Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Who thinks that they can subdue Leviathan? Strength resides in its neck; dismay goes before it. It is without fear. It looks down on all who are haughty; it is king over all who are proud. These words inspired PJ Wehry to create Chasing Leviathan. Chasing Leviathan was born out of two ideals: that truth is worth pursuing but will never be subjugated, and the discipline of listening is one of the most important habits anyone can develop. Every episode is a dialogue, a journey into the depths of a meaningful question explored through the lens of personal experience or professional expertise.
PJ:
Hello and welcome to Chasing the Viathan. I'm your host, PJ Weary, and I'm here today with Dr. Christina Katapotis. And we're gonna talk about her book, New College Classroom, The New College Classroom. Dr. Katapotis is the Associate Director of Transformative Learning in the Humanities and the winner of the 2019 Diana Colbert Innovative Teaching Prize and the 2018 Dewey Digital Teaching Award. Dr. Katapotis, wonderful to have you on today. Excited to talk about the state of academia and how it can get better.
Christina:
Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
PJ:
So first and foremost, and you wrote this with Kathy Davidson, why this book? How did this book come about?
Christina:
Great question. So I started out, I got my masters in American studies and I had a break in between that and getting my PhD. And I taught at a community college in Florida. and got thrown into the lion's den. Kind of like with no preparation. There was like a brief orientation. I had very little teaching experience. The idea was just, well, you have the expertise, so surely you can teach. And that is not how it works in K-12. This is unique to higher ed. This is part of what we've inherited from the 19th century. That no, teacher education is for grade school that, you know, as long as you have expertise, surely you can teach. And that is not the case. And so I had been working with Kathy for a few years in the Futures Initiative as a graduate research fellow. And we'd been working together, I'd been blogging about my teaching, some of the experiments that I was doing in my classroom with my students as co-learners, as co-creators. And she was like, And I was like, I want it to be something that I wish someone had handed me when I started teaching. You know, I, adjuncts, graduate students, or, you know, teaching for the first time, even in a tenure-track role, we don't really get the kind of support and training that we need. And that disadvantages everyone involved, our students, ourselves, and I think that there's just more that we could do to prepare ourselves for the students that are in our classrooms today because that older way of teaching, right, you sit in a desk, you listen. That's not active learning. That's not being engaged and ready for the world, engaged and ready to learn. That's learning how to, this is what Samuel Delaney says, learning how to not ask for a raise. learning how to not advocate for yourself, how to not participate in the world, or even worse, believing that there is someone out there smarter than me, the person standing in the front of the room somewhere, who will solve that problem. Because I don't have the skills to solve that problem. Someone else will solve climate change. Someone else will solve social inequities, right? Someone smarter than me, because that's what we teach our students in that kind of traditional lecture unless we ask them questions, ask them to engage and tell them that we expect their participation, we expect their engagement so that they can become citizens of the world and participate in a democratic society and make things
PJ:
Cough
Christina:
better
PJ:
cough.
Christina:
to become problem solvers. So when I started kind of experimenting and tweaking along, you know, and I met Cathy along the way and we started working together. I did things like I left a part of my syllabus blank and students would elect, like propose what to fill in that space and then we'd come up with the criteria together and then we'd vote, okay this is the novel we're going to read for our fiction unit. And I got up to the point where 60% of my syllabus was left blank. So I'd have everything planned through the beginning of October and then nothing. There's a blank page after page after page. And I'd have to tell my students like, you can trust me. We're going to do this together. I'll hold your hand through the process, but you are going to come up with what we're going to read because I want to know what you're curious about. What do you want to learn? And some of the students are like, Cut the reins and let me go. Leave me alone. And some of the students are like, but you are the expert. You know what we should read. And I'm like, but I don't know what questions you have about the world. I don't know what you're most excited about. You have to tell me. And then we can work it out together through conversation and co-creation. That prepares students for the kind of world that we're in. We don't, gosh, as a parent, particularly, right? I have two kids under the age of four. I wish that someone could hand me like five options, A, B, C, D, or all of the above or whatever, and just say, okay, so of these available options, this is what you should do, right? There's one right answer. That's not how we live in the world, right? It's always a blank slate. And I teach American Lit. So it's like, well, that constitution came from somewhere, right? We had to like, so how do we? take the world as a blank slate for ourselves or our career or our future and fill it in. You have to get practice and best to do that in community and in this space where we're doing critical thinking, we're practicing for the world, right? This is where we learn how to prepare ourselves for the world in which we live and how we want to be in it. So that's why this book.
PJ:
Your passion is very apparent. Thank you for just a really, it's an exciting answer. You talked about going back and forth on this and it's really interesting how this intersects a lot with my own journey in several ways. You talked about a lot of your influences being John Dewey. I mean, you won an award with his name in it, so of course, right? But the bell hooks, and you
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
mentioned at one point that their vision, you wanted to add something because their writings tend to be more polemical.
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
Can you talk a little bit about what you took from them and why you felt the need to add
Christina:
Hmm
PJ:
what it means that they are more polemical?
Christina:
Okay,
PJ:
Or at least bell hooks. I don't think you said that
Christina:
sure.
PJ:
about John Dewey, but.
Christina:
I mean, John Dewey, so I'm a 19th century Americanist, John Dewey, that's his era, right? And I've always kind of associated his learning with like learning in the field, also related to what Ralph Waldo Emerson says about the American scholar, that book learning is great up to a point. But if you keep on copying and pasting and repeating, reusing and recycling what's been done, then that's not really original. And so from Dewey kind of coming out of that way of thinking, we get the hands-on learning, right? Learning by doing, learning through experience. That's crucial. But if I go back and think about my college education, okay, I did that in my labs. I did that when I was studying biology, when I was studying geology. I can't really say the same necessarily except for maybe creative writing where you draw from life experience, right? And so how do we take not that 19th century context or not just the lab but expand that to every classroom? How do we do that? And there are a bunch of short activities in the book ways to do that. but in this context with these students. So for example, instead of fearing something like ChatGPT, since that's what a lot of folks are talking about, right? This semester, my students and I are gonna take our writing prompt for one of our paper assignments and we're gonna give it to ChatGPT and ask ChatGPT to write a paper. And then we're gonna grade it. and we're gonna edit it. And I have colleagues like Shelly Eversley, who's at Baruch College, who did this with her students. And they were like, this paper is so boring. Or like, this is just wrong. That never happened in this book. And so they're showing their personality, right? What they bring to their writing, that kind of personal. And it's not the humanities unless we learn how to be humans, right? Like AI cannot replace. those humanistic skills. I mean, it can help us find the ingredient, you know, here are the ingredients in my fridge, make me a recipe, but it can't give that humanistic element to it. And so rather than fearing those kinds of things, let's get hands on, let's dive deep, let's get dirty, let's get muddy and go. And we can do that, not necessarily just in the lab. With bell hooks, I love bell hooks so much. I learned so much from her that. Deep and meaningful learning comes from a space where we have trust, we have the ability to make mistakes, we know that we feel safe, and we know that we're loved, that we're cared about. That's where deep and meaningful learning happens. It comes out of those places in our hearts. And if we don't have that, right, then... we're worried about, well, what grade am I going to get on this? And how are you, who have all of the control in this situation, all of the power as my professor, how are you going to take away points so I don't get the A that I need to open the door to the next thing that I need? So I'm curious if I can ask you a question, since you talked about your own learning journey. What's one of your favorite memories from? your education? Like what's one thing that sticks out to you that you really remember?
