In this episode, Gina and Tom sit down with Northampton Community College Professor of Sociology, Erin Reilly as she talks about the value of taking the time to acknowledge the people we’re supposed to serve. Join us as she explains why it’s important to encourage students to take different perspectives and to help them acknowledge that the stories we hold on to are usually confined to the ones we know about. Please be sure to subscribe to, rate, and review the podcast and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @pedagogyagogo.
In this episode, Gina and Tom sit down with Northampton Community College Professor of Sociology, Erin Reilly as she talks about the value of taking the time to acknowledge the people we’re supposed to serve. Join us as she explains why it’s important to encourage students to take different perspectives and to help them acknowledge that the stories we hold on to are usually confined to the ones we know about. Please be sure to subscribe to, rate, and review the podcast and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @pedagogyagogo.
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 Episode Four:Perspectives of the Mad Scientist, and we are your hosts Gina Turner and Tom O'connor.
Tom O'Connor:Well hello Gina, spring has sprung and so we find ourselves in the second episode of our spring season for 2021 of Pedagogy-a-go-go. How have you been?
Gina Turner:Good! Good! I have to say it was so fun talking to Andrew Mackintosh last time and he and I were emailing about something work related but he asked me again about the musicians that I had mentioned in our episode and so I sent him a link...
Tom O'Connor:The Native Daughters, right?
Gina Turner:Our Native Daughters, yeah.
Tom O'Connor:Our Native Daughters, that was it.
Gina Turner:Yeah, and I was so pleased that he got a kick out of it! He said that they were more bluesy and harder edge than he was expecting and so I was really - you know, as someone who is such a music aficionado and someone who has so much expertise in the area of music, I was glad to get a stamp of approval!
Tom O'Connor:I have many similar stories about - one of my greatest badges of pride - I also for the record had an "Our Native Daughters" moment as they showed up on my Spotify contemporary folk playlist and I was like "this is great and I now know who they are!" And andrew is - there was a time in my life when I considered myself really on top of what was happening in the music industry across many genres, when I was an undergraduate in college I managed the record store. My High Fidelity days and I've lost a lot of that, and Andrew is so on top and has such a deep knowledge specifically of hip hop and and I was so proud that I had heard Lizzo on the radio just as she was breaking and she had this old school hip hop feel to much of her work and I brought her and Andrew had not heard of her yet, and it was like the pride I carried with me as he listened to it and it was right before an outdoor, you know back in the pre COVID days where we could have outdoor events with students and he was DJing for the event and sure enough cued up Lizzo and and I was like "yeah that wouldn't have happened without me!"
Gina Turner:Ah you scooped Andrew! Congratulations!
Tom O'Connor:That was a big moment
Gina Turner:Yeah I miss that because he would DJ before theater events and...
Tom O'Connor:Oh he's insanely talented, and I play a game that you guys can't play at home but when we had him here his backdrop was his vinyl collection some of which was facing us and I'm like "I know that, I know that, I don't know that, I'll have to ask about that..." So, yeah, it was wonderful. Actually, I met with him and one of our art faculty and I was staring at - it was right before the holidays and i'm like "A Very Special Christmas 1" and she looked at and she went Keith Haring because he is a concert artist who had done the artwork for the album and so it was... we can't help it he inspires all of us to try to demonstrate our knowledge which is what makes them a good teacher
Gina Turner:Wait, did you say Keith Haring was from Kutztown?
Tom O'Connor:Yeah, originally.
Gina Turner:Oh, I didn't know that!
Tom O'Connor:He worked mostly out of New York obviously
Gina Turner:Yeah, yeah
Tom O'Connor:Yeah he hails from Kutztown initially, so when I'm on my my random antique hunting finds I always hope I'm gonna find some Keith Haring piece worth $20,000!
Gina Turner:Yeah I bet! It has not happened yet. Well, the most famous person from where I live, Lambertville, actually it was across the river in New Hope, Pennsylvania, but it was Leon Redbone lived there! So, I was really excited when i found that out! Unfortunately he passed away fairly recently fairly recently
Tom O'Connor:Yeah, that's right, and also home of the Pennsylvania impressionists, so you said Redbone and there was a there's an Impressionist with the last name Redfield, I was like we thought we were going different ways so.. Well, we find ourselves with a Sociology twofer actually, I'm very excited to say that our guest is Professor Erin Reilly who also teaches Sociology classes here at Northampton Community College. She's coming up on almost 20 years here at the college and has had an incredibly storied career leading students on international trips many of them service learning trips which I'm sure we're going to dig in to in today's episode. But importantly, she's also deeply involved in our "Culture of Care" here, which is really about knowledge around the specific supports our students need and helping them along their journeys. She is a deeply gifted teacher, an empathic individual and I imagine it's going to be a soul stirring conversation today.
Gina Turner:Absolutely. I'm just so glad to get to see my friend Erin today, because I miss us cracking each other up when we see each other in the halls.
Tom O'Connor:And so Erin is someone who I've been in all these meetings with and who I've heard so much about, but we have not found ourselves working closely in my time. So today's episode will be a success. If Erin leaves it going, you know, when my friend Tom, that's my hope.
Gina Turner:And hopefully, she still thinks that I'm her friend. (laughter)
Tom O'Connor:I can't imagine a universe where that isn't the case. Without further ado, we should bring her in.
Gina Turner:If you had just one word to describe yourself as a teacher, what would it be?
Tom O'Connor:Well, Erin, welcome to Pedagogy-a-go-go. We are so incredibly happy to have you here. I need to tell you that you're our second guest in a row who teaches Sociology courses here at Northampton Community College. And I will say as one myself is also Lehigh alum. So we are on the social sciences roll here on our podcast. To kick us off. Can you tell us a little bit about a yourself, but also the classes that you teach here, and what it is about your discipline that makes you excited to teach it?
Erin Reilly:Sure, thank you, first of all, for having me. So yeah, I've been here at NCC for, I think 19 years, which is bananas! I started at the Monroe. It's the longest I've done anything. I started at the Monroe campus where I taught for, I don't know, 10 or 12 years, I want to say, and then came down to the Bethlehem campus. I've been doing study abroad with students. And I think that's probably the thing that really juices me up the most is to have those experiences with students. You know, out in the real world or just experiencing new things together. I think that's really empowering. And that's definitely been among the most rewarding things that I've had the opportunity to hear opportunity to do here at NCC so I teach as you mentioned Sociology. And the classes I teach are Principles of Sociology, of course, American Ethnicity, which is our version of a Race and Ethnicity course. We do Sociology of Families, Cultural Anthropology, sometimes Deviance, sometimes Social Problems. And what I love about Sociology, why I think it's just a perfect fit for me, is because I don't see the world in black and white, you know, I don't see the world in absolute terms. And Sociology is all about the gray. It's all about perspective taking. And so, it it just fits the way I think. But I think, today in 2021, in such a polarized world, where people are happy to debate but they're not necessarily happy to think things through or empathize or take other perspectives, I think that's one of the things that's most rewarding and important about sociology right now is encouraging people to take different perspectives and encouraging people to see the world through multiple perspectives.
