In this episode, we talk to Dr. Alyssa Hadley Dunn, the Director of Teacher Education and an Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Connecticut. Dr. Dunn describes the motivation for her book, Teaching on the Days After: Educating for Equity in the Wake of Injustice. She shares her education journey that led her to better understand racial inequities and how to confront them. We discuss how foundational the classroom community and relationships are to being prepared for any "days after" in K-12 and university teaching.

Referenced in this podcast:

• James Baldwin - James Baldwin (born August 2, 1924, New York, New York, U.S.—died December 1, 1987, Saint-Paul de Vence, France) was an essayist, novelist, and playwright whose eloquence and passion on the subject of race in America made him one of the most important voices of the 20th century.
• Teaching on Days After - What should teachers do on the days after major events, tragedies, and traumas, especially when injustice is involved? This beautifully written book features teacher narratives and youth-authored student spotlights that reveal what classrooms do and can look like in the wake of these critical moments. Dunn incisively argues for the importance of equitable commitments, humanizing dialogue, sociopolitical awareness, and a rejection of so-called pedagogical neutrality across all grade levels and content areas. By highlighting the voices of teachers who are pushing beyond their concerns and fears about teaching for equity and justice, readers see how these educators address negative reactions from parents and administrators, welcome all student viewpoints, and negotiate their own feelings. These inspiring stories come from diverse areas such as urban New York, rural Georgia, and suburban Michigan, from both public and private schools, and from classrooms with both novice and veteran teachers. Teaching on Days After can be used to support current classroom teachers and to better structure teacher education to help preservice teachers think ahead to their future classrooms.
• Brittney Cooper, Cultural theorist - With scholarship and incisive commentary that exposes the marginalized narratives hidden within "mainstream" history, Brittney Cooper writes at the vanguard of cultural criticism.
• Waking Up White – Debby Irving - Waking Up White is the book I wish someone had handed me decades ago. My hope is that by sharing my sometimes cringe-worthy struggle to understand racism and racial tensions, I offer a fresh perspective on bias, stereotypes, manners, and tolerance. As I unpack my own long-held beliefs about colorblindness, being a good person, and wanting to help people of color, I reveal how each of these well-intentioned mindsets actually perpetuated my ill-conceived ideas about race.
• DR. BETTINA LOVE - Bettina Love - Dr. Bettina L. Love holds the prestigious William F. Russell Professorship at Teachers College, Columbia University, and is the acclaimed author of the New York Times bestseller “Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal.” In 2022, the Kennedy Center recognized Dr. Love as one of the Next 50 Leaders dedicated to making the world more inspired, inclusive, and compassionate.
• A Comprehensive Guide to the Bronfenbrenner Ecological Model - Bronfenbrenner's ecological model is a framework that can be utilized to understand the complex systems that influence human development. In particular, this model emphasizes the importance of environmental factors and social influences in shaping development and behavior.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

students, teachers, teaching, educators, faculty, feel, days, white, talk, work, pandemic, moment, response, urban, love, impact, classroom

SPEAKERS

Amy Vujaklija, Joi Patterson, Alyssa Dunn

You address what actions you're going to take, so that it doesn't happen again. Because an apology really means nothing without changed behavior.

Welcome to our podcast teaching and leading with Dr. Amy and Dr. Joi. I am Dr. Amy Vujaklija, Director of educator preparation.

And I am Dr. Joi Patterson chief diversity officer. Our podcast addresses issues through the lens of diversity, equity and inclusion, along with solutions for us to grow as educators. So join us on our journey to become better teachers and leaders. So let's get into it.

Hello, Dr. Joi.

Hello, Dr. Amy, how are you today?

I am really pumped up. I am excited. We have just spent some time in a webinar with this guest we're having today we have the privilege of having lots of conversations during the opening of our school semester with Dr. Alyssa Hadley Dunn.

Yes. I'm excited about this conversation and her book on teaching the days after, which is what do we do? You know, we all have this challenge. What do we do on teaching the days after a major tragedy? Right. And to me, I'm stuck with the feeling that the more things change, the more things stay the same, right? And we're still addressing these issues, these timeless issues, but this is very relevant, very current. And I think our listeners will gain a lot. And what do we do in teaching the days after?