PJ:
Um, so my favorite classes were always reading classes.
Christina:
Hmm.
PJ:
So just like independent reading. Um, so
Christina:
Uh huh.
PJ:
I had a, I had a Shakespeare class, uh, in college and, uh, we just read a play a week and wrote a paper on it every week, which is actually
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
like a lot of work for, you know, the, our English department per class, but it was just, I really enjoyed that. Um,
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
and then, uh, I did a history of exegesis, uh, course, and we read about 2000 pages. in primary sources and this was like a graduate level course and 700
Christina:
I was
PJ:
page,
Christina:
going to say that
PJ:
800,
Christina:
sounds like a graduate
PJ:
yes.
Christina:
level course.
PJ:
And so we went from
Christina:
Punishing.
PJ:
Aristotle to Schleiermacher. So 2000 years and we met once a week and we would read and then we would talk about how that affected. It was mainly focused on biblical interpretation but it ended up being, you know, I ended up going into philosophical hermeneutics kind of based out of that class. You know, we read the Didascalion. That to me was like a lot more fun. And then I ended up being a teacher, but they just needed someone to kind of fit. And so I started out part time, had a wife and kid, and so I was just trying to, you know, make it
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
financially and made it to full time. and not here to bring up any bad blood or anything, but the experience was I had not been taught how to teach.
Christina:
Yep.
PJ:
So it was high school, and I was supposed to teach AP European history. I'd never taken
Christina:
Oh wow.
PJ:
any AP classes. And so they sent me to a seminar to teach me how to teach AP European history two weeks before the semester began, or maybe three weeks. And I did not work on any content before that because I figured... They would help me, I didn't want to structure my course till I saw what they wanted. And we spent the entire week talking about how to beat the test.
Christina:
Oh wow.
PJ:
That was all that it was on. The only thing we talked about for content is we watched the Luther movie. That was what we did for this seminar on how to teach AP European history. So, and the way that I was instructed to teach, I was not. super comfortable. I often pushed things in ways that, uh, more active, but also just trying to mix it up because I didn't want to stand. It was a lot of work to like come up with my own stuff. Uh, anyways, um, so, uh, they ended up having some financial troubles and I was the lowest man on, uh, you know,
Christina:
I gotcha.
PJ:
uh, in the tier.
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
So I ended up being, uh, actually it's the best thing ever because I like creating content. I don't
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
like, like I like, I've, I've created curriculum a couple of times and I love that. not there to like, my classroom management was pretty bad in terms of, I like, I, anyways, having the principal come in and seeing kids on phones in the back. And I was like, you know, I would tell them to put them away or whatever, but I just, I was not going to fight with them. Um,
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
so, uh, which has led me to, um, we actually have, uh, you know, I want to be careful for legal reasons, but we have two foster kids right now and three biological kids. So we went from two to five kids in four months. It's been very exciting. So one of them is 10 months old. So obviously no schooling options there. But... So I homeschool my two boys and part of it is,
Christina:
Hmm.
PJ:
as I was talking to my parents, like, oh, you know, you'd be able to work more in your business, you know, this is not my day job. And I was like, I want them to be more self-directed in their learning. And what I saw is an incredible amount of dead time during the
Christina:
Yeah.
PJ:
school day. And I saw kids losing their desire to learn.
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
And I was like, that's not real learning. So when
Christina:
Yeah.
PJ:
I say, the foster, The foster kids are in school and that's a stability and structure and I don't have anything against different forms of schooling but as a former teacher I felt um if given the opportunity I wanted to Uh, there's a like kind of it's interesting, you know I'd love to hear more about how you handle syllabus and stuff like that because there's a lot of core competencies, right? I have
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
a uh third grader and a first grader There's like they have to be able to read they have
Christina:
Yeah.
PJ:
to be able to do math but past that like we we did less schoolwork for a week and we learned how
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
to do a Rubik's cube. And then we learned
Christina:
Amazing.
PJ:
how to play chess. You know, it's like whatever he was interested in. And so anyways, long
Christina:
Which
PJ:
answer,
Christina:
is math.
PJ:
but yes,
Christina:
That
PJ:
right.
Christina:
is math.
PJ:
I mean, yes. I mean, that's
Christina:
Yeah.
PJ:
like, for me, like, you're never gonna learn everything you need in K through 12 anyways, or in graduate. But if you have a hunger to learn and you learn how
Christina:
Exactly.
PJ:
to learn. So I...
Christina:
Exactly.
PJ:
And so that's actually turned a lot my own projects is like focusing on wisdom, which is you know, there's knowledge and then there's
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
how you
Christina:
Mm.
PJ:
Create your options right
Christina:
playing.
PJ:
in a world that is very creative and looking at problems and looking how you can turn problems into solutions like it's just such a In ways that are that's embodied knowledge to more than
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
just and not to like I understand there's value in critical thinking, but sometimes I feel like critical thinking can often miss the, I feel like wisdom carries that hands-on aspect
Christina:
Mm.
PJ:
as well, if that makes sense.
Christina:
Yeah. I have...
PJ:
So, sorry, super long answer,
Christina:
I don't
PJ:
but.
Christina:
know.
PJ:
Ha ha.
