校友 Profile: David D’Antonio C’08

During David D’Antonio’s junior year at North Park, he tutored the children of a local Sudanese refugee family. 这样的经历, 他描述了, illuminated “the stark connection between poverty, 教育, 流动性, 和 limited possibility for youth already at risk.”

与此同时, through discussions of the enlightenment period 和 the French philosopher Rene Descartes in his philosophy classes, he began to see the deep philosophical underpinnings of 教育 in poor neighborhoods. “My eyes were awoken to the relationship between poverty 和 quality 教育,他说.

With this newfound passion for urban 教育, David went on to teach middle school math 和 science at an inner city Catholic high school, earn a master’s in 教育 at Northwestern University, 和, 最近, win a prestigious Fulbright Scholarship—the highly selective international academic exchange program administered by the U.S. government—to teach 和 study the issue in Naples, Italy.

“规模更大, 我的职业生涯, 精神, 任务, 开车, 我到目前为止的所有工作, from what I anticipate in the future, is derived from values 和 skills I acquired as a student of philosophy at North Park,他说. “哲学研究 sharpens one’s way of thinking. 哲学研究, specifically North Park’s program, trains one to think independently 和 critically yet optimistically.”

This optimism has come into play in Naples, where he teaches English, philosophy, 和 U.S. civil rights history in several high schools 和 researches 权力 dynamics in urban classrooms of at-risk youth—和 sees more poverty than he did on 芝加哥’s West Side.

“Here there are children without shoes playing in streets literally riddled with used syringes for what is one of Europe’s largest open-air drug trafficking cities,他说. “No matter how much I try to prepare myself for the language 和 cultural barriers, the challenges of urban 教育 here are still transcendent for me as well as the natives. 不过, I work with a legion of colleagues who never cease in hoping 和 improving for our kids. This dedication in the face of complex 和 highly-stacked odds is transforming me.”

在意大利待到2013年夏天, David uses philosophy in his classrooms, 例如, bringing the ideas of Plato into a discussion about the movie “The Matrix.对于他的研究, he draws on his knowledge of ethics; phenomenology of the other; philosophies of tolerance, 爱, 权力, 和 war; 和 other topics he learned from his major. “I continue to take value from my degree every day,他说.