I think one thing that spoke to me earlier and I want and I hope she addresses today is we are all experiencing someone somewhere is experiencing a days after. So with all our multiple identities, especially in the classroom, how do we do that? Let me introduce Dr. Alyssa Hadley Dunn, who is the director of teacher education and an associate professor of Curriculum and Instruction at UConn. A former high school English teacher Dr. Dunn now focuses her teaching, research and service on urban education for social and racial justice. She studies how to best prepare and support teachers to work in urban schools, and how to teach for justice and equity amidst school policies and reforms that negatively impact teachers working conditions and students learning conditions. Prior to UConn, she was an associate professor at Michigan State University and an assistant professor at Georgia State University. She is the author of three award winning books, teaching on days after educating for equity in the wake of injustice, teachers without borders the hidden consequences of international teachers in US schools, and Urban Teaching in America. She has published dozens of articles and a number of peer reviewed journals, and has been a contributor to the Huffington Post and National Public Radio. Dr. Dunn is the winner of the critical educators for social justice revolutionary mentor Award from the American Educational Research Association, and Michigan State University's teacher scholar of the Year. Welcome to our podcast, Dr. Dunn.

Thank you. Glad to be here.

Welcome Dr. Dunn. Dr. Alyssa. We're so excited to have you here as stillness we heard that you were coming to town. We grabbed the book Teaching the days after and we knew that we wanted to have you on the podcast. Dr. Amy and I we've been doing this podcast for over three years now. This originated during a pandemic and our response to how do we continue to give back how do we continue to have an impact? How do we continue to serve our students and other educators needs with other educators helping them and so your work fits right into this and so we're so happy that you can join us it's such a timeless piece the fact that you are an award winner, not just one time I multiple time is because your work is so timeless. And we'll talk about that later, you know, can't wait to get really, really get into it. But before we get into that, tell us about your education journey. And what led you to the path that you're on. Now, you know, Amy, you know, she resonates with heart some so that someone says, I wasn't an English teacher, I'm an English. She perks up. We have similar roles here. You and Amy have a lot of things in common. So I'm interested in hearing more about your education journey. And what led you to doing the work that you do, and to writing what are the things that you write about?

Sure, yeah, thank you. I have known since third grade that I wanted to be a teacher. Before that, I thought that I wanted to be Vanna White on Wheel of Fortune, you know, like turning the letters. And since that didn't work out, you know,

retiring, so Pat Sajak is hiring. And I think she wants to retire soon after. So there's a hope for you, after all, all

right, if this professor thing doesn't work out, that's good. That's a good fallback. But yeah, so then, I was really lucky to have wonderful models of educators all throughout my K 12 experience. And basically, every year that I went on, I thought I wanted to teach that grade, right. So in third grade, I wanted to teach third grade, and then all the way up until I got to high school. And then I really just fell in love with the idea of teaching English. I love writing, I love reading. So I went to college, to be a secondary English teacher, I went to college at Boston College. And it was there, that on the first day of my teacher preparation program, the faculty told us that they had gotten a grant called teachers for a new era. And it was a big grant at the time, to better prepare teachers for urban schools. And I personally had gone to private Catholic schools my whole career, and that were also predominantly white, and I am white. And so from our very first day, we were placed in Boston Public Schools. And for the first time, I was learning about issues of racial justice, and equity. And again, had wonderful outstanding model educators who really invigorated in me and my classmates, a passion for Urban Teaching and Learning. So after that, I was a high school English teacher in Boston and in Atlanta, then I got my master's in urban and multicultural education from Emory University. And it was there that I, again, had a mentor, I feel like I keep repeating the same thing. I'm so privileged to have amazing mentors, who started talking to him about teacher education as a field. And even though I had been prepared as a teacher, because higher education was new, really, you know, for me, and for my family, I never really thought about who was teaching teachers, or who I had learned from? And I thought, well, yeah, I could, I could do that. And I would love to do that. So that's how I got into teacher education. After I got my PhD from Emory, I became a faculty member, and ran an Urban Teacher Residency Program at Georgia State University in Atlanta. And then, after a few years, moved to Michigan State, which was where I started to focus on this particular line of my research of teaching on days after. And then just recently, about a year ago, I became the director of Teacher Education at the University of Connecticut. And that's where I am now.