Christina:
I'm so glad that I asked you because there's so much there. So, first of all, going back to thinking about philosophy and what's so engaging and memorable about any kind of... like, going back to Aristotle, right, is that this is all about the world in which we live. So it's immediately applicable, right? So... When I met my partner, I met him online and I was looking for someone who had a good book list. That was the requirement, had to have a good book list. So I see this guy online and he's got Wittgenstein in his book list. And I was like, oh wow, all right, you don't play. So what do you do? And I was like, why are you in finance? And I was just super curious. So I messaged him, I was like, these two things do not add up. please explain
PJ:
Mm-hmm.
Christina:
yourself to me.
PJ:
Yeah.
Christina:
And he was like, oh, well, I got masters in philosophy, but you know, needed to pay the bills. And I was like, oh, okay, that makes perfect sense. Well, in our, in our like, coming to understand one another, there's this part of Wittgenstein that I really love the metaphor about the beetle in the box that like, well, if everyone has a box and we all say that you have a beetle in your box, but we don't know. We can't confirm that you actually have a beetle in the box or what type of beetle or what the beetle looks like. But we'll just tell everyone that they have a beetle in the box and they all look and they all close it. We all have very different ideas of what a beetle is, right? And but that's how we come up with that language. So anyway, that ended up making its way into our vows unexpectedly. So but that's the thing is that, right, you're given this concept and you can immediately think about, wow. how do I explain this abstract concept to my kid like who hasn't seen what like, okay, I'm telling you this is a beetle, but like you need all of these reference points. So for a while, my eldest grew up in the pandemic and he, I was trying to get him to understand what a dog was and we were totally isolated in New York. And so I was reading these books with dogs and I would like bark and I'd say dog, right? and it would be out in the world and he'd see dogs. And it took him a while to actually develop an interest in learning what this is and what word it is to describe. And it wasn't until like a dog licked his face and like started barking and he felt the fur and like realized that dogs are fluffy and fun.
PJ:
Right.
Christina:
And he was like, oh, now I'm gonna point at every dog I see. And then for a while it was funny because even when he saw small dogs, he thought they were cats, he was learning categories.
PJ:
Yes.
Christina:
Right? Categorical learning. And it was just so funny learning these categories. You saw a plane, you thought it was a duck. You know, understanding the world in which we live. And so that's experiential learning, right? And a lot of that is baked into those kinds of courses that you were taking. But what you're saying about, you know, your kids in these different grades and how to take a problem and turn it into a solution. Like I often think of... I'm a huge fan of public education. I'm at a massive public institution. I love public education. And I love the ways in which it brings so many different people with so many different backgrounds into the same space. And we all learn from each other more when there are different people in the room. And there's also. a crazy amount of bureaucracy, right? And like you said, dead time or studying for a test, like just how do I pass this next level? Often those tests are written by people who have never taught in their lives.
PJ:
Yes.
Christina:
Or they're written with people who have more privilege than necessary, like tests with questions about references that students wouldn't understand because they come from different backgrounds, right? that are not accessible, that I'll have all of these hidden curricula in them,
PJ:
Mm.
Christina:
right? All of this kind of social knowledge and like this hidden curriculum that, unless you're given a
PJ:
Cough
Christina:
crazy amount of time and attention and cultural education, you wouldn't understand this reference to this question and you'll get it wrong, not because you're not capable, but just because the way the question is framed. So I think of turning that problem into a solution of helping kids to become smart navigators of a bureaucratic system because they're going to have to learn how to navigate through many bureaucratic systems throughout their lives. So here you go. This is like this extra bit of learning and life experience that is frustrating, is difficult, and
PJ:
Oh gosh.
Christina:
the more you approach the whole system itself as a learning experience. then the better you will be at navigating that in the world because you're gonna come up with it, right? And you're just gonna have to go to the DMV to get your driver's license renewed and then you're gonna find out that you also have to bring a piece of mail that has to have like some evidence of something and you're like, what, I don't have that. Like, you know, you're gonna have to fill out 50,000 forms, you know, and just learning that process and learning how to anticipate it, how to navigate it, how to do it successfully. Um, so I think of that too, um, you know, in thinking about dead time and how to use it, but what I love about what you said about the Rubik's cube and, um, chess and figuring out like what motivates students to learn, right? We think, oh, we need grades, right? We we've been literally ranked and rated from birth. So, you know, that system when you're child's born, they rank your child from like one to 10, it's the op guard system and like, totally necessary, I understand like you need to diagnose like anything that needs addressing, absolutely. But I started to become really curious about this when I started critiquing grading. And so when my second was born, they gave him like some like nine or 9.5, I was like, why not a 10? And they're like, oh, no one ever gets a 10. I was
PJ:
Right.
Christina:
like, then why is there 10?
PJ:
Yeah.
Christina:
Just because you like an even number? Why
PJ:
I'm
Christina:
not
PJ:
gonna
Christina:
nine?
PJ:
go to bed.
Christina:
You know, F is the only like symbolic letter grade because they thought that E would be confused for excellence and so you know ABCD have no reference whatsoever but then like no we have to skip E because people might think that's not how we learn we don't learn through shame we don't learn through guilt or through feelings of, you know, guilty about feeling like we're procrastinating, guilty about how we're spending our time. We don't learn that way. Those are super negative feelings that shut down a brain immediately. And connecting students with their internal motivators is really hard because it requires giving up a little bit of control, right? And trusting that if we set up an environment where they can thrive, that... they'll take the lead and connect to that motivation. And so if you ask students, why are you here? They might not necessarily know why they're in college. It's like, well, this is just the next step in this education. Or like, I don't know how I got here. This
PJ:
Hahaha!
Christina:
class just fit my schedule, you know? I did that. I played Ultimate Frisbee in college and that meant that I couldn't take certain courses during practice hours, you know?
PJ:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Christina:
And yeah, I took rocks for jocks and I was there with all my other ultimate friends and I learned a lot about rocks. That wasn't the course that I wanted to be in. Sure, I learned a lot of things. I ended up writing a paper on principles of geology as a graduate student, but you know, there are sometimes these like happy accidents like, oh, I'm so glad I ended up in this logic course. Now I understand how to better argue with my dad. That was great.
PJ:
Hahaha!
Christina:
Sure, give me a good logical proof and I can argue with you. Maybe I might win a couple rounds. But, you know, sometimes it's accidental and it can be a happy accident. Sometimes students are utterly terrified because they walk into the room and they're like, I'm a bad writer. And I'm like, you belong here. You know,
PJ:
Yeah.