Gina Turner:That's really exciting. Sorry, go ahead, Tom.
Tom O'Connor:Oh, no, I just, you said something, and I would die if I didn't follow up on it. Because you're so right. As you were speaking, we are so entrenched in partisan divides, and even radical divides between left to right, rich, poor, you name it. How do you help students with that perspective shift, teaching them to embody other perspectives?
Erin Reilly:Well, I mean, that's what sociology is. So I get to, I have the benefit to some extent of hiding behind the discipline, or just, you know, instead of it being, you know, your crazy liberal professor, you know, insert name, it's, well, this is what sociology is, it's about seeing the world through different perspectives. So I get to use that, I guess. And so that's been really helpful. If somebody comes, you know, into the class with a specific perspective. It's okay, well, this is the class about taking other perspective. So what's another way that we can look at it? Or, you know, there are theoretical perspectives that we learn and we dig pretty deep into them in the first few weeks of an Intro to Sociology course. So then it's "okay, well, what would Functionalism say about it, what would Conflict Theory say about it?" So, you know, I joke about hiding behind things. But it's, I mean, Sociology is literally a framework for thinking about the world, in multiple perspectives. And then another thing that's really helpful about Sociology in a time like this is not only is it about these theoretical frameworks, but then it's about data. Well, this is what we think, this is what I'm hearing, you say, why don't we check the data, let's see what's actually going on. And we can talk about, you know, the conflict, sometimes that exists between what we assume and what's real.
Gina Turner:I was gonna say, it's so exciting to hear you say all of those things in the framework of Sociology, because I just happened to have a meeting with a student before we recorded today. And she's a student in my Research Methods class. And this was exactly the conversation that we were having, which is that Psychology is looking at tendencies of people, but it's not a black and white explanation of people always do X, and therefore Y. It's not prescriptive. It's descriptive. And so of course, Sociology and Psychology have a lot in common in those ways. And that was the other thing we pointed out is that research is continuing. It's iterative. And so we look at the data, and then that might raise more questions, and we gather more data. So I love that you highlighted that aspect of of sociology as well. Definitely.
Erin Reilly:Well, that just brings to mind Gina, the times that we've been able to, or you've been able to pop into my classes.
Gina Turner:Yeah.
Erin Reilly:And that's always so exciting. Because, again, it's another perspective.
Gina Turner:Yeah, exactly. And it's really fun. And I think it's helpful for the students, because I've also had students in my Psych classes who have taken Soc. and they say, "Oh, my gosh, the terms are similar." And I say, "Yeah, because these are sort of different layers through which you can look at the world." And then I have to also point out, you mentioned the study abroad, and study away trips that you've taken, and some of those have been service trips in, for example, going to New Orleans, which I have always completely admired, and maybe you can say a little bit more about those trips and how those came about.
Erin Reilly:Yeah, sure. Um, in, gosh, I want to say 2009, might have been the first time we went to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, to help rebuild, and we worked with an organization called lowernine.org in the Lower Ninth Ward. And even though we were there a couple years after the storm, I mean, it was still like a warzone very much. For the first few years that we were going roads, were just, I mean, they had craters in them, there was no mail delivery, schools were still closed, you know, years after the fact. And so, you know, we were still doing demo work, we were still doing mold remediation, we all got sick the first time we came home, because we inhaled so much mold. I mean, just the the state of things was just really hard to believe. I mean, you know, we might read about it, but to live, it is something different. And that's, of course, why these experiences are so powerful for students. Yeah. Because as powerful as it is for us, you know, to be learning about something to be learning about structural racism, and then to see it firsthand, right, to learn about poverty and about infrastructure and abandonedment, but then to see it firsthand. It's just, you know, there's no comparing the two.
Gina Turner:Right, right.Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'm gonna move on to our next question, which oftentimes, people find the hardest question of all, which is: the question is, if you had just one word to describe yourself as a teacher, what word would that be?
Erin Reilly:Yeah, that's a tough one. So I'm going to say there's a pre COVID word that I would use to describe myself and, and, you know, a present tense to describe myself. So pre COVID, I think it would have been mad scientist. And that's, it's one of the things I love about teaching because you hit the restart button every 15 or 16 weeks. So you try things out, and you see how it works. And then you talk to students about it, and you get feedback. And then if it tanks, you try again, you know, so we're just mad tinkerers. And that's how I would have described this position this job, you know, a year ago even, but now, I see it my I see myself as an advocate right now. And I don't know what's going to happen when we get back to whatever the new quote unquote normal will be, will I be a mad scientist? Or will I continue to lean into this advocacy role? I think it's, I think it's an open question. But um, yeah, just advocating for students, did you know that you're entitled to this? Did you know that we have counseling? Did you know? You know, did he know that we have academic coaches? Did you know that we have tutors, you know. And obviously, these are college services here at NCC through the Learning Center through the counseling department advocating for students who are houseless who need food? I mean, you know, I just feel like, right now, the priorities for me have shifted. And, you know, and so I think that's reflected in the way that I'm approaching classes.
Tom O'Connor:Yeah, you know, Erin, it's, it's funny, I was actually I wanted to talk a little bit about this regardless, because not just your sociological background, but many of the courses you teach, including Sociology of Families, American Ethnicity, are closely paired with our Social Work program, that's part of their program map, and then you've also taken the service oriented trips. So as you're talking about being a mad scientist, sidebar, and mad scientist, I am the crazy fill in the blank, liberal arts professor, and those sounds, those sounds pretty close. There's some intersectionality there, I think. But then you also talk about the new advocacy that COVID has asked of us. And I was curious as through the lens of someone aligned with all these students on the Social Work track and as a sociologist, how you're differently seeing the needs of our students. And I wonder if that's an either/or question or a both/and? I mean, will there be a space post COVID for both mad scientist, Professor Reilly and and also Advocacy Erin?
Erin Reilly:I think that's a great question. And I mean, time will tell. But I guess if I think about where my interests have evolved, over the years, I think advocacy has become a bigger part of my teaching. And you know, this has just blown it up. COVID has just blown it up. So I think there's definitely room for the two. And, you know, I went to the Achieving the Dream conference a couple of years... Gosh, was that a year ago? or a few years ago? We're in a time warp, right? Seriously? And, you know, the theme of this conference was essentially like, what are you going to do to support your students who have so much going on in their lives and who are really living the structural inequality and the class inequality that we talk about in our classrooms. And so that was always something that was of interest to me. And that just kind of crystallized it, right? How higher ed is just completely set up for a system that doesn't really match the people that we're serving, you know, and to just to have the opportunity to think critically about that. And now that we're in this, you know, moment of a national emergency, that just to me, that just seems to be what's most important.
Tom O'Connor:Well, you perfectly queued up my next... Oh, sorry, Gina, go ahead, please.
