In this episode, Gina and Tom join forces with Melenese Sivells and past guest Shanita Hubbard to talk about racism in higher education. This roundtable conversation is the second installment in our pandemic pedagogy series. Topics covered in this episode are white supremacy, the work that needs to be done, and how this is all complicated further by our virtual learning environment. In our segment on self care, learn about the power of wine and that No is a complete sentence.
In this episode, Gina and Tom join forces with Melenese Sivells and past guest Shanita Hubbard to talk about racism in higher education. This roundtable conversation is the second installment in our pandemic pedagogy series. Topics covered in this episode are white supremacy, the work that needs to be done, and how this is all complicated further by our virtual learning environment. In our segment on self care, learn about the power of wine and that No is a complete sentence.
1234 Pedagogy a go go.. Pedagogy Go go go.... Hello, and welcome to Pedagogy-a-go-go, a podcast about college faculty sharing what happens in their classrooms and why. This is season three, Episode Two: "Doing the Work and NO is a Complete Sentence", and we are your hosts Gina Turner and Tom O'Connor.
Tom O'Connor:All right, well, welcome to Pedagogy-a-go-go to the second part in what is shaping up to be a three part series this semester, and I suppose could go further, depending on things. The way we're doing our shows up for this special is a roundtable style. So we're lucky to have in addition to my wonderful co host, Professor Gina Turner. We're going to be joined today by Professor Melanese Sevells, she's a professor of early childhood education here at Northampton Community College. Mel, Melanese - I know you go by Mel. Can you say a word or two about yourself just as a means of introduction?
Mel Sivells:Um, yes, I have been in education for at least 25 years and I'm just training in the future!
Tom O'Connor:Welcome very much to the podcast and we have a very special returning guest from our I believe it was our"Table Shakers" episode. It was our second episode, we're welcoming back to the show professor Shanita Hubbard. Shanita is an adjunct professor of criminal justice and sociology here. And I know she's contributed to many publications as a writer on a lot of social and racial justice issues, which happens to be our theme of the day. So what we're doing for these podcasts is each one we're looking at a topic that right now is affecting all of our lives. And we're drilling down into that topic about how it's specifically affecting us, as educators in our classrooms, be they possibly on ground in this COVID times, and very likely remote. So welcome to this podcast, I anticipate it's going to be a great conversation.
Gina Turner:Yeah, and I love what you said, Mel, you know, that "the children are our future" as the song goes, right, as George Benson and Whitney Houston said,
Mel Sivells:Absolutely. Rest in peace, Whitney.
Gina Turner:I know, I know, we'll have to ask Jeff to put in a little clip of - my personal favorite because I was a little girl when the George Benson version came out. So that's always been my personal favorite version of the song. But our first question really, you know, again, as Tom mentioned, we were sort of trying to tackle, you know, the events of the day in terms of how they affect us in the classroom. So how are you tackling issues of social and racial justice in the classroom? I'll go ahead and start with Mel on this question.
Mel Sivells:Because I'm in a teacher preparation program, racial injustice has always been part of the educational system. It's one of those, you know, systemic racism type of things in it goes kind of unsaid. It really is. It's, it's very...
Gina Turner:it's kind of cooked into the system in a way...
Mel Sivells:it's cooked into the system, but it's also in the way that we're raised. So our students don't understand the implicit and explicit biases that they already bring to the classroom. And sometimes I'm at their very first encounter with a teacher who has been African American, or you know, anyone of color. So it's something that, you know, I intentionally kind of embed in but not knock over the head with, I make sure that our students understand equity and inclusion, especially when it comes down to young children. Because we have all different abilities. So that's one part of it is the inclusion piece. And not just the disabilities, but also how we see each other in all of those stereotypes that we're bringing in. So we take a lot of time in those first years, or first two years of our program to help students to understand who they are and what they're bringing into the classroom.
Gina Turner:Yeah, I think that's such a great point, what you say about their own exposure to an instructor of color. But then of course, if they're staying in the Lehigh Valley, they're going to be teachers in classrooms where they have students of color, that means they're going to have to learn how to interact with, for sure. So it's like you say, it's really built into the profession of what they're doing. So how about you, Shanita? How have you been tackling it in the classroom?
Shanita Hubbard:Well, since I teach sociology classes in political science and criminal justice, I've said to my students, I always say this from the very beginning, that if you are about to graduate from NCC, and you are a criminal justice major, or sociology or political science, and you haven't discussed racing your classroom, you've been given a huge disservice. Like, it's just impossible, and you've been cheated, right? So I have these very candid conversations. But in order to do that, I'm very intentional about creating a safe space, right, all of my students need to know that it's going to be safe, like it's going to be emotionally safe, like my students of color, it's important to know that they're not going to be attacked, and students who have very different opinions need to know that this is still a safe atmosphere, right? I'm gonna have to do that balance to know the difference. Like, it's just really hard. I have to be very intentional about creating that space. And I understand that, and I've learned how to do that in the physical classroom. I haven't learned how to create that safe space yet, in this type of atmosphere. And I recognize that right? So I can't, so I had to adjust the way I teach really quickly, because I haven't created - I don't feel like I've created a safe enough space to have that really critical dialogue, like I remember during a 2016 election, when it was really hostile, I will have Bernie supporters, Trump supporters, Hillary supporters in a political science class, and we would have amazing dialogue. And there was a safe space. I and I was able to gauge that, right? I don't have that space to be able to have those conversations, right. So I have to be honest, like, it doesn't matter how great a professor I think I am, if my students walk away feeling harmed, then I was the one that did them a disservice. So knowing that I don't have that space, it does hinder me because it modifies the way I have to talk about it, right? So I introduce it in the context of COVID. Right, because you can't hide from this pandemic, you can't hide from this conversation without talking about economic inequality. And then you can't hide from economic inequality without talking about race. So I have to present it in a way where it's part of the questions, so then they'll bring it up themselves, right? So then they're challenging themselves with a new like, wow, I never thought about this, right. So I have to slowly feed it to them in a way where they're leading the conversation. And then I'm introducing it something to so much more. Right. I think last month, maybe Monday was such an excellent dialogue about economic inequality, because we started talking about like, food, how not having access to the right food impacts your body, right, and now you're not healthy. And now you're at risk, greater risk of COVID. So I'm so excited next week to get introduced to the concept of environmental racism, right? But they got there by themselves, right? They created that right? So now it's different. Right? So to go back to answer your question, I still it's very critical to talk about race, but I have to change the way I do it, and I have to move slower. And it doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong, it just means that I have to do a slower and differently,
Gina Turner:it's so interesting, because for you, you're saying you have to contextualize it in order to make it safe for the students to be able to almost relate to the topic and then to be able to talk amongst themselves about it. Whereas for Mel, it's almost- it's more baked into their training as future educators. And it makes me think to for Tom, you know, because I believe you're teaching Sex and Gender this semester. And I'm wondering, because of course, another element of this is, you know, is the misogyny and sexism that's going on in the culture too. So how are you layering all of this stuff and tackling it in the classroom?
