School Dashboard
Date
07/02/2026
Position Information
Position desired: Teacher
Subjects you can teach: 7-12 Humanities Teacher, 7-12 Literature Teacher, 7-12 Philosophy Teacher, Foreign Language Teacher, Latin-Basic Teacher
Willing to relocate to: Anywhere in US, International
Summary:
I am passionate about teaching the Great Books and the humanities in general. I believe that humanistic education is a lifelong process of inquiring into the nature and meaning of human life. My teaching is informed by my Christian faith, my respect for ancient methods of learning, and my background is in the academic humanities, specifically history and the arts. Having lived and taught for over a decade in China, I’m eager to bring my experience to American students, encouraging respect for world cultures alongside a deep commitment to the values and principles of a free society. Committed to the craft of writing, I’ve taught writing at various levels and published in academic journals.
My teaching philosophy is based on my experience in various settings, from a K-12 “cram school” in Guangzhou to an Ivy League university, and from a private college consulting business to a foreign language school. I especially enjoy Socratic discussions, breaking down complex concepts into sub-tasks, and encouraging students’ creativity with imaginative prompts. I also enjoy longterm mentoring of students, and recently I’ve taken an interest in social psychology and self-growth which I hope to share with students as they face pivotal moments in their lives.
I’m seeking to contribute to a school that shares my values and goals. Having recently returned to the US from abroad, I’m willing to relocate and hoping to reconnect with my own culture and my country’s youth at this pivotal moment in our history. I also want to join a community of fellow lifelong learners who are seeking the good, the true, and the beautiful.
2718 SE Market Street
Portland, Oregon 97214 United States
Home Phone:
Cell Phone: (971) 425-1716
Email: [email protected]
CV or Resume
Website
Facebook Page
LinkedIn
Highest Level of Education: Doctoral or Professional Degree
Institutions Attended:
| Institution Name | Degree Earned (i.e., BA in English) | Date Graduated | Emphasis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yale University | PhD in Music History | 2015 | |
| Oberlin College and Conservatory | BA in English/BMus in Composition | 2006 |
Employment History:
| Position | Employer | Dates of Service | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Co-founder | Basilica Education | 2013 to present | College consulting, humanities courses for middle and high school students |
| Associate Professor | Sichuan International Studies University | 2018—2023 | Teaching at undergraduate and graduate levels, professional work, faculty leadership |
| Teacher | MQ Education | 2015—2017 | Taught various subjects to middle and high school students |
Additional Qualifications: Recipient of Fulbright Scholarship; TESOL certificate
Additional Experience with CCE: Two interviews and campus visits with classical Christian schools, spring 2026; extensive personal study of the Great Books; Great Books reading clubs in China, self-organized
Hobbies, Interests, and Family: My hobbies include reading, writing, piano, learning languages, and urban walks. I am a writer of epic fantasy novels and I compose “musical portraits” of friends, converting their names to musical notes. I’m interested in classical liberalism, history and historiography, and East Asian culture and history, among other subjects. Psychology is another lifelong interest. I was born in Portland, Oregon to a father from an Oregon pioneer farming family and a mother of Canadian extraction. I’m a widower and was happily married to my late wife Scarlett for 13 years.
Top 5 Books: Dante’s Divine Comedy. I read a canto every morning after losing my wife, a major part of my mourning process.
George Eliot’s Middlemarch. I read this along with a friend as we discussed the meaning of marriage and relationships.
Virgil’s Aeneid. I reread this as my epic fantasy series took shape and after the loss of my wife — seeking elegiac beauty and nobility in reorienting myself to my true purpose in life.
Beowulf. I studied this with my Chinese students and shared with them epiphanies about clan-based societies, heroism, and the nature of evil.
Sophocles, the Women of Trachis. After teaching a course on Western tragedy through the ages, I sought out this play while caring for my ailing father.