Gina Turner:Well, I was just going to quickly say, you know, in a way, we've had to be mad scientists in order to turn ourselves into advocates for our students, right, in order to think about how we're balancing what the needs are of the class and the rigor of the class. And the information that we want to convey in the class, with the students ability to take in that information and, and really, to make it relevant to them. And, you know, and again, I think we count ourselves lucky, because we feel like what we're teaching is almost life and death, you know, in a way, it's really teaching students skills of being in the world, and interacting with other people in the world. So, Tom, you had a question, and then I had a question.
Tom O'Connor:This is the way it's supposed to work. And the first I''ll begin my question by simply saying, I love that Gina, because what you just suggested this idea of the mad scientist, and in my mind, when I think of what that might be, it actually connects with a lot of pedagogical concepts, like Universal Design for learners is the mad scientist, the person who's willing to step outside of their comfort zone to do anything to look differently at our students, their needs, the way they learn, to try to help best help them recognizing that that's an individuated approach. It can't be a one size fits all for, for really any classroom pre COVID. But COVID has, I think, really brought that to the fore. My question, Erin, was simply that you are already kind of addressing the way that the pandemic of the last year has changed our classrooms and the way we teach. And you began to speak towards actually my next question, which was about how the events of the last year, not just COVID. Obviously, there's so much more than that, how they've impacted your discipline. But also, if you could change one thing, either about what Sociology is focusing on and talking about right now, or and this is kind of where you were alluding to maybe, perhaps how higher ed needs to be thinking about things differently, you know, what change would that be? And why?
Erin Reilly:Yeah, I mean, I think there's been so much societal change. So obviously, curriculum in sociology has to be updated, like content has to be really updated to accommodate that. And to acknowledge that, you know, we can't be teaching inside of a bubble. And so, you know, in terms of the tinkering, speaking to the mad scientist in us, the tinkering that I've done, the tinkering that I've done has mostly been on, on bringing those issues into the classroom. Right, updating the readings, updating activities, films, just to acknowledge the times that we're in and to get us thinking about them, and it'd be taking multiple perspectives about them. And so I see that as being the major change in a classroom in a sociology classroom, at least is, you know, there's so much going on in the world, how do we how do we bring that in, in a meaningful way? Because, you know, there's a lot and to bring something in in a cursory way, you know, it's not necessarily helpful just to, you know, tip your hat to it, and to not really dig into it. It's just not very meaningful. So that's been, I think, the disciplinary if you will, based challenge. What's the other part about higher ed?
Tom O'Connor:Yeah, higher ed in general. And I think you're, you're speaking to both at the same time, because once you I mean, what you are curricular change is structural change to to higher ed. But seeing the needs of our students that have been exposed in the last year, maybe is, Are there things that you'd like to see higher? Ed doing in general? Are there specific to our community college or are more systemically?
Erin Reilly:I think higher ed, in general needs to just take the time to acknowledge the people that we serve. I mean, period. I think that's in the classroom. I think that's out of the classroom. I think it's in terms of financial aid offices, its Records Office, you know, across the board, we need to be asking ourselves, are we actually serving the people that we're serving? We're offering services, but are we serving? are we serving the people that we're supposed to be serving? And you know, I'm not immune to this, I have to ask myself that every semester as well. So you know, it's not about singling out specific offices on any college campus, I just think every institution of learning, period, but higher ed, in particular, we really need to acknowledge who we're serving, we're casting a wider net, and that's a good thing, you know, but school - college was designed for elite people a really, really long time ago, and the structure of that has not changed. And so I do think that COVID, maybe in some ways, it'll be an opportunity, because we've had to change so much so fast. And you know, higher ed is slow to change. In some ways, it's bureaucratic in that way, you know, maybe we will be open to rethinking some things. Because maybe some of the solutions are different versions of things that we're doing now, hybrid classes, for example, seven-week classes, more four-week classes. We know we have to change this archaic financial aid system, where money can only be delivered once a semester. You know, we it's how are students going to be able to take those four- and seven- week classes if money is only dispersed at one point, you know, so there's a lot of, I think, procedural things that we could be doing better, and we should be doing better in higher education.
Gina Turner:Yeah, I mean, in some respect, this reset button that has been pressed by the pandemic, hopefully will serve us going forward. Because like you say that the surprising I think, to many people, although people who had been working online, prior to this, you know, recognize that it can be a valid way of teaching, but these hybrid classes have been, I've heard many, many people, faculty and students say that they really like that model, for example. The other thing you said that really struck me was about constantly updating information. And I have to talk about this student again, it was a really great conversation with her. And she's a non traditional age student, she she shared her age that she's 50. And she's currently taking a class on... oh my gosh, I don't remember the exact class, but it has to do with women in politics. And she said, "I've lived on this earth for 50 years, and I had no idea about this structural sexism that I've been breathing my whole life. "And she says, "What do I do now that I have this information?" And thinking about the events of last summer, I imagine your American Ethnicity class is like a moving target because it's caused us all to think about everything so differently but at the same time we're also dealing with being in a pandemic and stuck in our homes and homeschooling children and etc etc and I wonder if all of these balls we're having to juggle and taking into consideration all of these needs is a recipe for burnout? Are you doing anything for yourself to try and balance all of these demands while still trying to be the incredible responsive professor that you are?
Erin Reilly:So I feel like that's a two pronged question I mean I think your conversation with your student brings to mind conversations that I've had with my students right? "I didn't know this!" And some of them feel really discouraged, and I've tried the angle of "well this information is designed to be empowering because now we know" but everybody is so weighed down right now that the"now what?" just seems... I mean it probably would always seem huge but right now when people are having a hard time looking for tomorrow maybe i'm just speaking for myself here!
Tom O'Connor:You're not!
Erin Reilly:It's hard to look to tomorrow so it's hard to think about how to change.
Gina Turner:Yeah. It's exhausting!
Erin Reilly:It is. And so when we have these lessons about structural sexism, structural racism, how the system is rigged, etc etc, you know students want to know "now what" but none of us really have the energy right now to get that far, so I think that's something that I have my eye on in my classes, it's something that I'm going to need to do better once I'm out of this - out of this phase and in terms of my own burnout? I don't know.(laughter)
Tom O'Connor:The most honest answer!
Erin Reilly:Yeah so, I have a kindergartener and so he goes to school two days a week and in February, he wants to school three times because of the weather.
Gina Turner:oh my gosh...
Erin Reilly:So it was just... and you know our students are going through this, too, and with fewer resources many of them, and with less privilege many of them, and so I think about how hard it's been for me and my partner, and we're lucky. So the burnout is real I guess i'm at the point in my career where I'm fortunate where I'm established so I can have boundaries so I guess that's the only answer I have.