Christina:
you belong here. It's okay. I was a bad writer. And if you saw our first draft of a paper I've written, it's bad, it's okay. You know, and because there's all of that shame and guilt and comparing and external motivation, that's not how we learn. We learn through, again, like love, deep interest, curiosity, learning what you said. And that takes making room and flexibility. And when you're teaching to a test, that's a, you know, that's a decent skill to learn how to pass something, how to get over a hurdle. But if that's the only skills, like, if those are the only skills we're learning. that's not going to prepare you for the world where there isn't a ABC or all the above option.
PJ:
Well, and that's, if I can speak to that, that was
Christina:
Uh-huh.
PJ:
so disheartening when I was teaching the AP European history class. The most driven students and the ones who were most curious were just utterly
Christina:
Mm.
PJ:
consumed because they're an AP. So these are the best students. Because they're an AP, all they cared about was beating the test as well. Because it's a huge investment of time. And what that meant was, is I don't think they remember anything from my course. And I would take certain days when I could fit it in, where I taught things that had nothing to do with that. And because, and I don't think they, I think they got annoyed because they were like, this is, you know what I mean? Cause like,
Christina:
Right.
PJ:
I'm teaching them like, this is, I mean, when you talk about going through European history, like, it's so applicable, right? It's like, you're like, look at this, I'm like, this is why it's the way it is today. You know, I'm like taking them through like, this is John Locke and this is why, this is the argument that Created the United States and
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
this is the argument that got rid of slavery in many cases, right? I mean like and there's you know, there'd be certain flashes But like there was just that there was always this huge barrier because they're like well Is that going to be on the test and I'm like and if you're doing if you're distracted You're not gonna learn and that was yeah, and that's I mean, what's funny too is We get so easily sucked in that competition. I think it's why people think grades work So for instance for my sons, I don't grade I just have them correct what they get wrong. Right? Because, and
Christina:
Mm.
PJ:
you know what? They learn from that. Like, that's
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
really, and you said it in here, but like, I often say to my wife, it needs to be safe to fail. Right? That's
Christina:
Yeah.
PJ:
the whole point of like childhood, really.
Christina:
Absolutely.
PJ:
But you know what they made me do? They've stopped doing it, but I bet you can guess. What did they want me to do when they were done correcting?
Christina:
Give you a, give them a grade.
PJ:
Yeah, I had to give them 100%. And I'm just
Christina:
Yeah.
PJ:
like... but it doesn't
Christina:
I know,
PJ:
mean
Christina:
I know,
PJ:
anything. But they
Christina:
I know.
PJ:
see it, they see other kids have it, and they're like,
Christina:
Right.
PJ:
I have to have the 100%. And I'm like,
Christina:
Sure.
PJ:
here you go. I'm like, and then I'll notice a mistake afterwards that I didn't catch, and I'm just like, you know what? You have your 100%, I don't care. That's it. It's
Christina:
Yeah.
PJ:
like.
Christina:
Well, but that happens in real life too, right?
PJ:
Right?
Christina:
And things can go completely successfully and you might have messed up. I mean, that's also how we got penicillin. Happy
PJ:
Right.
Christina:
accident,
PJ:
Yes
Christina:
you know? It's funny because there's so much research behind two of the things that you've observed. So when we're studying for a test, we know that the brain is just forming these networks and it's going to drop them. as soon as that test
PJ:
Yep,
Christina:
is over. So
PJ:
100%.
Christina:
students who get A's on an exam in May take the identical exam in September and they fail. There's a precipitous drop, I think it's like 70% in that content learning. And this is what I say about, you know, doctor, like a lot of the like pushback is like, well, what about doctors? Don't you want your doctors to like have all this stuff memorized? I'm like, they have an app that will tell them. what conflicts with this medication? They have an app for that. Are they skilled at how to use it? Do they have the life experience of understanding the particular situation of my body and what I need as a person with xyz who has this kind of lifestyle and this kind of family history? That's a skill, right? But that's that humanistic element again. That's not coming from rote memorization. That's not the skill that you need. Like, yes, you absolutely need, like, in an urgent care situation, some of those basic things, right?
PJ:
There's core competencies, right?
Christina:
Right,
PJ:
Like
Christina:
core
PJ:
those things
Christina:
competencies,
PJ:
like if you
Christina:
exactly.
PJ:
can't read, if you can't do math, like, you know, at
Christina:
Yes.
PJ:
a basic level, you're gonna...
Christina:
Right.
PJ:
Yes.
Christina:
But you know, if someone had told me why math,
PJ:
Yes.
Christina:
I probably would have gone into physics. But I
PJ:
Yeah,
Christina:
just didn't know. I was
PJ:
right,
Christina:
just studying
PJ:
right.
Christina:
for exams because
PJ:
Yes.
Christina:
I had to catch up to my peers because I had failed this one test in fifth grade because I got one question. I was one question away from passing this one test. They let me retake it and I got the same question wrong again. Because no one gave me any kind of, they just said, here's the same exact test. And I
PJ:
And
Christina:
got
PJ:
then
Christina:
the
PJ:
you
Christina:
same
PJ:
got labeled
Christina:
exact things
PJ:
as
Christina:
right.
PJ:
bad at math for a long time.
Christina:
Oh yeah,
PJ:
Cause
Christina:
oh
PJ:
that
Christina:
yeah,
PJ:
one
Christina:
and
PJ:
question,
Christina:
I was on a completely
PJ:
yeah.
Christina:
different track from fifth
PJ:
Yes,
Christina:
grade
PJ:
yes.
Christina:
through high school and
PJ:
That's
Christina:
one year
PJ:
crazy.
Christina:
I took geometry and trigonometry together and I did great. I did really well in things that are really hard for some people because my teachers were passionate, the learning was great, and then I got to pre-calc and I just shut down. Literally. cried
PJ:
Hmm.
Christina:
so much over this one textbook that it looked like
PJ:
Hmm.
Christina:
it had been soaked in the rain. Like it was horrible. And my TI-83 calculator died on the final exam day. And I was like, it is a sign from God that
PJ:
Hahahaha
Christina:
I am terrible at math. I am doomed to fail. And I had to borrow my teacher's calculator. And I was like, that's it. I can't do this. And
PJ:
Hmm.