Tom O'Connor:Well, first, I want to just twin off of what she needed said, because I spoke about that in our previous episode actually about having to change the game in terms of the safe spaces, we're creating an online environment. And so I you know, I'd use the example of of talking about sensitive topics and someone's parents in the back of the room, you see them and you know, other students are seeing that as well. And Shanita, I just I applaud the way that you turn it around, you know, if you will, if you're approaching it differently, and I found myself in in the same position. And it's funny, so I have two different classes. I have the women in gender studies class where of course, issues of I mean, in terms of how are you tackling issues of social and racial justice? That is the course right I mean, like it is the curriculum at the outset. What is interesting is actually I've changed the assignments in that course in terms of giving the students a bit more freedom. Whereas the courses... so I'm going to just - we talk about plagiarism and stealing ideas - matter of fact, I found one of one of my classes today, but um, I totally stole something from Joy Reed's new show the readout on msnbc. I'm not sure she's still doing this, but um, One thing I did is I created bi weekly, she cheated a segment on the craziest thing I've seen all week. And she would and so like, and it's really broad. And so I said, here's what I want you guys to do (we're using Flipgrid to do it) I want you to go and absorb the news around you on your social media, you know, on your preferred network that you watch, and identify something that you feel is really important, and you need to talk about and bring it back. And as a hybrid class, right, where there's a lot of asynchronous work, it's this wonderful way to continue conversations and then draw them back into the classroom. Because - and I will tell you that in my women in gender studies class, we're using feminism to talk about issues of race, of police brutality, because that's what they want to talk about, you know, like, they may not know who Clarence Thomas is. But at the same time, they certainly know who Brianna Taylor is. They want to talk about it. And it's also, so my other class is a literature based class. And it's interesting, Mel to come back to something you were talking about, about being an early educator, as an African American woman of color. It comes out that's about representation, right? It's about children, seeing people in a role as a leader, as a mentor, as a teacher. And in my literature class, it's all about representation. It's about first picking diverse voices. But then it's also about picking texts that deal with it. So you know, I'm so cruel to my class, because the day of the election we're doing Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard To Find, which is a brutal story, for those of you who've read it, you know, but exempting kind of the brutal ending of the story, the first half of that story is all about racism in the Old South, and how it is passed down generationally. And, even in literature class, you know, our discussion is, you know, the, the main point I give to them is that, to read is to make us more human. We read to empathically, identify with others, and others(lower "O", not you know, a Simone de Beauvoir, "capital O other"), we recognize that as a problem, but it's about reading and learning through difference and exposure, you know, it's the best kind of diversity. So that's, that's a little bit how I've been trying to tackle it in my two classes. The big one is really just openness of assignments and allowing them to draw the discussion to areas of personal importance, and then they can apply Simone de Beauvoir talking about the other, you know, when you've got Trump talking about "looters" and "rioters" as opposed to, as opposed to civil and rightful protesters protesting something very important, and how they are being othered. So it's great to be able to draw that into a classroom experience.
Mel Sivells:Definitely.
Tom O'Connor:How about you, Gina?
Gina Turner:Oh, well, you know, I'm, hearing what both Shanita and Tom were saying about the students bringing their own interest into the classroom. And that's also something I'm trying to tap into. So I'm teaching research methods this semester, and cognitive psychology. And for both of them, I sent them out to our college's Peace Conference, which was a three day event, where they brought in a number of people from the community to talk about different social justice organizations. And the students who went to those events. And I said, I'll give you 10 points if you go and then send me an email about it. And the students who went wrote me these impassioned emails, and I'll use one in particular, one young woman emailed me and she said, "I went to a session on immigration. And it was so amazing to hear someone talk sympathetically about undocumented immigrants." And then she said that her father was an undocumented immigrant who had been deported when she was in high school, after living in the country for 30 years. And I, you know, after I express my outrage back to her about that, I said, this is your research project. And so she's turning it into a project on attitudes about undocumented immigrants and knowledge about the difficulty of becoming a citizen in the United States. So they're turning their interests into the work in the class, which I think is hopefully going to keep them engaged and hopefully also showing them the practical applications of the content in the class as well. Because I was thinking for Mel, you know, as you're teaching them about being representational in the classroom, I'm wondering if you're using different examples maybe or are you finding different examples of things that you are using for them in the class?