Gina Turner:Yeah. I mean, that's really good to point out is, I think that we can forget that we have a little agency, you know, and then there are those of us who are luckier to be established in our positions, but yeah. I mean, it's probably an unfair question because we're so in the midst of it all, we're still fighting the fight!(laughter)
Tom O'Connor:Sometimes the story of how we work our way out of that paper bag is an important one to tell even if we don't know what the light looks like on the other side. I just had a terrible They Might Be Giants song spring to mind and some deep cut fans will recognize exactly what I'm referencing and I won't say any more than that. Erin first of all, thank you for just acknowledging in your last answer the privilege we have for those of us speaking today and that acknowledgement of it, right? structures much of our advocacy.I think a lot about that because it's been a dark year and it's easy to kind of fall into like, I don't know what tomorrow is going to bring and I don't know how I'm going to get the energy and the mental space you know to face it but countering that is the fact that we are still secure in our jobs we're able to to be remote if necessary. We're able - we're still well positioned to help others in many ways and so when in all of our discussions that that are built around class structures, race, gender disparities, systemic sexism and racism like that's - it's just an important thing to keep at the forefront of our minds. I'm going to begin this question with a story I have to share because Erin I know you've been involved with the "Culture of Care" here which is kind of the word we're using which I think is is intended to address some of the needs right making sure that the services we offer fit the students just like the mad scientist in the classroom so I wanted to tell the story of a lunchbox, and what it takes these days. And so there is a fabulous staff member at the Monroe campus who works closely with some of our student workers. I know a student worker well. He's been here for a while. He takes the bus every day to the Monroe campus. He came in at a developmental level and he had persisted. He is consistently a success story, the kind of student that we want to support. And we have been. And he works these, you know, student support jobs, manning desks and stuff to sustain his career here as a student. And because of the weird mechanisms and machinations of living amidst COVID, and spaces, he was working like these long days, wanted to bring a lunch couldn't leave the desk, he was manning and just simply asked, could I use a refrigerator. And because of where it was located, and how many people were in that space, was told no. And this staff member said, okay, and went to the bookstore, and used her budget card, and simply said,"I'm going to spend $10, to get you a lunch card and an ice pack so that every day that you come, you have what you need, so your food stays here, and you can do to do the job. And if anyone kicks that up the ladder, that's my gift to you." And too often it ends up having to be that I mean, I know, I've given the bus fare to students who need it if they didn't have a free extra pass at the bookstore, you know, to provide to them. And I tell that story, because that staff member, as far as I'm concerned, is one of the heroes working here. Who takes that interest in care. But that also points to I think, some of the changes, the lenses we need to put on. So with that in mind, can you share a student story about either an individual student, or perhaps it's something you're seeing in multiple students, that speaks to the current moment we find ourselves in, and that you feel other educators would would benefit from hearing and that might be a success story. Or it might be a student that ended up on on the ropes, in the rocks because the supports weren't there for them. But a story that you want others to hear?
Erin Reilly:Yeah, sure. I mean, there are so many stories. So I guess I would start there, you know, whether you're looking at in your classroom on campus, or you're looking out on on your little boxes on Zoom, you know, I go through this exercise where I'm like, I know what you're dealing with. And oh my god, how are you here? And okay, we've been talking about this. And you know, I'm like, I'm ticking through the class, kind of identifying in my mind what people are going through. And I always have to stop to remember, these are just the stories I know about. And every time I go through this exercise, it just always takes me back. Because there are so many stories that are so profound, but those are just the stories that I know about. And I feel like that is really powerful. It's really powerful. For me, it's really centering for me, I guess I should say, but, you know, I mentioned earlier that with COVID I have been more of an advocate. And so, you know, I'm just checking in on students a lot more than I ever did before."Hey, I noticed you missed a quiz. Is everything okay?" Not"Why did you miss the quiz?" You know, just, a "hi, how are you?" And I started doing that right after, you know, we went remote in March. And I've gotten, you know, I have no way of knowing if it's helped students, you know, persist. But I have one example of a student who missed a quiz. So I sent him such an email, and he said, "Oh, man, thank you for reaching out. You know, my brother was shot three days ago, and my cousin was shot and killed five days ago. My uncle died of COVID yesterday. You know, other family members are in the hospital." And I mean, that was a week of his life, right? I mean, and somehow he had the wherewithal to persist, right, and to finish the class and to do really, really well in the class. Right, completely unbelievable. I don't know if he was planning to reach out to me, I don't know if he, you know, I don't know he's a good student. You know, he has he has the toolbox. Talk about the lunchbox, right. He has the toolbox. But, you know, I think it's some have the wherewithal to continue and some don't. And sometimes we play it out like, oh, some students are so strong. Well, I think some students just have the wherewithal in that moment to come back or to finish and some students don't. And I just think, I think they need grace. I mean, I think we all need grace. I need to give myself grace right now because I'm not doing everything that I would like to be doing at the level that I wish I was doing it, you know, but I mean we all deserve grace right now and I feel like that's where we can come in as faculty, you know, to be empathetic and to understand the situation like it doesn't mean that we're changing standards, or that our classes are not as difficult which I do hear rumblings about among colleagues and I think it's an interesting conversation that maybe we need to have. We're not- being empathetic is understanding where they're coming from or trying to, right? We're not being sympathetic, we're not feeling sorry for them so that we say "you don't have to do that assignment, oh you know what just don't worry about it." It's just, you know, granting grace in a moment where people need it.
Gina Turner:I mean I think that's addressing the issue of burnout, right? Is to recognize that we're human beings interacting together doing the best we can and giving ourselves that perfect word, that grace, and talking about the stories of the students, I mean that we said unbelievable but you know sadly it's not unbelievable because these are the stories that our students are living and I was thinking a little bit about how I am sharing more of my own stories with my students and being they're - I mean literally they're in our homes now, you know, and they're in their homes, in these little boxes, and dogs are barking, and kids are coming up and saying"hi" and spouses are walking by and partners and sisters and brothers! And also I'm actually doing an assignment with my students this semester for the first time which I had never done before and, just briefly it's my health psychology class, and I asked them to do a"personal health intervention". So for eight weeks they're trying to change a health behavior and I said I'm going to do it with them because I need to do something because this pandemic has been rough on me! So i you I picked a little thing- I'm going to try and jump rope regularly
Erin Reilly:Wow! So cool!
Gina Turner:Yeah it was something I was doing this summer so anyway, so it's six weeks of written -kind of almost journal entries and i'm sharing my journal entries with them.
Erin Reilly:I love that.
Gina Turner:It's feeling like we're just all people, you know, in this together. Like, I heard at a meeting the president of our college had last week and he quoted something he had seen on Facebook about we're not all in the same boat. We're in the same sea...
Erin Reilly:Right.