Christina:
you know, got around. a few requirements in college and skated by. If you had told me that I could learn about the stars through math, which I really cared about at the time. I would have pushed through and just said, talked it up to, all right, one bad teacher or one person who is probably significantly underpaid, under trained and probably going through some shit in their life. Like, you know, we all do and you can't reach every student. And in that class, I was that student that could not be reached. And a lot of it was my mindset. Those things came easily to my parents and they didn't know how to guide me through that process. They didn't know how to help me overcome my own anxieties as a student, getting ready for college, like all of the other mental blocks that were happening in my life. My parents were, both of my parents who were in different marriages were about to get, go through divorces. Um, but I didn't know that. So I was being gaslit because everyone was telling me everything was fine. It was not. And so all this other stuff is happening in our students' lives. And if we don't take a moment to reach out to them and ask them how they're doing or what they're thinking about, like, then who cares about math? But I cared about the stars and I would have probably gone into physics. Anyway,
PJ:
No, well actually
Christina:
it's so
PJ:
if you
Christina:
important.
PJ:
don't... Yeah, I have been blessed to have a stable home life. We actually live in a multi-generational house and my parents live with us. It's a big household. So, but my dad, when he was six years old, his parents came in and were like, hey, we're getting a divorce. And he thought it was a car. He thought they were getting a new car. And that's like,
Christina:
Oh
PJ:
cause
Christina:
my
PJ:
he
Christina:
God.
PJ:
didn't know, you know what I mean? And...
Christina:
Yeah.
PJ:
The, that's one of the problems with grading and this is where some of my thoughts and some of them have been informed by Heidegger and the idea of
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
in framing and the idea of like, we create boxes because boxes are quantitative and that's where a lot of the grading comes in. It's like, well, whether or not, it was just that one question, you just need that one thing, but you were good at math, but it was just that one thing, you're on the different track because you've been put into this box,
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
never mind what personal things you're going through. So that is just what's really frustrating to me about a lot of this and what I appreciate about what you're talking about is that you're talking about navigating bureaucracy. I went and started my own business because I got kind of sick of it. I just want to work and do what I'm supposed to do. And if I do
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
it and it does well, then I do well. I don't want to have to, you know,
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
do like, don't get me started about time sheets. But
Christina:
Oh.
PJ:
the, it's like, you know, like if this person worked eight hours, I worked eight hours and I got more work because I actually worked and they, you know, it's a strange thing.
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
But. I think, I apologize for rambling a little bit, some of it's the emotions of this. Like I think everyone
Christina:
For sure.
PJ:
has educational stuff that they're just like, that was stupid. Like that's just part of it. It prepares you so little to be an adult though.
Christina:
Yeah.
PJ:
Like, and that's what you're, like, when you talk about like the, I saw so many kids, and I even felt this in myself, I was fortunate enough to be good at academics, right? So I was good at something.
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
But when you look at it, it's like, you have the theater.
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
especially I was in small schools, you had athletics,
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
and you had academics. Never mind that there's like a million ways to be gifted and to make your way through the world.
Christina:
for sure.
PJ:
If you don't fit one of those molds, then you're just kinda like, what are you, right? And of course your identity shouldn't be solely in your work, but
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
there is no flourishing, there is no blooming of the person you're supposed to be, and that's why I've talked to so many adults who are like 30 before they figure out they're good at something.
Christina:
Yeah.
PJ:
And that's, to me, we have
Christina:
or who
PJ:
done
Christina:
believe,
PJ:
a big disservice.
Christina:
right,
PJ:
Yeah,
Christina:
or
PJ:
go
Christina:
who
PJ:
ahead.
Christina:
believe that they're good at something,
PJ:
Right.
Christina:
right? Like,
PJ:
Yes,
Christina:
that's the thing
PJ:
yes.
Christina:
is, so the other research behind some of the stuff that you were saying about your homeschooling and how you don't give grades, the other research is that if you give feedback with no grade, you take out that distraction, I think you said, like it's distracting, right?
PJ:
Right.
Christina:
And then you have to focus on the feedback. Okay, so what do I need to work on? What's going well and what do I need to work on? And so when you take out the grade and focus on that, students tend to do better than even with a grade and feedback, and certainly better than just a grade alone with no feedback. But part of it, part of what goes into that. is a growth mindset. This comes from Carol Dweck and we talk about this in the book as well. That now it's a bit controversial because a growth mindset isn't going to help someone with food insecurity or housing insecurity. There are basic needs that need to be met, right?
PJ:
Right.
Christina:
Like as a kid where I was in that moment in pre-calc, my basic needs emotionally weren't being met. Right, so there were things totally out of control for my pre-calc teacher. But it can help us to understand that a breakdown can become a breakthrough, right? That it's again, turning that problem into a solution. And that conversion, that takes so much resilience, so much persistence. And one of the things that I tell people, I applied to PhD programs three times before I got in. I was rejected over and over again and it happened, it got to a point where I was like maybe I'll just become an interior decorator.
PJ:
Yeah
Christina:
And my dad was like, um, why don't you try one more time?
PJ:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Christina:
But this time put everything into it.
PJ:
Hmm.
Christina:
And I was like, all right. And then if I don't get in, I'll become an interior decorator. But that's persistence, right? And so, and I say this over and over again at orientations or like those like meet and greets for grad students who are thinking of applying to grad school. I'm like the only difference between success and failure is persistence. That is the only thing. You just have to keep going and figure out how to fit that particular shape and get that puzzle piece into place that's missing. And That's so hard to learn because we're often told, oh, you're good at math or oh, you're good at English or you're good at that or you're not, or you're not an athlete or you know, or you'll never be an athlete or like, your legs are too long to be a gymnast, whatever. It's that persistence and nurturing whatever your kid is interested in and that passion. And... You know, you said that like you have to fail a little bit. Um, I'm thinking about potty training, my eldest. Um, we did the Oh crap potty training method, which totally worked. It was, it was great. Um, I couldn't plug that enough. Um, but, uh,
PJ:
I'm gonna write that down, I still have
Christina:
Oh crap
PJ:
one more
Christina:
potty
PJ:
to go.
Christina:
training. Yeah, I know. I thinking, um, but it's great. Um, but what I liked about it was that. There are no accidents and we never talk about accidents. It's just like, we're all still learning and that's it. We're still learning, you're still learning. And there's no judgment, there's no mistake. There's no, like an accident we often think of as something associated with shame or guilt or whatever, disappointment, but there are no accidents, we're all learning. Or you're still learning. Um, hopefully by now I've learned.
PJ:
I was about to say, I was like, are we all still
Christina:
Yeah,
PJ:
learning about potty training?
Christina:
I know.
PJ:
Hopefully not.