Top 3 Books: Love Heals, by Becca Stevens. Stevens is a Christian preacher and a remarkable woman who founded Thistle Farms, a nonprofit in Nashville that shelters and employs female victims of abuse. I picked it up for two reasons: my brother and sister-in-law support Stevens’ nonprofit, and a sentence in the preface — about the poetic justice of products for nourishing the body being made by bodies that suffered years of abuse — deeply moved me.
The Cipher, by Kathe Koja. I saw the summer’s two breakout horror films (Obsession and Backrooms) and they led me to this early 90s cult classic, about a dark hole that appears in a dingy apartment building. I later learned that Koja is also a middle school teacher in Detroit and that she likes teaching adolescents because “change is inevitable and you have no idea what’s going to happen next”: I love that.
The Unfettered Mind, by Soho Takuan. I’m drawn to Zen Buddhism as a way to clear my head of needless clutter and tired habits.
Most Influential Books: J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings. Immersion, depth, complexity, moral seriousness. Every time I read it, it transports me again.
C.S. Lewis, Preface to Paradise Lost. Not one of Lewis’s most famous works, but it has taught me so much about fantasy, Christianity, and criticism.
The Bible
Homer, The Iliad. Beauty and sadness. My first ecstatic read.
Milton, Paradise Lost. The sublime, adulthood and the loss of innocence.
Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park. The importance of a good premise. One of the childhood books that injected the DNA of fiction into me (pun intended).
Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man. So underrated, so profound, not at all what people imagine it to be. Also, got me into Hegel.
Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature. My model for history writing: ambitious, well-documented, changes your view of the world.
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein. The malleability and profundity of a truly great horror story. I’d put Edgar Allan Poe here too.
C.S. Lewis, the Chronicles of Narnia. Still not entirely sure how he did it.
Laozi, Dao De Jing. My first great spiritual read and a step on my way to Christianity.
Shakespeare, Complete Works. It’s Shakespeare!
Tolstoy, War and Peace. My vision for what fiction can do.
Preferred Denomination Type: Baptist
Current Church: Hinson Baptist Church
Current Church Denomination: Baptist
Current Church Membership: No
Current Church Attendance: I’m in the process of becoming a member of the church
Support of Traditional Marriage: Yes
Theology: I lean to a “mere Christianity” that provides an ample space for individual believers to come to God in a variety of ways. I believe in free will and individual conscience. I believe in epistemic humility and lifelong learning along with faith and inner exploration of the core facts and ideas of Christian history and revelation.
Belief in the inerrancy of Scripture?: Yes
Notes on Scripture: I believe that the inerrancy of Scripture should encourage us to study God’s word diligently and with a humble attitude. God’s will was revealed in particular times to particular people and groups, so the study of history, psychology, anthropology, languages, and so on can only aid us in understanding God’s word. I also believe that life experience, and human experience more broadly, is a necessary avenue towards God in approaching Scripture.
Additional classical training: Honestly, I have been trained in secular, modern institutions, and this is precisely what has drawn me to classical education at this point in my life. I do believe that the Socratic discussion method I learned in graduate school, the lifelong love of deep reading I inherited from my parents and teachers, and my study of languages (including Latin) and history have given me a kind of classical training, but it certainly wasn’t formal in nature.
Why I want to teach at a classical school: I want to share my love of God, young people, and the humanities. I share the values of classical Christian education in seeking the true, the good, and the beautiful. I want to join a community of lifelong learners who are genuinely passionate about their subjects as well as their students. I want to help build a refuge from certain modern, secular obsessions that I believe have tarnished education in Western societies: the replacement of education with technical training, credentialism and the worship of measurable outcomes, and ideological conformity as a form of moral pressure. I believe that classical Christian schools prepare students to be lifelong learners and good citizens of a free republic. Having returned from over a decade teaching in China, I also want to educate students about the experience of Christians and classical liberals under authoritarian regimes and the broader histories involved.
Final thoughts: I simply want to thank anyone who is currently working or running a classical Christian school for your work. I truly believe in what you are doing for our future as Christians and Americans. You’ve rekindled my hope in education and learning. Thank you, keep up the good work, and please let me know how I can become involved in and contribute to classical education.