Gina Turner:Some of us have yachts, and some of have dingies, etc etc, but recognizing that we are all in in this same sea I think is part of that grace, absolutely, it' just beautifully said. Do y u feel like there is an assignme t that - you know, as part of your advocacy/mad scientist, o you feel like there's an assi nment that has bubbled up in thi past year that you feel like k nd of does all those things, hit those marks, it still has t e rigor, it's still doing what you want it to do, but it's having an outcome that is pecial or interesting or il
Erin Reilly:To be quite honest I haven't changed very many of my assignments, and here's the mad scientist reason behind it. Now is not a time for uncertainty, now it's not a time for things to be unclear, I'm just kind of using what has worked for me in the past. I have language written up on it, I know how to organize it in Blackboard, and so I am trying to just make everything in Blackboard super super linear, and so I've been recycling many many assignments. I've been doing more journaling with students, like short things. And that's been helpful. I feel like we're more likely - I'm speaking for myself - I have more time to sit down and read a short journal reflection without being taken in a different direction, than to read a paper. So it's been helpful for me to help me get to know the students, and it's fitting with my limited attention span right now. So we'll see if that's working, but it's nice it's one way to get to know students for me because what I would normally do is just go to class for a few minutes early, and just walk around the room and say "hey how are you doing? do you have the textbook? how are your classes? what are your taking? what's your major?" I mean, we just get to know students that way, you know? Every day, just walk around and see who wants to talk. Yeah, and it's a lot harder to do that now. So these little, I call them extra little critical thinking assignments, because students then have to integrate something from the reading materials, you know, in into the journal into their writing, I should say. So that's been a nice way to just connect with students a little bit. But I got to say, I haven't I haven't rewritten the playbook right now. It just can't.
Gina Turner:I hear you, I also did not rewrite my playbook, and as a matter of fact, did exactly what you just said, which is just to try and make sure everything's streamlined. If anything, I've added more instructions, I'm creating short videos, which I had not done in the past for for online classes.
Erin Reilly:How has that been? Have you found that interesting, helpful?
Gina Turner:I find it helpful for me, maybe it's my craving interaction with other humans, the idea that it's a message in the bottle to students! But I hope that they're finding them illuminating. And it's part of this my doing the assignment, I'm showing them when I'm writing in the assignment and talking about my rationale behind it. So I'll let you know.
Tom O'Connor:That connects. So I just heard the story literally in the last 24 hours, and I loved it. And Erin, I want to just applaud for a second, the fact that one of the things that you're saying is is now is not necessarily the time to reinvent the wheel, we just need to re-configure in our minds how the wheel was going to effectively hit the road and travel forward. So if one of the most effective things we were doing was that initial time in class when we were going around? How do we produce that in a remote environment? Right. And so like trying to, you know, I don't want to say repackage the same, but we know what was already effective. And how do we retain that. And one of the mistakes that I think, and I could say this as a member of the administration, as well as a faculty member who teaches, which is that I think that in the initial COVID, when we were like, oh, shoot, everything's going to change, we're going to be 90% online, people without online teacher training, you know, we need to get them as trained as possible, we need to recognize what we're going to need. And so there was a sense of messaging out, but we need to do everything differently, because this is a new world. And we probably got that wrong. And I want to I want to really address the fact that we also needed to be saying, "Let us help you transcribe what you were already doing into this new medium into the mediums that we were using." So I'm really glad you said that because like it seems like people want to be like, "well, I'm doing everything new and it's going great!"
Erin Reilly:Right.
Tom O'Connor:And in realisty, it's the person who says "This actually this has worked really well for me 90% of the time, I found a way to do it that's also successful here." So a story, just quickly, was that a person had course copied from a blended online course where they had recorded some lecture into an asynchronous course right? And they taken everything out. But on one week, they left their video up from that class that they had recorded and posted for the benefits. And so all of their asynchronous classes had this random video pop in a couple of weeks in that happened to begin with a description of the paper product and talking through it and fielding some questions. And then like a description, a little bit of the story that was being used for the paper. And that video without being assigned, being there by accident ended up with like 120 views. And there were all these individual posts saying that was so great, you know, so like I've just said, happy accidents are also happening in this crazy time. Gina, were you going to come in and say something?
Gina Turner:I think Erin was gonna say something...
Erin Reilly:I think I was just gonna thank Tom for acknowledging that. I mean, I think that in higher ed and not just here at NCC but you know, in the groups that I'm involved in on social media, there's been all this talk about all this new technology and all these bells and whistles and I don't doubt that many of them can be valuable. But I think there's also some - from a student's perspective, like how many new things does a student have to do in their first semester in this brand new format? And I kind of made a conscious decision to not embrace some of them right now. It doesn't mean that I won't but just, I don't know kick it old school. For a while.
Gina Turner:I am in complete agreement with you, Erin again, also as someone who had taught online for so many years I'm like "those classes were actually robust valid ways of teaching so why do I suddenly have to infuse five pieces of technology?" And again, some things I have been excited to incorporate like using the whiteboards during the online session and then saving that whiteboard into the Blackboard shell after class has been a nice tool for just as a kind of a low tech example really!
Erin Reilly:Right, but helpful.
Tom O'Connor:Exactly and that was a privilege I will say for those who had taught online prior to COVID and who had built out online asynchronous that was a huge leg up and that was also the other area where we dropped the ball. We couldn't require every faculty member to take the really intensive four week robust training that we demand of asynchronous in this shortened summer when everything was topsy turvy and we were asking to teach courses that had a half asynchronous component. So I think honestly acknowledging that. And I was one of those - I had actually done the training which was incredibly helpful to me, but at the same time, I had not done it before and so there was a sense of "I want to pull these technologies in", and I had to spend more time building out. So for those of you who felt that struggle who hadn't taught online I just want to say that we here at the podcast are with you too!
Erin Reilly:Solidarity!
Tom O'Connor:Yeah. So that was that was a personal struggle I
had. So let me ask you, Erin:this is one of those very introspective questions where we ask you to in a very Brene' Brown way to be vulnerable! What do you see as your biggest struggle as a teacher, and how are you working on improving and growing in that area? And that can be in the short pass term, in terms of the last year, certainly something that I can think of many struggles as a teacher. I've lived with some since the very first time I walked into a classroom.
Erin Reilly:It's evolving right? And I think it's a good thing that it's evolving, our challenges are evolving, it means we're getting more comfortable and more confident and hopefully we're learning more and more as we go. You know, I think my biggest struggle as a teacher today is that there's more that I want to do, but I just don't have the wherewithal to do more right now. It goes back to the boundary setting for self care, the reality on the ground in my home with an only child who has been home, like alone for a year! Who needs a buddy, you know! And now we're also kindergarten teachers on top of it! I just don't have the wherewithal to be as innovative as I as I wish I could. So my biggest challenge right now is as much as, you know, five minutes ago I was singing like"yes! keep it simple!" that doesn't mean that somewhere in the back of my head I don't wish that I were. I mean I wish that I were exploring some of these ideas that I have that I just don't have the wherewithal to do right now.
Gina Turner:I think what makes those of us who have that insecurity about being a good teacher - that's what makes us good teachers, right? Because we are constantly casting in our mind, what is of value that I can put into this, and feeling a little guilty if we can't constantly creating the world's best class session every single time we, you know, either literally or figuratively walk into the classroom!
Erin Reilly:Yeah, this has been hard on the perfectionist in me, and honestly I don't think I realized how much of a perfectionist I was necessarily until all of this this hit. So there's your Brene' Brown vulnerability lesson, right? I definitely had to do that introspection and catch some of that and, you know, push back against it a little bit.