Mel Sivells:Well, it varies from semester to semester. One of my colleagues, Amanda Seguinot, knows she teaches one of our courses called Child, Family and Community, and you really have to understand the socio economic statuses of the families that we serve as teachers. So she had put in a great assignment of Black Lives Matter. So when she brought that in, and she wanted our students to come and understand the perspective of people who really, truly believe in Black Lives Matter. Now, for some of our students, this is the first time they even had to think about, you know, Black Lives Matter, you know, they see it, but they don't, it doesn't affect them. So it's not, it doesn't mean much to them until they get to that assignment. Now, I know you're asking what I do, but, I think that that was a really great example of it. I am extremely intentional in how I bring race into our classroom, because I don't want to be the teacher that's going to beat them over the head. I shouldn't be the only one who is waving the flag for diversity, just because I am the African American faculty member. So it is part of all of us. And you know, when we are doing our curriculum, and we lead as a team, Kate, Amanda and I, we're all bringing different things to the table, so that we can really present our information in meaningful ways. So when I do teach the profession course, I'm bringing up those historical moments like Brown versus Board of Education, or when Ruby Bridges had to go into a kindergarten class, escorted by, you know, guards. And then I show the picture of the angry white mob that was there. That was in 1964. These people are still alive, or could possibly be alive, they're your grandmothers. So we have to really put things into perspective for students so that
they understand that:one, it is real. And two, just because it's not affecting you directly, doesn't mean that it doesn't affect the profession, or our lives or community. So we just make sure that we tie in that historical perspective, because if you don't know your history, you don't know where you're going to be able to go.
Gina Turner:Yeah. And I love what you say about - you should not be the only flagbearer in the division, right? That the only, you know, the African American teacher is the one who is talking about race, and that is shared amongst all of your colleagues.
Shanita Hubbard:Can I piggyback on that, before we move again, I'm like nodding my head like a Baba woman. Because one of my point of contentions is like I said, I teach sociology criminal justice, juvenile justice. And I am intentional about introducing my students, to sociologists that they men that I've heard of, and to believe it or not, I don't have to go very far to do that. All I have to do is tell them about a black woman, and then they draw a blank faces. I'm like, how long have you been in this major? And you don't know Dr. Kimberly Crenshaw? Like, what type of seminar courses have you been taken? And it's not and it hasn't come up. So I don't say this to them. But in my head, I'm thinking my colleagues have to be more intentional about who they put on your syllabus, or who they're introducing, you know, the students to because to Mel's point, we shouldn't have to be the only ones waving the flag, you don't have to necessarily come to your class and say,"Intersectionality!!" you can very easily - Why can't she be a part of your - why can't these black sociologists be a part of your syllabus? Right? part of your job is about programming. Right? So I was like, Let's all be more intentional about that. And I was saying that going forward, I want to be deliberate to make sure that I am looking forward from our trans community, right? I want to be more intentional about introducing your work, not as,"hey, it's trans Month!" Nope, this is just a wonderful piece of work. And we're going to discuss it and then later, by the way, this is who that person is, so that you can know to normalize it. But it can't just be on like the PoC professors to do this work.
Gina Turner:Yeah, that's beautifully said. Right? That, that it just becomes woven into- this is the curriculum, and these people belong on the curriculum along with all of the other people who have classically been on the curriculum. So my next question for you guys, actually, you've already started talking about which is thinking of yourself in the classroom. Right? How are you personally affected by this summer of racial and social justice upheaval in the classroom? You know, we've already sort of touched on the fact that we can't be the only ones talking about these things. So maybe I will come back to Shanita just to talk about like, how do you feel different in the classroom because of all of
Shanita Hubbard:Um, that is a really good question. One of the this? things that I always do even when I first started teaching, I teach from the place of my own academic hurts, like I've shared the story with you guys before that all through my academic career, it wasn't until I went to an HBCU did one of my professors Tell me "Wow, you're a good writer", I used to always get accused of plagiarism, of cheating. And I didn't recognize it for what it was when I was much younger. Right. So um, when I got to graduate school, I remember being -there was only two black people in my entire program. And it's one particular class, it was just me, I was only black person, and we're talking about race. And students were saying some, and it was a mixed class, I was working on my master's, they were working on a PhD, and a PhD students were saying some really awful racist crap, the professor, let it fly, in the name of you know, playing devil's advocate, and like, not realizing the power dynamic that was at play in that class. No one said anything. So it's just like me and this guy, you know, I've always been Shanita. So just man, this guy going back and forth for the entire class. So that experience like that's why I'm always cognizant of power dynamics and creating a safe space, right. So I took that, I always take that with me, but it's been amplified lately, like to be sure to create an incredibly safe space for all of my marginalized, all of my students period. But you know, particularly for marginalized students, and how I approach it. So I think it's just kind of amplified the way I try to create safe spaces. But again, it's harder for me to do this online. And I can, like, share an experience like, I've some of my students, I don't even know if you have mastered this, I don't even know if this is okay or not. But some of my students don't still don't put their camera on. Right, I got to the point where I just said, Listen, y'all gonna have to figure this out? Because I'm not talking to a blank screen. So who's taking one for the team?Or we're just gonna sit here. and then it rotates. Right? So but there's still some students that will never put the screen on and my daughter, she's upstairs, not now but doing remote learning. And she pointed something out to me. She said, Mom, you keep calling these students to "put your screen on"? Did you ever think there's a reason they don't want to invite you into your home? So I was like no, she's worse than Tom. She called me she gives me evaluations! She's harder than you, Tom! So she's like "you keep call them about that you think that makes them feel good, that makes them want to come back?". So I was like, so I stopped being as hard about turning the camera on. So there's some students in one of my sociology classes, I don't know the race, right? So I was teaching, I can't remember what I was talking about. But the student raised their hand. And he interjected to ask me, How do I feel about black Americans and code switching? Now? I don't know your race. So I don't know what that means coming from a white man, right? Because that means something different coming from a white man versus coming from a black guy, right? So I was like, This is hard to answer, and I can't even have my students don't even have the camera on. So I can't tell if they like, what the hell was cold switching? I can't tell if they're lost. So it's just you know, dynamics like that, where you don't even think about like I have to, it's harder. So I have to stop kind of explaining. But still keeping in mind. I don't even know who's asking me. So I was like, Well, how do you feel? I have to throw it back to start to figure it out? Like, is that something you incorporate? Like, you know, so it's hard.
Gina Turner:That's so interesting. Yeah, it's just another wrinkle that we have to deal with right now, for sure. Is the technological considerations.