Oh, wow, that is fantastic. We could do a whole segment on finding mentors and how that comes to be. And I'm sure that is woven into some of what your work is because you want to model and be that mentor for other people as well. I want to ask for those who have not read the book or hadn't heard of it yet. What was the inspiration or the catalyst for your research? And for this book, was there a moment or a series of moments that prompted this deep exploration? Yeah,

thank you. It actually started the night of the 2016 presidential election. And I was watching the results come in on that evening. And thinking about if I had been a in a high school classroom the day after that election, what would I be doing? And how would I respond? How would my students respond? And so I was watching the results come in. And I felt like I had to do something. So I submitted an IRB or an institutional review board right to be able to do human subjects research. And I submitted it that night. And usually at universities, it takes so long for research to get approved. But somehow, that night, someone from the university was also watching the results come in and was approving IRB proposals. So along with two colleagues, the day after the 2016 election, we sent out an online questionnaire, I posted it on social media sent it to our networks, and all of us are qualitative researchers. So usually, you know, the, there's four or five people in our, in our research projects. And this time, over 1000 teachers around the country responded. And what that showed us is just how badly teachers needed to process, what that day after was like for them. And so that that really got me thinking, Well, what about all of the other days after that are not just confined to elections, and reflecting on my own days after, as an educator and what it had been like in those moments with my students in the classroom, both in high school, and then as a university faculty member. So I decided that I would would again, try to talk to teachers around the country, about events at the International, the National, the state, the local or the school level, right. However, someone would define an event as significant enough to talk about with their class. And the response was, again, overwhelming, because teachers had experienced many of these days, and really, just wanted to talk about it and wanted to think through what had worked, what hadn't, and how do we better prepare teachers for these inevitable days after that are to come? That's

really speaks to us? Because, you know, we all have those moments where something impacts us and we say, oh, I should do something about it. And then that feeling passed, right. And at that moment, Amy, and I had a moment, I can't remember the name of the platform with a teacher chat, Amy, and there were 1000s of teachers on this chat during the pandemic, what they were going through was awful. You know, and we felt compelled to, how do we help alleviate some of that? How can we bring some joy back into teaching, you know, we make these professional educators feel like professional educators. And so I love how you took that moment of what you may have felt is some helplessness. Yes. And say, you know, I'm going to do something about it. And it's not only healing for you to do something about it. But how many other people are you going to impact? I have a couple of questions. My first question, as you were talking, like, what is a white girl from the East Coast? Now from an affluent community, you've gone to private schools, this than the other know about the urban community? And how can you relate? And then who is it that you're trying to serve? I mean, this book is dynamic. But was it intended? Or Who are you trying to serve?

Thank you. Yeah.

That sense of there?

No, no, you're not I appreciate

is kind of the elephant in the room. Right? When you're, you're you're an expert. Now, I don't know if you consider yourself that way. But you are officially an expert in this topic on equity and urban issues, no matter what Amy and I talk about, no matter what the topic is, it always comes to a point of equity. You know, it's always there. Right. And so you are an expert in this area. And so I think is relevant to say, you know, how, why you How did you because

are absolutely, ya know, like I said, I appreciate that candor. That's, that's something that I talk about with my students all the time. Now that I teach at a PWI. I would say that the My journey started in college through this grant that that they had, which was really explicitly focused on exploring our own identities, for the most part as white pre service teachers, and what it meant to work in communities that were not our own, what it mean what it meant, at the time, to, for example, live on a college campus, right? And then take the t take the train, work in a school that serve predominantly black and brown youth and then take the train back out. And so Really my my learning has come through the grace and generosity of mentors who were predominantly women of color, friends and students reading and learning and trying to engage in this work, not just professionally, but also personally, right? I think that there are a lot of white teachers and white faculty who write about race who write about whiteness, and who do so because they know that white people get a lot of credit for writing about race. And people of color get a lot of flack for writing about race. And I think that that's one of the things that I try to be constantly conscious of in, in my own work is to your point to your question, what communities am I seeking to serve? Right? So this book, and all of my other work kind of leading up to it is about if we know that teachers working conditions are students learning conditions, right? Then how do we make teachers working conditions which includes how well prepared they are or are not? So that students of color students from other historically marginalized groups can have teachers who, even if they don't look like them, who do not come in with a white savior complex, with deficit thinking with all of these things that we we know, right? We know teachers have we know teachers possess, what are the strategies that we can take in teacher education, to try to mediate some of that, so that our new teachers are prepared as CO conspirators as Bettina Love says, As abolitionist educators as social justice educators, and are not approaching their teaching with unfounded deficit views.