Tom O'Connor:I got yelled at this morning by my wife because I found myself with like an hour long break in the day and she caught me pacing. And that is my mother in me that always needs to be doing something. And i'm just kind of built that way, and in those moments there is a disjuncture because I also feel like I'm totally out of gas, that the chamber is on is on"E". And so my my lack of self care means I pace, and then get yelled at by my wife.
Erin Reilly:it's so interesting how it's contradictory like that, right? I just find those things to be really interesting. I'm sorry, Gina.
Gina Turner:Oh no, that's okay! You mentioned of course that you're your little boy's an only child, and I was an only child, and so for me the pandemic in many ways suits me. Because I'm used to being on my own, and and living in my head, and not, you know, not feeling a need to interact with other humans. But of course, as a grown woman, I probably should interact with others. And so one of the ways, one of my aspects of self care has been to take classes, you know, just for fun, classes here and there. And I always love being a student again, because then it reminds me of what I like and don't like about individual, you know, classes. And then what I might be doing that is, you know, that I wouldn't like if I were a student, so can you think of any ways in which experiences you had, as a student, have informed the way that you teach or have even, you know, inspired you as a teacher or been cautionary tales? As a teacher?
Erin Reilly:Hmm, so the first thing that comes to mind is actually one of my mentors recently passed away, and I definitely see her in my teaching style, which, I don't think it was planned that way. But after a few years, I was able to look back and see it. Which is pretty cool.
Gina Turner:That's great. That' a real testament to her.
Erin Reilly:Mm hmm. Yeah, for sure. She was wonderful. And yeah, she was just very laid back. Obviously smart as a whip. But, yeah, just very in tune, very caring. So I'm kind of stumbling over this, because I guess it's a longer story. When I was an undergrad, I majored in sociology. But I also majored in environmental policy. And as a cruel twist of fate, I had to minor in economics, which I hated. I mean, it makes sense, right? You're gonna study the environment, you gotta know how the system works. But it was awful. For me, I hated it. I was the only, you know, person in the economics class, raising my hand, like, "there is no silent force of the market. That's you people, right?! A humann construction!"
Tom O'Connor:Oh, God bless you.
Erin Reilly:And so, I had a couple economics professors, who, again, I didn't want to be an economics minor, but they were the ones who took me under their wing, so to speak, I was a TA for one of them. I was a research assistant for another one. And they knew I didn't buy what they were selling. And I feel like that has - but they were so empathetic and understanding. And, you know, they made it real to me, and they made it applicable for me. And, you know, we teach so many General Studies students. And so I think that's something that they maybe passed on to me, right? I mean, a lot of the students taking a Psych class or a Sociology class, don't want to be there. "Why do I have to take this class," right? It's just checking a box. So having had professors be so empathetic to me, and so invested in my success when I was straight up, not into what they were all about.
Gina Turner:Although in a way, you probably kind of excited them again, because you were giving them kind of like you say, with sociology, you were already a sociologist, you were giving them a different lens on economics that they don't normally get to, you know, kind of volley with in their classes with their econ majors. So that was probably exciting them.
Erin Reilly:I never thought of it that way. It's interesting.
Gina Turner:It is fun. I got to talk about this student that I met with again today, because she pushed back a little bit on some of the materials that we use, I won't go into the whole story, and it caused me to like kind of wake up and go, huh, yeah, let me explain this assignment and why I do feel like this is a value to you. And so kind of reminds me of why I'm doing what I'm doing, and even kind of helped her to
understand:"Oh, okay, so now I see the value in this." But yeah, being pushed sometimes can be really, really engaging for a professor. So having students who push us I think can be really exciting.
Erin Reilly:It's true. That's true. You nailed it.
Tom O'Connor:I want to interrogate - and so don't feel like you have to answer this, but I'll begin by sharing because I played this role frequently on like, I like telling the stories of my pratfalls, those times that I've just fallen flat on my face in the classroom, as learning experiences, and you talked about having kind of this really valued teacher in your past who had - there was a, I don't want to call it a revelatory moment. But a moment when you found yourself embodying a part of that within your own classroom, I had the exact opposite experience my first semester teaching where I had as an undergraduate student, I took a creative writing class, and I love creative writing. And I did not respect by instructor, I felt like he was far too in love with himself that he like, couldn't pass up the opportunity to make a good joke. And like was putting on more of a show than he was actively present in terms of listening to the students stories. And when I was teaching, and I taught my first class at Lehigh University, before I even took my first class as a graduate student, actually, because I taught at 8am, Monday morning, and was a teaching fellow there. And I was pardon of my language piss-terrified in that classroom in a three piece suit with my mouth going dry three times. And I overcompensated. And about like, three or four weeks into that semester, I found that I turned into that Professor that I was putting on this performance to keep the students entertained, because I couldn't risk you know, doing a Jimmy Stewart impression, and trying to get them engaged through putting on a performance through getting them engaged through asking good critical questions of the material. So I had to course correct and redefine who I wanted to be. And it might not have been my idols in the classroom. It certainly wasn't this person who I thought it was to be. And so it helped me on that process a bit. Where were you in your teaching? Was there a moment you thought of yourself first as a teacher in the classroom and had kind of that empowered moment? Like, oh, wow, I can do this. And I like doing this. Was it that moment that was that happened relatively early in your career? Or is that something that you found yourself growing into?
Erin Reilly:Um, it happened really early in my career, but boy, did I make some gaffes! No, I mean, I've got plenty of those if you want to, if you want to talk about it. But I, I was at Lehigh in the sociology master's program. And something happened as we know, things happen. And somebody dropped out, leaving NCC high and dry and they needed three sociologists in a heartbeat. So I got a class and two of my classmates got a class. And really, you know, the first day, I was so scared, I was so nervous. And I know it came out. I mean, I know it came through. And I made a decision. Like, they can't see like this, like they're gonna be like, you know, it's like a shark and bloody water, whatever that saying is. Right, I felt like they could totally smell the fear. And so I just made a decision, like, okay, here it is. And then that semester, I don't know, midway through, I just knew that it was something that I that I really liked doing and then I thought I had the potential to like to do well, you know, and I got hired like a few weeks later for this job. So I, you know, I had only taught like one and a half classes I think at NCC before I got this gig. So my road here was super quick, I guess super short. So I didn't have...
Tom O'Connor:Meant to be in the long run, 19 years later!
Erin Reilly:Carolyn Bortz our VPAA called me mid career a while ago, and I was like, Who? Who me? And then I did the math. And yeah, I guess here I am. It's weird, you know?
Gina Turner:Your story reminds me - I think the moment I realized I was a teacher, and I was like you, Erin. I was terrified. The first time I was in an academic classroom, I had done training back in my first life as a corporate person.
Erin Reilly:I didn't know that.