Christina:
I know. Um, well, you know, sometimes on the New York subway, I wonder.
PJ:
I
Christina:
Um, but, um, I, I think that that's important, that there's no shame or judgment in that, um, and I try really hard, um, you know, my kid, it was really sensitive about, um, not being able to ride a scooter as fast as other kids, and we would just let him run around, go around in the hallway and practice, practice. And he would just say, I'm bad at it, or I'm not good at scooting. And I'd be like, no, they've just had more practice than you. You're going to be so fast with practice. And I think just trying to get out of that mindset of good and bad is really hard to do in all of society kind of. pushes that on us. So, yeah, just throwing a little wrench into the wheel there.
PJ:
Yeah, one, I don't know if you've read Angela Duckworth's grit. That sounds like you might
Christina:
I've
PJ:
have been,
Christina:
heard
PJ:
okay,
Christina:
of it, I haven't read it yet, yeah.
PJ:
yeah. Very, I mean, what you're talking about, like that's one of the biggest things is just perseverance. Actually, the one, I won't even call it a critique. It was just kind of interesting. She said, kids from difficult homes have less grit than kids with, we actually went through it in my company together. Kids from stable homes have more grit than kids from unstable homes. or from traumatic childhoods. And I was like, I think they're just being grittier about different things. You know what I mean? I don't
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
think that's like, it's like,
Christina:
For sure.
PJ:
he's like, they don't stick with school. And I'm like, yeah, it's cause they're, they're working through emotional trauma, but that's a different thing. The, but overall loved the book, really helpful. And I'm curious what like, and you've kind of mentioned this, I think, and this brings us back to the syllabus point, is Persistence is a key skill, and the other key skill, ski kill,
Christina:
Ha ha!
PJ:
that's a different thing, is kind of self-awareness and mindfulness and constantly evaluating what you actually want and what you're actually interested in.
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
And that's the whole point of you leaving the syllabus open. And that's where, especially with things changing so fast, you don't always like they don't always know until they are forced to work through what questions they actually need answered
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
and a lot of it is teaching them to get those right questions right and
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
so like they'll be like well I really want to learn about this and you're like that's not particularly interesting but if you dig a little deeper you're like oh you don't actually want to learn about that you want to learn you know I had some friends um and we're going through biblical interpretation but what I realized is uh actually so I love uh this teacher was a tremendous and he just literally just pushed me to do whatever I wanted. So and it like he exactly what we're talking about here I was trying to learn why people disagreed about different types of interpretation with the Bible and So I was like I looked at best books on hermeneutics and Goddomer came up truth and method I don't know
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
if you're familiar with it, but is
Christina:
I am not. Ha
PJ:
very thick
Christina:
ha
PJ:
And it is it's philosophical
Christina:
ha!
PJ:
hermeneutics. It's just
Christina:
Got
PJ:
and
Christina:
it.
PJ:
I didn't know that and so I was like hey, I'd like to do Someone said, this is a really good book. I'd like to do a thing on it. He's like, sure, go ahead. And it was just baptism by fire. I didn't know anything was going on, but what I found out is what I was really interested in is how we interpret, right? And
Christina:
Mm.
PJ:
the real moments of learning come when we are really those baptism by fire moments when we are engaged, right?
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
Like, I think we've all, you know, even as you're talking about like pre-calc, it's like, hey, let's take something you're not really interested in that you're not emotionally engaged in, and then let's take away your calculator and let's see how it goes, right? Like, I was like, I don't understand what's wrong with her. She's so bad at math. It's like, no? Like, it's like, what?
Christina:
Oh man.
PJ:
And so, but that's, to kind of, to bring it back around, I'd love to hear how it better prepares students. and what
Christina:
Mmm.
PJ:
you've seen through, you know, if you want to talk about some of the techniques, but also just the idea of like, how do you fill up a syllabus then? And because I'm sure, I think I have a lot of people in academia who listen to this podcast, and they're like, okay, great, very wonderful. You're leaving open 60% of your curriculum. Like, sure, I'm sure that works really well for English, you know, they'll say
Christina:
Right.
PJ:
something demeaning
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
or whatever. But How does that look and how do you end up making sure it's still profitable?
Christina:
Sure, okay. So, I mean, there are a lot of courses in college where it's like, well, I'm teaching bio one, you need to be prepared with XYZ for bio two. And so, you know, absolutely 100%. I think figuring out where to cut back a little bit, what students can train up on their own. I spoke with, I did a whole seminar with some STEM faculty at City College where we talked a lot about ungrading and pairing back the content learning to focus on skills. And one of the faculty said to me, you know, I brought in this guest speaker and they were like, oh, well, so you know about X, insert fancy technical term, I cannot remember here. And she was like, I felt awful that I hadn't taught them that. Like, that was one of the things that got caught when I was trying to pair back content. And I was like, all right, well, let's just do a quick Google search. And I just, like, looked up the word. And I was like, is this a pretty comprehensive idea of what this is? And she was like, yeah. And I was like, so your students could Google that and figure it out if you train them how to do that well, right? What's a reliable source? Where can I go to find this information? Do I know how to use an index in my textbook to go find the page where I can learn about XYZ and figure it out on my own? That's a self-directed learner, right? Oh, I heard this word. This happened over and over for me again in graduate school where people were just throwing out words like hermeneutics or... ontology, epistemology, like name every ology ever. And I'm like writing all of these things down and I'm like, oh my God, I have no idea what anyone is talking about. And looking them up, you know, finding the Stanford encyclopedia. And so building those skills is important. And so I think when we focus on what are the skills my students need to be successful in this course. Am I assessing them only on those skills or is there a hidden expectation? Um, so am I thinking, Oh, you must have learned that in bio one or income one or wherever. Um, so I don't need to teach you that check in with yourself because we all teach differently unless you're all working together as faculty in a collaborative
PJ:
Right.
Christina:
situation and you're making sure that there is that continuity. unless you're doing that and that would be great. Don't assume, right? Only grade on what is the student learning in my class? What do they need? What do they need to take away? And focus on that skills-based learning. Teach them how to use the index. Teach them how to look things up they don't know. Where to go for that information.
PJ:
Can I interject just real
Christina:
Yeah.
PJ:
quick? Because I'd love to circle back to, I wanted to mention this, you were talking about the doctors thing, because a lot of
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
people are like, I want my doctors to know. Even the doctors who test well, still have to look up things. Like
Christina:
Yeah!