Mel Sivells:Well, with that and let me just go on with how education is extremely, extraordinarily difficult, because we're an application major: I have to see you actually interacting with the children, we have a skill set of seven skills and strategies that I am looking for, I'm looking for students to support the young children when they're in the classroom, how are you stretching them? How are you engaging and stimulating their minds and making them interested in what's being learned? And I can't really see that from here, you know, I have to be able to be out, we have to touch it. And so my students, you know, at one point, we had them write in lesson plans. And they had to record a video of them doing the lesson plan. So they were teaching their teddy bears, and no, that's, that's not gonna do it for me. I need to see what you're doing and how that's working with the young children and whether or not you are able to do it. And I tell them, to get back to the whole equity and inclusion and diversity. I tell them right away. If you think that you're better than the people that we serve, you are in the wrong profession, and I need to have a meeting with you so that we can find a new place for you because you're going to come across a whole bunch of diversity, things that you have never even dreamed of before. You know, it's parents with you know, two moms, parents with two dads, parents who you know, you just don't know if you have these things that are stumbling or you're sitting there wondering whether or not you can figure this out? You can't, because the child is the most important piece of it. And that's just the bottom line. So I deal with it by modeling, hopefully that I'm able to connect with them online. It has taken a tremendous toll on on me personally, as far as I feel like I'm working 24 hours a day, you know, they email me like midnight. And you know, even though I'm not answering, I'm just looking at it like they expect me to really look at this email!
Shanita Hubbard:So can I say something? You said such a good point, I think, Mel said that if you think you're better than people you serve it, you're not. One of the things that makes it difficult when you're having this conversation about racial inequality is there - people think our students feel disconnected? Well, like, not necessarily, maybe they're not looking down on them. I just like oh, them over there that has nothing to do with me. They can't connect to it. Right? So when I said I talked about COVID, this was a great equalizer, right? Because even our white students, they are not rich, right? So when I want to introduce the idea of how economic inequality has been amplified, let's talk about this. One of the ways I'm doing it is talking about this remote learning thing, because a lot of our students like, don't have good Wi Fi, like students email me like I'm kind of sharing Wi Fi, and I don't have a laptop and I have a broken laptop. Right? So that's one of the ways that I've used to help them to connect with why these conversations are important. Like, look how your academic experience is being shaped. Because, to be frank, it's assumed that you can afford a quality laptop, it's assumed that you can afford wonderful Wi Fi and that you have these things, right? Because this is what this is what economic inequality looks like. So it's so important, right to make sure that they're not feeling removed or disconnected from the people that they're serving or working with, or even the conversations that we're having.
Gina Turner:Yeah, I'm so glad you guys have brought the question of technology into the conversation, because that's another aspect that I wanted to touch on for sure, that we definitely wanted to ask you about. I did want to back up though, briefly, because I wanted to ask you, Tom, you know, so Shanita, and Mel and I, we're all African American women in the classroom, but as a white male in the classroom, have you felt different in the way you're presenting with your students or interacting with your students given all of the things that are happening in the news? And even, you know, is is technology hampering or, or even helping in some way? Kind of putting the questions together?
Tom O'Connor:Yeah, that's a good one and always Gina's it's not even of the moment. It's, you know, doing my doctoral work at Lehigh University as a straight white man studying queer theory just to begin with, which is, you know, which investigates everything from gender and sex issues relating to gender and sexuality to of course, race and class. I have always had to check myself, right? And so in listening to some of the conversation, I was teaching Roxane Gay right now who's the greatest, and she has an awesome essay on on privilege called peculiar benefits in Bad Feminist. That was a selection - we just read it so it's fresh in my mind. And so I always have to be aware as I'm teaching Women and Gender Studies, right? Let's be honest, my entire class, I am the only man in that classroom actually, which has never happened to me before. And basically, I handle any issues relating to race or any minoritarian group pretty much the same way, so when I when I teach my Women and Gender Studies class, I tell them I you know, I say, the day that I tell you that I'm 100% comfortable teaching this class is the day I can never teach this class again. I have to come to that class acknowledgingmy privilege, with an ear towards listening to other voices - with an ear towards identifying the stories that I haven't heard that I don't know, and opening up spaces for those stories to be to be told. And so that's so the experience is always difficult on the other hand, it's also about ally-ship, right? It's important that straight white men - and I mean, let's be honest, I think we need to address the moment that we're having this conversation. It's the Thursday after the election, we have no idea who our next president is going to be still, which is going to change the course. We're all walking on eggshells very nervous for who's going to be in the street. I have both liberal students and conservative students and I'm closest right now to my on ground class. If I could identify the way issues of social and racial unrest in this country are affecting me in the classroom, it's actually I would talk about fear and anxiety, both on my part and on my students part is that they want to talk about it. My class shows up 15 minutes early, we are not talking about literature for those 15 minutes, we were talking about what is going on. And you know, and whether it's a conservative student of mine who's really worried about the left on the street, or, you know, or if the other way around, they're afraid. And so we need to be really conscious, I think as educators of how everyone's feeling, including ourselves, so that we open up and comes back to Shanita's safe spaces, and the peculiar challenge of creating safe spaces in remote and online environments. But also safe spaces on ground. I'll be honest, I got in trouble four years ago, after Trump was elected for an email I sent out to all my faculty, which apparently if I'd sent it as a faculty member would have been okay. But because I sent it as an administrator, it was deemed problematic, which is basically though, asking them... to just let our students know what's going to be okay, that Northampton is actually a community have safe spaces, where we can talk about these issues. And so whatever we're - and we're still there, now, we just have more PTSD, and we're just carrying more stress than ever. I mean, at least I'm gonna I don't want to preach, I don't want to suppose how you guys felt on election night. But I mean, I think one commentator put it best when, when Florida was called Red. And they said, I can hear liquor cabinets being opened up across the nation.
Mel Sivells:I knew we weren't going to take Florida, I knew that
Gina Turner:There was an article, I don't remember what paper it was, but it was talking about the liquor store - it was interviewing a liquor store owner, and talking about the difference after 2016 and 2020. Just the difference in purchasing liquor patterns...