Mm hmm. I think that's important, you know, two other books that I read, like Waking Up White. And she feels guilty and lied to entire life. Like, I didn't realize that all of this was happening out here, outside of being white, and the little book of racial healing. And then, when I followed, I love the book, we're gonna use it next week, for the National Day of racial healing. I will always follow up when I'm talking about these things. And it was written by a white person is what I said. And because there's some relevance in that, right, as you were just saying, for that white person to be brave, and take some responsibility and ownership and helping solve these inaccuracies. And that's important. So I think is really powerful. So thank you for sharing. Why you?

Yeah. And I think there's also I have a lot of white students who, who are really afraid that they're going to say, and they're going to do the wrong thing. And so they don't do anything at all right, we know from those texts that you reference and from other work, that guilt is a stifling emotion, right. White guilt gets you nowhere. Well, so does fear. So one thing that I that I talked with them a lot about is that if you haven't apologized, right, if you're if you're not making mistakes, then you're not really trying enough, you're not doing enough, if you haven't learned how to apologize in doing racial justice work as a white person. And that, you know, it's not comfortable. But it's not impossible. And there I don't want them to let their fear take over from moving towards towards trying to be the type of teacher that they want to and they can be.

I want to take this road a little farther. There. Lots of other questions we have that you jumped into something that I want to go on and ask about now. intent does not mitigate impact is something that you said during the webinar, we did not get a pass for causing harm by just stating our ignorance or saying we did not mean it. What is a good response when we are called out for causing harm? When we know wrong has been done? And it is out of ignorance or is out of just a lack of awareness? How do we own that? And apologize? Yeah.

So I'll share what I try to do myself. If I find myself in this situation and what I share with students. And again, this is the This is not mine. This is curated right from a variety of scholars, again, predominantly women of color, who have written either explicitly or implicitly about how and why white people need to do this work. And so for example, Brittany Cooper says the best thing that white people can do is to like, get your own people, right? Talk to your own people, talk to other white people about how to do this work. And so one of the models that might get that I give my students for how to think about apologizing when when we engage in racial microaggressions, microaggressions causing harm is to acknowledge the mistake, right? Say, I recognize that I made a mistake, specifically name it. And don't say things like, I'm sorry that you feel that way. I'm sorry that you think that right, because that's not really an apology, right. We've all heard that we've all had that said to us. So you acknowledge that there's a mistake, you identify what the mistake is, you acknowledge that intent does not mitigate impact. So you don't try to get out of it by saying I didn't mean to. And then finally, you address what actions you're going to take. So that it doesn't happen again. Because an apology really means nothing without changed behavior. So the goal is to recognize that whatever harm was caused, cannot be completely erased with just an apology. And it might not even be erased with action. But it can't just stop at the words.

Thank you for that. Thank you so much.

I was reading. And there's, like, over 30 wars going on right now, and are worse. And we know about the ones that we see on the news right now, especially Israelis, Hamas war, but we have students that are impacted by all of these wars, not just that one that's going on, because indirectly they have family members that are being slaughtered or persecuted. And then we have our individual personal trauma too, right? They're all big, right? I shouldn't say the bigger because they're all being human, something happening to another country, and my family or my ancestors, or whatever is being impacted. But something happening to my child or my grandson is even more traumatic. Right. And so we're dealing with students who face this on a daily basis. How might you apply the pedagogy of teaching the days after with not just group incidents? Ended individual students? Because you know, what I find, especially as the higher ed level is that we have instructors that I'm paid to teach the content. Right. And that's what they come there to do not to deal with these kinds of issues. What might you say, you know, share some specific strategies that you would implement, or you've seen implemented? support to students and educators?