PJ:
they are doctors for 30 years,
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
so they still have to have these skills. It's actually way worse if they know those things when they're testing,
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
but don't know how to look it up later. And the other thing, and then I have a friend who, because we are progressing so quickly. He is constantly taught, he's going through medical school right now, that everything in their textbook is already outdated, no matter
Christina:
Yeah.
PJ:
how new it is.
Christina:
Oh
PJ:
And
Christina:
man.
PJ:
so this idea of, I mean, as you're talking here, of like, the real skill, like it's not retaining information anymore. The real skill is being able to navigate information, because you're going to forget,
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
and it's getting outdated so fast. So I'm sorry, I just like,
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
just
Christina:
100%.
PJ:
to return that.
Christina:
No, I remember, again, public school kid. I was super up on biology with my textbook, went to college. Thirteen years between publication dates. And I was like, we were just thinking about this a few months ago. And this has already happened, like a whole like decade plus of this stuff. Like it was mind blowing getting a textbook that had been published like. more recently. So yeah, 100%. So there are some things that like need to be done, but in courses where a lot of the content is dictated and or are very restricted, you can at least ask students what questions are you most interested in? So I know a professor who did this in his early British Lit class where the curriculum is kind of set. um, or determined and he asked the students, what are you most interested in learning about? And they focused on courtly love. And he's like, it never occurred to me, but of course they're interested in love. They're like asking questions like, what is it like to be in love? How do you know if you're in love? What is a good love? Of course they want to know about love. Why have I never thought about this in my life? So just asking students, first of all, what do you most interested in or curious about and then focusing on that topic or that angle or that like how it's related to that aspect of their lives. Teaching the same content right there's so many ways to teach the same content and what I love about you know either going by students feeling in a part of the syllabus maybe it's only one day of content or one assignment. Maybe it's a multimodal assignment instead of, or like a project instead of a test. Like there are different ways of doing this and having it guided by students, where students make up the questions for the exam and explain to you why it's important, why this question, why these wrong answers, why this right one. That's more engaged and experiential learning.
PJ:
But if you want to know more, you should buy and read the book. But anyways,
Christina:
Yes,
PJ:
yes.
Christina:
yeah, not, but I mean, but that's, you know, that's it. It's, um, the thing about it that I think people don't realize is when students give you what they're excited about, it might be within your repertoire, it might not. And so it is one of the most exciting moments as a scholar to have to pivot and say, oh, I need to like go find all of these resources on courtly love or oh, I need to go like figure out what's happening in this local community with this flooding situation that my students are worried about because their parents' homes, their basements are flooded. What, like, oh, I need to go find out more about how this thing relates to their lives and what they're curious about. And so as a scholar, you have to use everything in your arsenal to respond. And then The beauty of it is you break out of your silo. You break out of that echo chamber that you're in with your colleagues or in your research. And I've written articles based on the things that my students have recommended we read because, and I've, I've published on them, like, because they've convinced me this is what we need to read next. And this is why, yeah, I want to read that. Yeah. I want to learn about that. And this is totally far afield from what I typically do. And everything I do now is made better and stronger for that because I've broken out of my comfort zone. So it's just it's one of the most rigorous ways to teach because your students are alert. They're like, oh, I'm responsible for part of this. Oh, I guess I need to show up. I guess I need to pay attention. You know, they're shouldering a little more of that responsibility for learning. And it's less like I don't get it. So it's your fault. It's more like, what am I gonna contribute? What am I gonna bring to this experience so that I get out of it what I want? And that's what we really wanna do is put students on the driver's seat of their education so they're self-driven, self-directed, they become self-starters. Those are entrepreneurial skills, they're thinking ahead, they're thinking in advance, they're learning how to ask a bad question, how to ask a good one, how to keep going. Those are the things that we wanna see. out of our college graduates so that they can literally save the planet that's like on fire.
PJ:
Hmm
Christina:
Um,
PJ:
literally on fire now
Christina:
literally on fire.
PJ:
in several places
Christina:
Yeah.
PJ:
one thing. Let me say how much I admire What you're talking about partially because you know you're talking about the students But part of this is you are modeling for them what this looks like because you are often learning along with them
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
Which is in the end makes you a better teacher Like you instead of just teaching your set course and you staying stagnant in your field of knowledge for
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
decades which often happens You you are constantly learning, right? But one of the things I, you know, is you're talking about Google and Googling terms. Google is just kind of getting going. And so what I would do is I would ask a lot of questions in class. I was
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
a very, for some, I had many teachers tell my parents I was their favorite student, and I had many teachers tell my parents that I was their most annoying student. I just asked a lot, I probably should care more about what other people think about me,
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
but I was like, I just wanna know. I'm like, hey, what's that mean?
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
You know, and. What I quickly found out, and this is what you are modeling, and it's just, even as you're talking about courtly love, like that teacher is probably like, I don't, like that's something that you kind of have to study up on,
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
right? There's really three things I see here. One is that there's a certain type of arrogance that just doesn't want to admit, I don't know. And this has come from my own experience where I would get like shut down really hard and teachers would get mad at me for asking questions. And at the time I was very confused because I thought they were
Christina:
Yeah.
PJ:
good questions. And looking back now, I'm like, Those
Christina:
Mm.
PJ:
were good questions, you didn't know the answer.
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
Which is like, but that's,
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
and so what you're modeling for the student is a lack of learning there. Another one is laziness, like, and I mean, let's just be honest, like there's some, but now I think the third one, and this is to be, not just generous, but just to be realistic, sometimes just burnout, and that's where, I mean,
Christina:
100%, so
PJ:
like
Christina:
much burnout.
PJ:
most teachers, I mean, and this is where, like, and I, I love, like, the United States needs the public school system, like, We need educated citizens, right? Like this is important. Like I believe in that. Teaching 20 to 25 kids, often having to fill an extra class because of budgetary things or all these, like that's the other side to it too, right?
Christina:
Absolutely.
PJ:
And so it's where, you know, growing, and that most of, I think it was like 50% of teachers leave in the first three years. And I think if they
Christina:
Hmm.
PJ:
stick it out, you know, it gets easier because you get a handle on things,
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
but it is, you know, and I'm, talking about stats I saw from Twitter, you know, but I saw it was from like, uh, you know, new scientific American or something was talking about a Gallup poll that the number one, uh, number one, uh, burnout, uh, occupation was K through 12 educator
Christina:
Hmm
PJ:
and number two was higher ed educator.