Gina Turner:Yeah, yeah. So I knew I liked, I've always liked telling people things. So I knew I liked that. And I did go to grad school knowing I wanted to teach, but I felt like I had to be you know, not show fear and be very prepared. And have all my ducks in a row. And then I think it was the second class I taught when I was in grad school. And I was talking about child development and their ability to understand depth perception and that kind of stuff. And I didn't have the video, but I was explaining to them this video of a baby watching - it was object permanence! A baby watching a little train, go behind a shield, and then it doesn't come out the other side and the baby's eyes get really big when it happens. And it totally cracked me up as I was telling them I was like, "you should see this baby!" And I had another student in the front row who was just in hysterics, like, I think he was laughing at me, because I was laughing so hard, but we just could not stop laughing. And then the whole class was laughing. And I thought, Oh, that's it. I don't need to be(*sound effects indicating rigidity*). I actually just want to laugh with these people. And have a good time.
Erin Reilly:I think it's so interesting that you said that because that first semester, I had just turned 26, I was still in graduate school, and I looked even younger. And like, I didn't know, I didn't know that I should be nervous professionally, I didn't. I wasn't nervous about tenure, because I didn't know any better. I just didn't. So you know, being thrust in the situation with a couple of days before the semester started still being in grad school, doing it on the side, I just, it was very real. You know, I was just very me in the classroom. And I never thought to do anything otherwise. And I'm really grateful for that turn of events, because I would have overthought it if I had the chance, but I didn't.
Gina Turner:Yeah, yeah, I know what you mean. When I came to NCC, I thought, oh, maybe I should, like be Professor Lady, and like, buy a jacket. Then, I was just like, no!
Tom O'Connor:I will embarrassingly - this is actually a good segue to Gina's favorite last question that she will ask momentarily, but I will embarrassingly admit that before I when I first found that I was going to be teaching English classes and had been accepted into graduate school at Lehigh University, I went to every thrift store in a 25 mile radius and bought every suit jacket with elbow patches that I could find that was within like two sizes of me. It filled the closet.
Erin Reilly:Fantastic.
Tom O'Connor:I still enjoy wearing elbow patches when I can.
Gina Turner:Just keep a pipe in the pocket.
Erin Reilly:Yes, right. Meanwhile, if I dress up for class, if I dress up for work, that's - I don't feel like me. I don't feel - that's something that it took me a while to learn. Like, just, yeah, it's interesting how we feel the most comfortable and how I think we're most effective when we're comfortable. And for me, that means in you know, jeans and corderoys.
Gina Turner:Yeah, yeah. And at the same token, we have colleagues who are just dressed, you know, basically to the nines, you know, just completely on point, because that is how they feel most of themselves. Yeah, and I think that the students are going to smell that right. They're going to, they're going to, as you had said before, they're going to smell it in the water. If someone is not being there, they're authentic self, at any end of the spectrum.
Tom O'Connor:There's some discipline crossover too, to return to a guest we had a few episodes back. It wasn't in that episode, but I met and was chatting with him about a separate issue. But Professor Samuel Chen, who we had, as part of our special four part series last semester, you know, we had the back and forth about dressing the classroom and how we wish to be addressed by students, you know, and being the crazy liberal arts professor, I'm Tom, and he talked about, "I'm Professor Chen until the moment that you graduate, and then you're not allowed to call me Professor Chen anymore. I'm Sam." And it's because within the, you know, within political science, where he teaches and worked and has had a storied career, you know, that's very important. And so teaching that decorum as part of the classroom experience, it was kind of an enlightening experience. And I felt like, Nope, that's not gonna work. For me, I'm still circling up the desks and try to make everyone as comfortable as possible.
Erin Reilly:Right. Right. Same.
Tom O'Connor:Recognizing that that is a very privileged position as as as a white man in the classroom and that's a whole other thing in terms of address and dress within the classroom, and the perceptions of students as well as you know, faculty colleagues and stuff. So just to return to, to privilege.
Gina Turner:Yeah, that was what I was gonna say, Tom, it does open kind of a can of worms when talking about you know, the perception of authority in the classroom
Erin Reilly:For Sure.
Gina Turner:That's another podcast Yeah. So Tom warned you that this is my favorite question only because I always change the wording of the question, which is guilty pleasures, and then I have to always say you should never feel guilty.
Tom O'Connor:That was a very Seinfeld delivery. "You don't need to feel guilty. guilty, not guilty."
Gina Turner:So what is it something you'd like to share that brings you joy that you don't think maybe people would know about you?
Erin Reilly:Yeah, so I - my favorite breakfast is Diet Coke and a chocolate chip cookie.
Gina Turner:That's great!
Tom O'Connor:Mwwwah!
Erin Reilly:And I miss - for those of you at NCC you know the big cookie in the cafeteria!
Gina Turner:Oh yeah!
Erin Reilly:Tthey are just fantastic and they're warm and they're soft and i really miss the big cookie!
Tom O'Connor:oh god
Gina Turner:oh my gosh you know what I miss? Speaking of the cafeteria!
Tom O'Connor:There's emojis popping up on our screen as our showrunner is sending you love and applause.
Gina Turner:On the soup bar they have chicken tchoupitoulas soup -
Erin Reilly:I love chicken choupitoulas!
Gina Turner:I miss it so much!
Erin Reilly:i know i love that! It was it like on Wednesdays or something
Gina Turner:Yeah yeah exactly! I loved that and the taco bar but who doesn't love a taco bar?
Erin Reilly:Who doesn't love a taco bar? Yep so my first thing on my to do list when we get back is to get that big cookie and an ice cold Diet Coke and to have breakfast maybe with you fine folks!
Gina Turner:Absolutely! Absolutely! If they have the soup bar open i will just have the chicken tchoupitoulas soup for breakfast!
Tom O'Connor:I say when we're finally back, we celebrate: free Diet Cokes and chocolate chip cookies for everyone.
Erin Reilly:I'm here for that!
Gina Turner:Tom, you haven't weighed in on your favorite cafeteria treat.
Tom O'Connor:I buy like four different 24 ounce coffees, so that - the show alwasy seems to return to my poor physical and mental health , I'm terrible at self care ,do exactly the wrong thing I drink coffee throughout the day eat a large meal and then snack to 11 o'clock watching TV. This is why you know I'm a 40 year old with the body of a 65 year old.
Gina Turner:Well I think one of the words of the of the day is empathy so empathy for our choices no matter what they are whether it's cookies for breakfast, chicken tchouptoulas for breakfast...
Tom O'Connor:Another nerd deep cut just quickly because I love it - back in the heyday of cartoons in the newspaper everyone - obviously calvin and hobbes wonderful but I was a Berkeley Breathed man, I was a Bloom County/Outland/Opus fan, and one of my favorite snapshots is a character, Steve Dallas(stand in for Berkeley Breathed who wrote the strip) goes to the doctor and the doctor looks at him he says "Steve, your body is pooh" and I've often as I you know consider my life choices and the relative lack of exercise, I said, if my doctor honestly you know had an honest conversation with me it would run along very similar lines
Erin Reilly:Well you are speaking my language - five year old humor! I am all into those jokes! There's lots of poop talk going on around here! And on that note...
Gina Turner:On that lovely note! Erin it has been an utter delight - it's always a delight to get to talk to you
Erin Reilly:so good to see you all, thank you for having me
Gina Turner:I know it's a real treat, Ican't wait until we're all together in person again on campus
Erin Reilly:Like he said, we should party, we should celebrate.