Shanita Hubbard:We talk about creating safe spaces for our students, Northampton has to be very deliberate for creating safe spaces for us, you know, for the community. And I thought about this when- right in the summertime, like, right in the midst of what is happening, I wrote a piece for The Guardian. And my white editors never think about this, they will throw like my bio is pretty general because I tried to I don't like the whole world to know where I live and where I work, you know, for safety reasons. So she decided to, you know, add to my bio that I teach at Northampton, right. So this is ready to summertime, right before classes are about to start. Northampton is emailing a kabillion emails. And then so are these people, right? No, like, it was an article about everything that was going on. And then you know, she put that I worked here. So people looked up my Northampton email address to tell me exactly how much you know, they hated me when I wrote some of it, they love it. Some of they hated it. But the point is my email, my work email, I was upset. It was buried in it. Like I'm getting stuff from students, everything was - it was terrible. And then my friends were like, Oh, my gosh, are you concerned about you know, losing your job? Like, they're gonna know, I'm like, they're gonna know what, that they're gonna know that I'm totally against, you know, racism? And I was like, and that's not okay?
Tom O'Connor:I have been meaning to talk to you about that, Shanita!
Shanita Hubbard:Then I take a stance against racism. I'm afraid of that.. No, I'm not worried about that. And I would say a lot more about them, you know, then it would - I wasn't worried about that. Because I think a that kind of speaks to the space, the fact that they just never crossed my mind. I thought that was crazy that people were reaching out like, Oh, my gosh, you're gonna be looking for a job. Like what? speaking out of its racism.
Gina Turner:I mean, it is always a question of how much we share our own personal beliefs in the classroom. I mean, when I think about how this has impacted me as an instructor, I mean, I was also teaching classes over the summer. And, you know, we've touched Shanita, you just touched on the fact that we need to keep safe spaces for ourselves. And that's something that we're going to, you know, talk a little bit more about in a few minutes. But, one thing I'm realizing is, is that I need to make sure that I am able to feel as open and honest with my students as possible about how I'm feeling that day. So, if I come in, and I'm just having, I'm feeling a little fragile, right, and I'll just say, you know, wow, you guys, I'm feeling a little fragile today. And now I teach psychology and so again, it's sort of you know, kind of like with Mel the structure of what she's teaching is about, basically modeling being supportive. You know, but almost a figure with some authority and with some gravitas and and I guess for me, I think in psychology It's really about like modeling empathy. I mean, I, obviously I think we're all trying to model empathy. But it's a really important thing for me for them to recognize the importance of being, you know, empathetic and vulnerable and honest with each other. And so I'm honest about, "oh my gosh, you guys, I was so busy, I meant to have this, you know, this tab open, I didn't have this tab open" and just kind of trying to be as authentic as I possibly can. And, you know, to come in the class and say, the news yesterday, you guys or whatever is going on, just to take a moment to recognize "Oh, yeah, I'm a human being in my, you know, crazy Green Room, sitting here with my croaky voice, because it's eight in the morning, so I'm trying to drink as much tea as I can, so that I don't sound like a frog". Just just kind of kind of recognizing all of the challenges and, and to your point, Shanita, your daughter is a much more insightful person than I feel like I was because it took me a long time to come to the same conclusion she did about video in my classes, because nobody turns on their video, but I didn't emphasize it. And I finally realized that they need to earn, I should say, I need to earn their trust, for me to be allowed to interact in their own spaces in their environment. So I always have my video on but I've told them, "You know, as long as you guys are interacting", because I do a lot of small group work, so I make sure I'm basically talking to every student in the class, we use the chat a lot, because as you know, again, has been pointed out, some of them are struggling with having, you know, good Wi Fi connections having having strong enough bandwidth. So, you know, having video on isn't even an option for them, or their microphone isn't working, or their laptops being weird. So we use the chat a ton. And we get a lot done in the chat. I mean, they can do small group stuff. And it's fantastic to see the kind of work that they can do in the chat. So I feel like we've now been able to create an environment where they do feel like we're interacting, and we're a little bit of a community even though we're not necessarily staring at each other no matter what we look like.
Shanita Hubbard:My daughter gave me a tip that I'm going to share with you guys like I have like in writing, I have this for like people always ask me like some people like you share so much of yourself, do you have rules about what you share. And I say that I don't, I only share my scars, not open wounds that are still healing, like I'm not showing you these things that because you can touch them and affect them, but also your scars that healed if it's going to lead to collective healing. So that's my rules about what I share. But I do realize that I'm so much more guarded with my students. And my daughter pointed this out to me, because I had my car in the shop one day, I was supposed to be back home by a certain time and I'm like, damn my class is about to start, and they're not even finished. So I had to like go in. They gave me like a loaner car. I'm like driving to outside of the library to have my class, but I didn't turn my camera on. So I like have my whole class without my camera on. So I'm telling my daughter about my day. So I told her that story. She was like, why wouldn't you turn your camera on? I'm like, because I'm in my car outside of the library, she said. So your students need to know that you're struggling with these technology issues too. And that is not fun for you either. But hey, you're doing the best you can. She said they might think that that's cool. She's struggling, just like we're struggling. And I was like, damn, little 10 year old!.
Gina Turner:That is amazing! That is so insightful!
Shanita Hubbard:Yes, I was like, You know what, you're right. I shouldn't put my camera on and just explain to them like, Listen, I was supposed to be done. But here we are in a car, and I'm stealing your Wi Fi at the library like this is what we're doing. And I was like, I really should have shared that with my students.
Gina Turner:That is so terrific!
Mel Sivells:With the camera thing, you know, I don't care if they don't put their camera on. But I need them to at least chime in, though that I know that they're there. But at some point in the semester, I do need to see you. You know, I need to know how you look and how, you know. So I do wait until after class and say well, you know what, Tom, can you hold on? Hang on for a minute, and then one on one. I will say "Do you mind just putting your camera on so that we can meet each other face to face?" And you know, and when I put it like that they'll they'll do it?