Yes, yes, absolutely. So one way that I, that I think is helpful to think about this is, is thinking of the nested systems that our students are part of, right. So if we think about an ecological model Bronfman, you know, Bronfenbrenner is historic ecological model where an individual is in the center. And there are these concentric circles kind of moving out and closest to closest to the individual is their immediate sphere of influence. And so that means who they can influence most closely, and who has the most influence on them. So that's their family and their friends. And then it kind of moves out in ways that make it look like those communities are more distant from the individual. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they won't feel the same way. Even if something's all the way in the eco system, the you know, the international scope. And so when we think about who our students are, when they come to our classroom, we have to recognize that they are an individual nested within multiple systems. And so we are responding not just to who they are in that moment, but everything that's happening and all of those systems and communities and contexts. What that means is that life happens and that we as instructors have to have to recognize that and have to figure out what we can do both proactively and reactively to ensure that our students don't feel like they can't be their whole selves can't be there a whole person in our classroom. So one way that I have really loved seeing this done, what is through a syllabus statement that someone put out during the pandemic, and I'm trying to find it now. And I adapted it and put it on my syllabus. And then what I really like about it is that it acknowledges that we are all kind of in process. And so I'm going to read you a few things if that's okay. Because these have really changed the way that I think about supporting student, because I put it on the syllabus, and then we keep returning to it right. So now I tell students, before we begin, let's remind ourselves, one, the best I can do is my best, some days, my best will be better than others. And that's okay. too, I will give myself and others grace and understanding as we navigate this semester together. Sorry, I will make mistakes. And that's okay. For we as a class will prioritize supporting each other as humans, we will remain flexible and communicate clearly about our needs. We will work together to build a community that nourishes intellectual and social connection. And we don't have to have it all figured out. And so I share those with students as reminders to them about what they can expect and should expect from me as an instructor, and also what I hope to expect from them, right. So I need you to give me grace, and I'm going to give you grace. And when I share kind of these these norms and expectations with faculty, sometimes, sometimes that's really difficult for faculty, because faculty are to your point earlier, Dr. Joi that faculty are seen as experts, right. But in situations like this, where humanity is involved, no one is an expert. We are all still learning. And the best we can do is our best and we don't need to have it all figured out. And so I think the best strategy for supporting students in these moments, is to be as honest and transparent as possible. About, here's what I'm going to try to do for you for our class, I may make mistakes, but I'm doing my best, we're going to work together to communicate clearly and be as proactive as possible. And know that I am not the only one who is part of this constellation of support. There are many other resources, and I can help connect you to those resources when they are needed.

I'd love that. And I think about what you're saying with that concentric circle and how we have these multiple identities and they reach very far out, they might be removed, but they still impact this. Then I think about the other ways in which we interact. I'm interested in unpacking what it looks like to have a unified or nearly unify collective response to days after versus a group or individual responses. For instance, in 912, we saw a nation having similar emotional reactions, at least from what we could see on national news networks. There were people who were having very different reactions I'm sure that we weren't aware of. And then we look at the pandemic. The pandemic itself was a tidal wave. And I am convinced Dr. Joi and I've talked about this multiple times that we are still feeling invisible rip tides that are pulling us under when we think about education. But what did become apparent was that although we were in this tidal wave together, we were all in different boats. I mean, there were some who were on life rafts and some who were sailing along on yachts, I'm sure

and some that didn't have a boat at all. Right, exactly,

exactly hanging on to anything to survive. How do we approach days after that are experienced differently by different groups of students? Mm hmm.

The the approach that I take to Teaching on days after and that I take in relation to teaching and learning in general, is that the students needs, who we should be most concerned about are those who are being oppressed or marginalized the most in any given moment, and historically. So that that would mean, for example, that if we wanted to have a collective response to some kind of days after event, the voices and experiences that we would center in that collective response would be those who either did suffer the most harm, or who were most likely to be harmed. So that means that and to be clear that what that doesn't mean is that it won't also be good for people who weren't harmed, right. So for example, if we make an analogy to particular types of teaching in K 12 schools, right, so our student teachers learn a lot about differentiation and types of strategies they can use for students with disabilities, those strategies are good for all students. Just because you don't have a disability doesn't mean that you won't also be served really well, by strategies that are most commonly used in special education. So in the instance of days after just because you are not the group that was harmed doesn't mean that you too, will not benefit from a response that is meant to directly address groups or people that were harmed. So that's how I think how I approach it and how I suggest and to end, how educators and students suggest that universities should respond when we're thinking about a collective response. So I should say that, that when I'm talking about things to do things not to do, all of that is informed. That's not That's not just me, that's not just Alisa saying, This is what we should do. That's what really amazing and talented and student centered educators have said, and that's also what students who have lived through multiple forms of days after have said, they were either really grateful for that their instructors did or that they felt like was missing.