Gina Turner:Totally party! Multiple cookies!
Erin Reilly:I'll bring the cookies yes!
Gina Turner:Yay!!! Pedagogy-a-go-go.... Pedagogy-go go go So that was such a pleasure to talk to Erin today what a fun episode of our podcast what a fun guest!
Tom O'Connor:I said it would be soul stirring and I stand by it! My soul is stirred. Just listening to her speak and talk about her students and the changes she has wrought and moving from a mad scientist to an advocate for them in difficult times, I'm inspired !
Gina Turner:Yeah she always inspires me to be more empathetic. I mean I think it you just see how much she wants to connect with students. You know she mentioned briefly at the beginning that she and I have collaborated a couple of times coming to each other's classes and it was such a pleasure to see her in action in the room and how much her her students really respond to her.
Tom O'Connor:And respect her to well I would imagine and so this is the longest amount of time I've had getting to really have an intimate conversation with Erin, about her teaching and her practice. And if I had any, here's what I imagined her students think about her because this was my read is that she can't help but be anything less than 100% genuine, authentic, and our students read that. She strikes me as as fearless, passionate, inquisitive. And with a deep held belief in what she does, you know, she spoke about, you know, we kind of began with that conversation about opening our students up to right now and which isn't immediately felt need in our in our nation and globally, the ability to empathically embody a different point of view to think about problems and people differently and to embrace different perspectives. And as she was talking about that, she was later talking about students who found their success in the world and other classes by the toolkit that they had kind of put together. And Erin is in her sociology classes that she teaches. She's teaching the toolkit, she has given them the toolbox that will make them better students, better career individuals, better, better,
Gina Turner:Better citizens of the world exactly! citizens of the world...
Tom O'Connor:Say great minds, Gina.
Gina Turner:And the other thing that I'm going to carry with me is the way she talked about having grace, both for our students and for ourselves. And I think that that's a hard thing for us to remember, especially for ourselves. I'm always trying to advocate for ourselves as teachers, to keep ourselves you know, as mentally and physically healthy as possible so that we can be those scientists and advocates and coaches and leaders and models for our students. But, but having the grace to give ourselves a break sometimes I think is really important, too.
Tom O'Connor:Yeah, that word, I thought about when as soon as she used that, I thought, well, you could have plugged this into her answer about self care and what she's doing to take care of herself in this time, her presence in the classroom, her self and identity in terms of both giving herself a break, but learning to approach our students and their experiences, as well as our fellow faculty, colleagues. And yes, our administrators were not always the bad guys with with grace. And I felt that grace today I want to title this episode, The Diary of a graceful, graceful, mad social scientist, I know it will be vetoed. But that's how I felt, you know, this, that's who she was. I mean, I think she embodies that grace, call it authenticity. But also just an amazing practice in the classroom and giving your students you know, she's changing lives one, yeah, one one individual student classroom at a time,
Gina Turner:Fueled by Diet Coke and a big cookie.
Tom O'Connor:I love it.
Gina Turner:I could not start the day with a hit of sugar from a cookie. And that just shows how we are each unique and special individuals,
Tom O'Connor:Weirdly enough, and I always use movies. And so the person I thought about was Andy Kaufman, you know, who, who found grace in a way later in his career and you know, and and, and when he knew that his life was nearing its end. In one of his last performances, he took the entire audience out for milk and warm cookies
Gina Turner:Milk and cookies. And because he could not imagine any gesture that embodied kind of the human condition in a way which was which was part of what made him a genius so I don't know why. I don't know if Erin will appreciate the Andy Kaufman comparison or find find any hidden meaning in it. But that's that's where my my weirdly trained brain went. Well, cookies were involved so. So Tom, I think it is time for me to put on my psychology hat. And because you keep talking about how you are woeful at self care, and
Tom O'Connor:oh, gosh, I know I'm hard on myself.
Gina Turner:You're hard on yourself. So I'm going to offer you my services as your little wellness, you know, fairy godmother.
Tom O'Connor:Tell me more I asked cautiously and trepidaciously.
Gina Turner:I shared my own little personal intervention project that I'm doing with my health psychology students, I'm going to try and jump rope regularly again...
Tom O'Connor:For the record, I imagined you in the Rocky kind of cloak that he wears with the hood.
Gina Turner:No, we'll be luck if I take off my pajamas!
Tom O'Connor:Leave me my mental idealized images of you hard at work with the Rocky training program and music pumping in.
Gina Turner:Well, the thing is, I asked my students to make it small, right because of course, any behavior change has to start small. It doesn't have to be earth shattering. Maybe there's one thing maybe Erin inspired you to give yourself some grace- maybe there's one little thing that you can think about doing before we meet again to record our next podcast.
Tom O'Connor:All right and I don't want to be alone in this I think for anyone listening I think that clearly I imagine the value of your students seeing this assignment. I love an assignment that, you know, I mean literally the work of the assignment is changing an aspect of their lives for the better.
Gina Turner:It's changing their lives but if they don't change their lives they can still get an "A" on the assignment because they're learning about how hard it can be to change a behavior. But they're learning the skills that they might be able to use in the future to change that behavior. Yay.
Tom O'Connor:What i'm hearing, Gina ,when I set my task this Oh that was bad, that's that is a groaner and a goal minute though it may be when I inevitably fail to some you know to complete it in some aspect that I can still get an "" on this assignment. I like he sound of this! but I will gi e it a - no, I apologize for sa ing this awful pun - I almost s id punny which is literally he worst word in the human lang age, but I will give it the ol college try. half.
Gina Turner:But that is all we can ask. Wait but you didn't say what you're gonna do?
Tom O'Connor:Oh you can't put me on - I don't think I can I am not prepared to be put on the spot like that!
Gina Turner:All right fine but...
Tom O'Connor:I feel like iIwill come back I want to choose something that will legitimately you know provide a boon and help in my life
Gina Turner:Okay fair enough
Tom O'Connor:So I will seek my own balm in Gilead and come up with something and I will tell the story of it's either wild success or equally wild spectacular failure when we return.
Gina Turner:That sounds good and I will also report in on my attempt at jumping rope.
Tom O'Connor:I'm immediately imagining myself as Bill Murray as I hope at some moment you know like this - has a student ever said with this instruction you know I'm baby stepping and I'm doing the work
Gina Turner:Well you will be the first...
Tom O'Connor:oh I am already the first
Gina Turner:...who requires - because I know what you're talking about - it requires you roping yourself to the mast of the boat in order to call yourself a sailor!
Tom O'Connor:i'm in! You know what, I'm gonna dream big. Gina!
Gina Turner:Good good! Not too big though, not too big, realistic!
Tom O'Connor:Realistic!
Gina Turner:All right I wish you grace and I wish you luck Tom!
Tom O'Connor:Namaste! Until next time.
Gina Turner:Tada! (and Tom silly singing)
Tom O'Connor: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 showrunner 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.