Tom O'Connor:Yeah, it's been tough to navigate. I've swung on this issue. I was the early proponent of they have not invited us into their homes or wherever they're they're zooming from. And so I wanted to respect that. And so I was encouraging a video, but I've made really clear that I was totally you know, like that would be totally cool if they didn't use it. And then like 60% of the cameras went off. I felt like I'd sabotage myself. And I'm playing with the idea of a kind o contract and I'm totally stealing this from my wife who also teaches remotely and, you know, she tells her students that her expectation is that they're going to have their video on if there's anything that's keeping them from that they can just privately chat with her, they will let her know and if it's semester wide it will be semester wide. You know, and they don't have to, you know, they don't have to divulge every detail, but it can just be, you know, it can be as loose as my house situation is, you know, it changes because of kids pets, all these reasons. And for those reasons, you know, my preferences, you know, and I'll find other ways to engage because to Mel's point, I mean, that's what we need, we need engagement. And I agree with your male I want to see their face at least once because I mean, we we communicate through our faces, right? It's how we begin to know people. And sometimes I feel a little bit like, like, I'm teaching like a blind man, if I if I have too many videos not on, and I'm imagining, you know, it's like Stephen Colbert, and all the late night hosts after they went home, they no longer have an audience in front of them. That's how teaching feels basically, like, I don't know how he responded to what I'm saying. If I can't see it.
Mel Sivells:A funny story is I asked a student to put her camera on, she put it on and she and her boyfriend were hunting. I said "Turn the camera off! Turn it off, turn it off!"
Gina Turner:Oh, go ahead, Tom.
Tom O'Connor:I had a student - I just I have to share. So she turned her camera on to ask a question, which is another way to simply say you can leave your camera off unless we put it on maybe if you say something. But when she this was not in my class. So she turned her camera on and she was Zooming from her bed, and then a partner just gets up out of the bed next to her. I'm like, all right, you know, we do have to talk some Zoom decorum, people.
Gina Turner:Well, so how do you suppose what we are learning about, you know, the Zoom decorum and how we show up for our students and what we share with our students. And Shanita that is absolutely beautiful. You know, you can show the scars, but not the wounds.
Mel Sivells:I love that.
Gina Turner:I love that too. But what are we going to take forward in, you know, 2021, fingers crossed, when we are physically back in our classrooms, still dealing with all of these issues that this summer has brought to light? Right. I mean, one of the biggest things I think that has come out this summer, is that a lot of the implicit stuff has become very explicit, people understand more about what privilege is, for better or for worse, people are finally really understanding what systemic racism is, for better or for worse. So you know, when someday we will not only be interacting with each other on Zoom, what do you think you guys will bring forward into your in person class or classes at that point?
Tom O'Connor:Specifically, are you talking about technology Gina in terms of technologies at the moment, or no, you've moved?
Gina Turner:No, I'm actually asking about - I'm not asking about technology. I'm actually asking what we've learned now in this moment, because we have to use technology, what is something you will take forward? When we don't have to use technology? Does that question Make sense?
Mel Sivells:It does, you know, I think that I would use to temper myself a little bit more to slow down. Because that, you know, COVID had made us all stop. And then we had to realize what was really important for our students to know, instead of all of this other little busy work that would just kind of enhance their learning a little bit more, but how can I get what they need to know, in a more meaningful way, that's not going to be wasting time, or just, you know, kind of busy work. So I want that. And I also want a more awareness of - and I guess this is a byproduct of slowing down, but just to get to know each other more relationships is the key to to success.
Gina Turner:I love that just slowing down. Like the benefits of slowing down. Sorry, go ahead. Shanita.
Shanita Hubbard:No, I was just saying that's good. But one of the things that I'm no longer afraid of the pivot, like pre COVID, when I would teach if I would have my syllabus, right and I have this plan to get to this point by maybe March. If I'm not there, I would be like, damn it, I f-ed up. I was considering like as a failure. I would like to be kind of regimented to that. I'm not afraid of the pivot anymore. Like we've literally had to stop change and adjust and just make life happen. And I'm going to take that with me if I'm doing something and I think it's an amazing idea because it worked last semester in the fall in the previous semester. If it's not working. I'm so cool with scrapping it and just creating something right there. I'm just not scared to pivot and scrap that.
Mel Sivells:That's the whole teaching piece of it. You have to be so flexible in order for - and that spontaneous learning is so much better than that pre planned learning.
Tom O'Connor:Yeah, it is.
Gina Turner:Yeah. How about you, Tom?
Tom O'Connor:You know, I've been, so I've been ruminating on this, and what what am I going to bring forward. And I do want to talk about a technological component as it relates to social justice issues, about how technology has changed our classrooms. And it will forever change our classrooms going forward in terms of and so what I will bring forward is a certain insight and awareness. And it's this, and it's not good, but it's really important. And I think about it in terms of how changed would history be if there hadn't been cameras on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, right. And one thing that has changed since then, is the absolute abundance of technology. And one reason I think that Gina to your earlier point that the implicit has become explicit for our students, is they can see it. And it was all people. I mean, like one of the best things to come out of long standing violence against people of color by the police and others, right, is the diverse coalition of people that have come to stand up against that, and what that looks like, right? So that's, that's a positive thing. But the other thing that technology has made us so aware of as people have gone to the streets in these activisms, is we have a white supremacist problem in this country. And I mean, like, we just need, we need to say it, we need to label it, and we need to act and teach accordingly. Because for a long time, we pretended that we were over that we you know what I mean, it was the Klan. That was Jim Crow South, right. And there may not be hoods in the streets. But there is a white supremacist movement afoot in our country. And I think I can say that objectively, without pushback for most people. Most.
Gina Turner:well...
