My teaching philosophy springs from the point of departure that students and teachers are in this process together. When we peel back all the excessive layers in modern academics and get down to the actual foundation of education, the practice is truly about a teacher and a learner. “We’re” the only requirement for learning to take place—and that learning goes both ways—there’s reciprocity. The famed 13th century philosopher-poet, Rumi, better encompasses this essence: “Out beyond the ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there’s a field. I’ll meet you there.”

In short, I hope to foster agency in students to take more active roles in their education, in their lives, and in the world. Further, I strive for discourse that challenges students as well as myself to pursue deeper understanding of both our own narratives as well as others’. Through entertaining controversial or unconventional views, ideas, ways of knowing, etc., students hopefully leave my courses with at the bare minimum, a more open mind, but ideally, with a mindset and tools to take our collective trajectory seriously.

• Social Movement and Resistance
• Ideological Construction
• Power Dynamics
• Socialization Through Narratives
• Subaltern Studies

• 2011: Department of History, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, Master of Arts Areas of focus: Resistance Movements across the Modern Middle East, Modern Mexico, and Native American Ethnohistory
• 2009: Department of History, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, Bachelor of Arts

• HIST 1300—"Global Revolutions: A Comparative History”
• HIST 1370—“20th Century World History”
• HIST 1510—"U.S.: Birth of a Nation, 1607-1789”
• HIST 1540—"U.S.: Recent America, 1918-Present”
• HIST 1900—"Nation-Building: Stories, Identity, Conflicts, and Resources”
• HUM 3990—“Resistance and Revolution”
• HUM 3990—“Why We Think the Way We Do: Ideologies and Isms” HUM 3990—“Another World is Possible: Stateless Societies”

Jared Benson, M.A.