That's really powerful to place at the center, the students who need the most support, knowing that those strategies that support will also be felt by the other groups of students in the classroom. That's an important point to bring home here.

Yeah, I really liked that I was thinking the same thing as you were talking Alyssa about teaching the days after and your general approach to teaching. I really love giving the attention to those who need it the most is really, really, really powerful. It's nurturing to write. Because I immediately started thinking back to my childhood, I can remember doing certain things that were easy for me, it was harder for my sister, and then put on like, saw my sister getting was praise, I can kind of prayed that my sister received. And so I was jealous of that. And, you know, I felt conflicted and didn't feel like my mother loved me as much, you know, at some point in our relationship, it kind of came out, you know, and she was like, Well, you don't need me as much as your sister, you're going to be fine. With whatever I get whatever you can, you're gonna be fine. She's not going to be fine, if he doesn't receive the extra. And so it's very nurturing. And I didn't understand that too much later in life. It is very nurturing. But I took that concept into the classroom when I started teaching, and kind of differentiated that. Education is strictly about student learning is not about teaching. And I can remember going into teacher prep, and observing student teachers and things like that. And I was like, Oh, you're doing a really good job teaching those numbers. Because you're not teaching any kids. Right? You haven't turned around, you haven't done anything you're doing. Who knows numbers are doing a really good job. And sometimes it's like that in higher ed, you know, because they're honing their craft. And, you know, our teachers teaching, if students don't learn.

Oh, yeah, that's a big question. They're teaching something Are they teaching what the students need?

That is a big question. And I remember being in middle school as a teacher, and the administrator, having our staff meeting in the afternoon, he took a piece of paper, and he laid it on a textbook, he said, This is covering the material. If the students don't learn it, you didn't teach it. But even before we start teaching, I appreciate what you're saying about the setting up the classroom as a learning environment is a community that can count on one another, for that support. And I think that that goes back to what we need to address what's happening in our K 12 classrooms right now, teachers are really struggling educators are really struggling. And I'm hearing about behavior I'm hearing about kids are off the rails and, you know, things are happening in the classroom. But my word about that is, do you have a relationship with your student? And do they know you care? Because they're not going to learn or not care about what you're teaching unless you care about them? I think that stretches into I mean, don't you think Doctor Joi, Doctor Dunn it stretches into the university level

as well. So Amy, this really, really hits home. And so let's I really like your perspective on this. Is there too many times that we're responding to something? So a tragedy happens? The university sends out a statement. Okay, that would be my office. In many cases, we send out a statement. So there's lots of conversations before an official statement comes out, as you can imagine, right? Yes. So sometimes it's like, okay, this happened, then that happened, then that happen? And you feel like, okay, maybe we don't respond to everything? And how do you pick and choose what you're responding to? It's impacting someone. And then the thing you choose not to respond to? Then the students come to me? And they say, didn't you feel my pain? Did you feel this? Aren't you concerned about me? Why didn't you say this? This is how I feel about it. So it's like with every major event with every major tragedy, and there's always a next one, right? How much energy? How much attention can one give to every tragedy? Mm hmm.

Yeah. I think that students and leaders in higher education will probably also always have different potentially different views on how much is too much, or how often is often enough. And I think that's okay, because our students can and should always demand more of us, right? That's what we are teaching them to do. Really, it's an act of generosity when they come to us, right, and say, I need you to do more. And I need you to express more publicly, your support for the communities that I'm part of. What's interesting is that when I talk to students about what feels like enough, they also don't have a specific answer. Right? They say things like, understandably, well, we'll know it when we see it. I think part of what makes issuing statements and things like this so hard is that it's always reactive. And so one of the things that I try to emphasize, especially when I meet with leaders, either at K 12, or higher education institutions, is that just like you said, we know that something is going to happen. And so what infrastructure can we put in place so that we don't have to just be reactive. So for example, is there and I hate to say this, because I know how faculty feel about committees. I feel the same way about committees, that there are too many committees that sometimes there's committees on committees, and

I'm following you. I was like, we have a committee that decides calls the school. Uh huh,

right, exactly.