Tom O'Connor:like, and that isn't - so coming back to being
you know, to Gina's question:the challenges of teaching issues related to race or gender and sexuality as a white male. Right, like, well, now I'm teaching as a white male, where my ally-ship is more important than ever, right? And building new coalition's across difference is more important than ever. And I don't know yet how that's going to change exactly our classrooms. But it will, it is forever changed from this moment to what we now know, especially knowing how close this vote was because this was a referendum, not just on a president. This was a referendum on racism in this country.
Tom O'Connor:Amen, Shanita!
Shanita Hubbard:Oh my god, can I please say something I'm typing really, as we kind of continue to have open dialogue Because asking me to do this, and like, you about what ally-ship look like, I hate that word. I'm like, No, roll up your sleeves, be a co-defender get to work, we got it. What is work look like in an academic setting, and looks like your white peers having these complicated conversations in their classroom. So like Mel said, we're not the only people know, be the whole... this brown professor, to come around, saying this. Right? And I think back to last semester, um, obviously, this was before a lot of stuff happened, but not before it existed. Right? So I'm in this documentary that's speaking about sexual violence against black woman. So, like, the school was really supportive, right? And they were like, Oh, this is great. Um, there was a lot of like, some of our white professors like, this is fantastic. Are you going to show this? You know, are you going to teach this and you teaching all of this. You're exhausting me, right? And you know, and I'm like, I understand their intent. But intent is different from impact. And I'm like, you can also teach this, if you're not familiar, do the work, watch the film, roll up your sleeves, do some googling and talk to me teaching your own class, right? You can do this too. think you're an ally, but you're making me more tired. So ally-ship looks like you doing the work too. Do the work because when you don't do the work, you make it extra harder and heavier to lift for all your other black professors. Right? So I love that Thomas teaching Roxane Gay it's like making my black feminist heart leap that he's a white man doing this, like seriously, like, normalize this, do the word get familiar with it, because that's what ally-ship looks like in our - period. But especially in academia, it looks like our white professors doing the work too.
Gina Turner:I think that's, again, I'm so glad you emphasize that and, you know, again, that the work needs to be shared and some of the most - the missing conversations are white allies with other white allies and to be able to talk about their new understanding or to be able to share their understanding from similar perspectives. I was in a meeting the other day and a white colleague shared that she found it hard to imagine how we could do diversity hiring at the same time as finding good candidates. And it was just really stunning to me to hear. But I would have never heard that had these conversations not be bubbling up. So it's an opportunity to explain and to give a little more understanding. But in the moment, I personally was absolutely exhausted. I just couldn't, I couldn't bring myself to answer the question. And thank goodness, another colleague actually did. And it was great to be able to see that those are conversations that can happen out, you know, that are not only driven by people of color, and that's one of the, the important pieces of ally-ship is not just read a book, but talk about the book that you have read with other white people.
Mel Sivells:Right.
Shanita Hubbard:And also make connecting the dots - we're talking a lot about racial unrest, right, and how we bring into our classrooms. But there's something else going on in academia, maybe that's a whole nother discussion for another podcast. But there's been a slew of these white professors pretending to be people of color holding high ranking positions in academia. Right? And it feels weird.
Mel Sivells:I don't get it.
Shanita Hubbard:You have amazing people like me who are just adjuncts who can't climb the rung. But you have these white professors pretending to be black, or, you know, Puerto Rican teaching these things and excelling. Specifically happened in academia, that's a problem. That's a conversation. So at some point, we can be like, Oh, we want to have these conversations with our students. And don't be afraid. But we're being intellectually dishonest at best if this conversation isn't happening in academia, at best.
Gina Turner:Well, you know, I actually, this was kind of great, I wish if anyone listening to this could see all the energy that I'm seeing in the Zoom squares, because we all got very energized, talking about this last bit of material. And so I actually want to come back to something that Shanita had brought up, which is, how are we taking care of ourselves. And this was the quote that I used on our last podcast. And I just think it's so beautiful. It's from Audre Lorde. And she says, "caring for myself is not self indulgence. It is self preservation. And that is an act of political warfare." So when I frame the question of how are you engaging in self preservation, I am saying that that is crucial. It's not frivolous, it's not, you know, pampering yourself, but it is finding ways to ready yourself for the next steps and the next battles. So I will come to Mel now, how are you engaging in self preservation? [Laughter - Mel holds up a bottle of wine]
Tom O'Connor:For the record, since this is an audio medium, thank you, Mel, that looked like a really good red wine that just held up?
Gina Turner:I love it!
Mel Sivells:What I have been doing really, besides the wine is, I started walking, I just started walking around the neighborhood, and you know, just taken in the air and just looking and just seeing literally being able to see my surroundings and be very thankful for what I do have.
Gina Turner:That's, that's great. Exactly, just that it's a small thing that we can do. Just take a walk, take a notice of our surroundings. And that's, you know, we can all take a few minutes to do something like that, you know, after we've had the glass of wine,
Mel Sivells:After the wine, everything looks so much better, after the wine.
Gina Turner:How about for you, Shanita?
Shanita Hubbard:I implemented some strategies that is so helpful one, I use "No" as a complete sentence. That's it. Like I don't feel the need to explain myself. I say no, so much. My editor from the Guardian, hit me up. I was telling Tom this at like, seven in the morning when they was like "Can you, you want to write about the election and of Kamala"? No, like, That's it! That's it! No, I just say no, a whole lot more. And then the second thing I did, which is like super helpful, um, I have an email address, obviously, for Northampton, my personal one, and then one for like, my writing career. The only one that's on my phone is my personal one. That's it, because if I see it at 11 o'clock at night, I'm going to respond to to it at 11 o'clock at night and I'm going to be working 24 hours. So now I have very specific time when I check my email, but they're not on my phone. No one is getting 24 hour access to me. That's crazy.
Mel Sivells:Boundaries.
Shanita Hubbard:I can't believe I live like that before. So, nope, absolutely not.
Gina Turner:N. O.
Mel Sivells:Period.
Gina Turner:Excellent. And Tom have you've come up with anything? Poor Tom. So on our last episode of the podcast, Tom said he..
