will enable them to become effective participants in democratic life. 
             Whatever I am teaching -- Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” Descartes’s “Meditations,” or Beauvoir’s existentialist feminism -- I come to class prepared to help students connect the object of our studies with their lived experiences in the world. Out of these connections I assist students in the cultivation of their own critical thinking practices informed by the traditions of Western philosophy. I try to get to know the students in my classes as people so that I can incite an empowering learning experience that speaks to them and excites them. Following Paulo Freire’s model of transformative learning, I invite students to bring their own perspectives and concerns into the classroom and then I listen to what they say, I read what they write and I study what they do. Getting to know the extremely diverse population of students at Santa Monica College as individuals, as well as members of various ethnic and religious communities, has proved to be one of the most fruitful experiences in the development of my teaching practice. In addition to getting to know them, I encourage them to get to know me, Amber, not a neutral authority on the Truth, but a fellow journeyer attempting to traverse the divide between appearances and reality. I advocate and model a critical thinking practice based on deep reading and writing, interdisciplinary reflection, dialogue and debate that works to negotiate the matrix, solve “real life” problems, and flourish.
              I work in different modes -- as Socratic gadfly, patient midwife, Nietzschean trickster, and cultural activist – in a manner that is sensitive to scheduled course material, classroom dynamic and what’s happening in the world at the moment. I mix the more traditional strategies, including lectures, close textual readings and quizzes, with more innovative strategies, including performance, “free writing,” sharing circles and critical engagements with popular culture.  Learning happens, in my experience, when there is space in the classroom for authentic interactions, questioning authority, spontaneous combustions of conflict and humor, in addition to rigorous academic exercises. I am a practitioner of what bell hooks calls “engaged pedagogy,” based on the idea that education can and should be a practice of freedom.
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