Christina:
Yeah.
PJ:
This is over paramedics. This is over,
Christina:
Yep.
PJ:
like, you're just like, look at it. And I mean, and that's what I felt. I felt terrible. It felt awful teaching.
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
And that was really frustrating because I love there's nothing more I love than the light bulb moment, right?
Christina:
I love the lightbulb moment.
PJ:
Yes,
Christina:
It's the
PJ:
and
Christina:
best.
PJ:
so This is what stops us. It's really a challenge to us and that's where I think you started off with you know, I haven't really referenced your book as much as I probably should have in this discussion, but the
Christina:
Bye.
PJ:
We need to The change starts with us
Christina:
Yeah.
PJ:
Right, like it really does
Christina:
Yeah,
PJ:
it starts with like just
Christina:
it
PJ:
being
Christina:
does.
PJ:
willing to admit. I um, I don't know if you're familiar dr. Louis gordon, but I
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
when he teaches, he says, the way he introduced himself to the class, like, I am not your teacher, I am just a far more advanced student,
Christina:
No,
PJ:
right?
Christina:
I love
PJ:
Well,
Christina:
that.
PJ:
he says
Christina:
I love
PJ:
I'm a more,
Christina:
that.
PJ:
he
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
doesn't say far more. I added that because he's far more, but he's an advanced
Christina:
Yeah.
PJ:
student, that's what he says to them. And that really is, that's such a great way to model
Christina:
I love
PJ:
this.
Christina:
that.
PJ:
It's like, I'm in charge here because I know more than you, but I don't know everything. And then so,
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
anyways, I think a lot of what you're talking about, has to be modeled by the teacher and that comes with being willing to say, I don't know.
Christina:
Well, and I think this is a dialogue, right? So there's a part of the syllabus that's blank. And for example, I let students determine how we were going to do one assignment. I gave them a few options to choose from, just to give them ideas for what it could be. And they were like, well, let's do weekly reading reflections. And I was like, dear Lord, please do not send me weekly reading reflections.
PJ:
Ha ha!
Christina:
I cannot. read that much and get it back to you in a timely manner. I cannot do that.
PJ:
Oh, yeah.
Christina:
And they were like.
PJ:
Yes, yeah.
Christina:
oh you don't want weekly? I was like no please
PJ:
Haha
Christina:
no it's a dialogue right because the care goes both ways and right
PJ:
Hmm. Mm-hmm.
Christina:
there's still that boundary I'm still reading them grading you know like giving feedback and I still have so much control and so much power in this situation so that it's important to hold that boundary right I'm not their mom I'm not their therapist but there's still that dialogue and we kind of have to lift that or like lower that wall that we put between us a little bit, just a little bit, to have a dialogue, to just kind of peek over the wall at each other and just say, no, that's too much for me. And when we did that, so they basically decided that we could do these bi-weekly reading reflections. If they wouldn't be graded, I'd just tell them what's strong, what's weak, and grade it as complete or incomplete. And when we were deciding this, one student said, having to keep track of that many deadlines is like the worst thing for me. Like I would rather just have one high stakes midterm. Like, please don't give me a multiple deadlines. It's like, fair. Like that's totally legit. that that's too much for you. You're a different type of learner and we don't have to go with majority rules here. We can talk about the merits of majority voting versus consensus. And I said, why not say or? You can either do bi-weekly reading reflections or a midterm paper. You just have to let me know by X date. There's my boundary, right? That's where I need to know by X date what you will do. And then here's your deadline for your midterm. this many words, it equals the same amount as the bi-weekly reading reflections, I will do the traditional feedback and grade because that's what you want. That's fine. There is room for you in this class too. You can pick. And so holding the boundaries that you need, but allowing that kind of dialogue back and forth made our syllabus more flexible, more accessible to every learner. You can cater to every learner. while holding important boundaries for you. And it reduced a lot of the burden on me because I didn't have to do the intensive grading and explaining why this grade and not that. I just did complete or incomplete, strong, weak. Here's why it's strong. Here's why it's weak. Focus on that. The final papers were better. They were just better.
PJ:
Yeah, because they were focusing on the feedback.
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
But this all goes back to what you were talking about with bell hooks. What you're really doing is you're making the classroom human, right? Well, I mean, that was in the bell
Christina:
It's
PJ:
hooks
Christina:
a community.
PJ:
discussion, right? Like you are there, you're talking about this, reading Joseph Piper right now, and leisure is the basis of culture, and that difference between servile arts. They have a use outside themselves and liberal
Christina:
Hmm.
PJ:
arts, the ones that are useful in themselves. And that's really what literature is, right? Like it's
Christina:
Mm-hmm.
PJ:
this idea of like, it's part of being human to tell stories and these sorts of things. And if the whole grading system is literally counterproductive to that feeling, like it kind of destroys the meaning of the class. I wanna be respectful of your time. So let me ask you, you know, this is always the... This is probably the question that my guests hate the most, but my audience likes the most. So, you know, if you could leave our audience with one takeaway, just something to think about through the week,
Christina:
Hmm
PJ:
not necessarily a summary of everything you said, because I don't think that's fair, but what's a takeaway that you would leave for them to think about besides reading your book, buying, reading it, implementing it?
Christina:
Um... I love this question. One thing. That's tough.
PJ:
It could be more than one thing.
Christina:
No, I think, okay, then we can go with two things. One is realizing how much power and control you have in this relationship, and giving up a little bit of it, you still hold almost all of the cards in your hand. And so thinking about where you could leave room for students to take. a little more agency and autonomy to get practice in using that freedom in your class. And the other is related to that, which is what's your intention? And connecting not with external motivators of it has to be rigorous, whatever that means to your institution. And that can be really distracting. Or external. motivators like, oh, you know, I have to assign more Cs or Bs, or like, you know, just kind of setting the external motivators aside and thinking what's your internal motivation? What's your intention? And what do you want your students to get from your class? And what do you want to get out of it? just to really connect with your intention because we can get really distracted by all of these things all of the time and we are burnt out we like you said um but realizing how much control and power we have and what our intentions are can help us to remember that the point is to promote student learning and learning is the goal um And that might mean different things to different people, but we forget that the point of going to college is to learn. And so trying to shut down learning less and focus on it more, reminding ourselves of those two things, our intention and how much power and control we have can help us focus on learning.
PJ:
What a beautiful summary, Dr. Katapotos. It's been an honor, thank you.
Christina:
Likewise, thank you so much.