Tom O'Connor:I said I was bad, at self care. I'm not great, I do struggle. Like, I tend to make more work. And so like, and I'm done, I've done in the two weeks since we last recorded, I have done no home projects that I can think of. So that's,
Gina Turner:That's great. And Yay, what's her name? Your that's a win. But there is another thing that that I'm doing. And I've been doing more and I don't know how conscious this was, and I want to make it more conscious. And maybe it's you know, like, but I'm, I'm answering hate with love. And what I mean by that is like, I am just, I am trying to do like, my own self care as a form of caring for and supporting and promoting others. And I'll give an example. I'm going to do it right now on the show, I'm going to give it and I'm just going to promote like an awesome student who wrote this amazing thing in my class, just because I saw it this morning. And I wrote her, you know, an email letting her know how awesome what she wrote was, and she used so and there's an Audre Lorde connection here, Gina, that you will appreciate See, this is my students, Chane, in my Women and Gender St dies class. Hi Chanel! You re awesome. And she wrote t is incredibly moving paper ab ut police brutality and the curr nt activism in the street. And he fear that goes along with th t, and the desire for change. nd she used Audre Lorde's,"the master's tools will never dismantle the master's ho se", to make this compelling rgument that the violence and the looting that we've seen in some small areas, right, i's been way over emphasized by t e news, most of the protests h ve been have been lawful and p aceful. And we do need to addre s anger and also make a space for for righteous anger, we need that to, right? But it w s such a beautiful sentiment And she just, and she was ner ous, she sent me an email like this was you know, and it was a ough - I asked my students to apply feminist theory to othe things. So here she is, you kn w, doing that exceptionally w ll. And, so I just want to say that that moved me and I mean, ike, and it's those shout outs hose moments, it is it's represe ting those voices that we ne d to represent and tellin the stories we need to tell. A d so I can show that love here towards the student, I can you know, I can hopefully show t to you guys by hopefully, you now, cracking a joke and trying o be a generous interviewer. But like I, I just want to, it's ust, it's a state of mind. And s like, it's not selfless. It's very selfish thing, that bring ng some some peace or smile and maybe even a moment stabi ity into other people's very estabilized, chaotic lives makes me feel better about myself and makes me feel a littl bit stable. Like I can contr l that in a world where I feel ncreasingly less in contr l. Hmm. So that's, that's my ac of self preservation. student? Oh,
Tom O'Connor:Chanel.
Mel Sivells:Yay, Chanel, go Chanel!
Tom O'Connor:How about you, Gina?
Gina Turner:Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna share two things. One is really quick. And this is my favorite thing in the whole world, which is my essential oil diffuser.
Tom O'Connor:And I thought that was a bottle of chianti!
Gina Turner:That's over here! And you can see it changes
Mel Sivells:Exactly! color, it cycles through colors, and it's got jasmine oil in it right now. And, so I am always got this blasting in the office
Tom O'Connor:I'm trying to do the piano thing (sings) "power". whenever I'm in the office. But the other thing is that I feel incredibly grateful for is that I'm teaching yoga on Tuesday nights through Zoom. And, it's going, actually, surprisingly well, I'm having fun with it. But I started making a playlist based on the theme of the class each week. So I make a little playlist in Spotify. And this past week's class, it was Tuesday. So it was Election Day, and the theme was "power". And so then I just pull in a bunch of songs, you know, the length of - because I normally play music in my yoga classes, but Love me some Nina Simone. it's hard to do that on Zoom. So I just tell them, if you want to, you know, go to Spotify, and play it in the background while we have our yoga class. But I have so much fun putting these playlists together. And then I end up like dancing around the house to them for the rest of the week. You know, I'll be like, "Oh, I'm gonna put on tha power playlist again." And it s got Nina Simone's Sinnerman and she of course, just goes " ower!" she just yells power n that song. And then there is nother song that's called "Ni a Cried Power". So I was reall pleased w
Gina Turner:Yeah. So music is...
Tom O'Connor:(sings more) we're gonna get sued by someone for copyright.
Gina Turner:We haven't been sued yet for our theme song!
Tom O'Connor:Hey, we're gonna be blowing up - then the feds will be come calling. Alright, well, we have to wrap but this has been such a pleasure. I can't -you know this has been an incredibly fast moving hour. I want to thank both Mel and Shanita both, you guys have been such lovely guests.
Mel Sivells:Thank you guys.
Tom O'Connor:And I'm gonna take a lot of this conversation with me and Shanita, just as I stole Joy Reed's bit off her show. I'm stealing that whole scar, open wound thing. I love that.
Mel Sivells:What a great analogy.
Tom O'Connor:You gotta turn that into something.
Shanita Hubbard:I'll put it in my book. I'll put it in my book.
Tom O'Connor:Please do, it needs to be there. But um,
Gina Turner:This has just been so fun talking to you. I actually feel healed from this conversation today.
Shanita Hubbard:This was really good. Like I haven't - This is my first time having this with my peers at Northampton. And this is just feels really good.
Tom O'Connor:We need to be doing this more, then.
Gina Turner:We need to do more of this - yes!
Mel Sivells:This was really awesome.
Tom O'Connor:Start a movement. Well, I thank you and thanks to our audience. We're gonna be recording in two weeks and our next podcast, God willing, we'll know who our president is by then. But we are tempting fate by making the topic of our next podcast "the political atmosphere". So you will almost certainly want to tune in for that. And with that, we bid you all well, and thanks for listening. Hey, thanks for listening to Pedagogy-a-go-go recorded in the Center for Teaching Learning and Technology at Northampton Community College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Our podcast daydreamer slash show runner is Kelly Allen and Pedagogy-a-go-go is produced by Jeff Armstrong. If you've got any questions, please send them to Pedagogy-a-go-go at gmail.com. Our social media handle is at Pedagogy-a-go-go and you can stop by our website at www Pedagogy-a-go-go dot com for copies of podcast transcripts, guest assignments and other useful tidbits. Keep in mind there are no hyphens or dots in any of the above web addresses. Until next time, this is Gina and Tom saying Take care and teach well