I should we respond to this and how should we respond to this? And, you know, just like you hear the weather, we got to get together within the next hour to make the decision. I want that same committee.

Yeah. And I think and that's, and when I've talked to student groups, especially in the wake of like critical incidents that happen on college campuses specifically, they say things like, well, who who are the decision makers in the process? Because they don't know. Right? They don't know who decides to respond or not. But what they do know is that it doesn't usually involve students. So how can there be some kind of Critical Incident Response committee, that includes administrators, that includes faculty, and that includes leaders from student groups to collectively decide what to say? How to say it and when to say it? And then how do we as as I mentioned earlier, how do we then follow that statement up with some action, with some opportunities for dialogue and engagement as a whole college community?

I want to continue thinking about the college community for a moment. I feel like as teacher educators and formal middle high school teachers, we are trying to understand the social emotional needs of students, but with higher education. I have two questions. Why do you think it is important for a faculty member to understand the social emotional needs of students? And what are some first steps a professor can take to better understand those social emotional needs?

Thank you. I think that we are we as faculty, we are not teaching robots in our classroom. And I don't mean that to sound glib, but it's true, right? We are not teaching automatons who come in learn and leave. We are teaching humans and humans are complex. And we we as faculty want students to recognize us in all of our complexity. And so we should do the same for them. Even if we as faculty are in fields where we have not been trained or prepared to engage in this type of student support, it needs to become part of our responsibility. So I recognize that that is asking a lot, because faculty already have too much to do. Right. But I would argue that some of that other stuff that is too much to do, will get better if we have better relationships with our students.

Absolutely.

I think so. Yes.

And this is this is gonna sound like a really teacherI response, right. But I think that one of the first things that we need to do as faculty in order to understand our students socio emotional needs, is to understand our own right. Like, our students need to be supported socio emotionally, and so do faculty. And we need to, we need to just as we want our students to demand that from us, we as faculty can demand that from our administrators, and we can hold ourselves to the expectation that we, you know, that we, too, are human. And that's okay. That's okay. We know that in academia, a lot of people talk about the imposter syndrome, right? of feeling like, oh, no, my application slips through the cracks, and I am not prepared to be here. How did I get here? They're gonna find me out. You know, and we, and a lot of people talk about this as a joke, right? And it's become a meme even right? And it's just become this really accepted part of what it's like to be a faculty member. And that's just, that's, that's problematic. That's not okay. That's trauma. Many of us were hazed into the profession. So we need to figure out our own trauma, deal with our own trauma so that then we can help support our students, and we don't replicate that trauma onto them.

Yeah, I want to make a comment. Before we go into our last question. This was a really, really, really good, rich conversation. And the book is just really timeless. So kudos to you. You know, you've referenced James Baldwin. And it is amazing, like when you read something that took place 60 years ago, or 70 years ago, that you're still holding those same things. Right. So I think this book, like what James Baldwin talks about, is really timeless, because there's always the next time, right. And so kudos to you for framing it in such a way that we can rely on this piece of work for many, many, many, many, many years to come. So I do have a question for you, and what's your hope is how how you started this journey of writing this particular book, and it was in response to the election, and I'm sure it was a healing process for you. What is your hope for how it will impact educators how it will impact students, because you're right, it's not just the students, right. And I am very, very mindful of that. And my DEI work, that we need our tools to be sharp, we need our people that service students to be sharp, we need them to be healthy, we need them to be emotionally healthy. So what is that this book will have on students and educators.

One of the one of the things that I didn't get to write a lot about in the book, but that I've written about in a couple of follow up articles is about how unprepared teachers feel to deal with days after. And so my hope is that this work starts a conversation among educators, and then between students and their teachers about what they feel like they need on any future days after, because a lack of preparation can only be an argument for so long. So at some point, we have to acknowledge that yes, we were not prepared. And so that's unfortunate. But now we need to teach ourselves. And so my hope is that this work will be one way that if teachers or faculty feel that they were not prepared, one way that they can teach themselves teach, teach and dialogue and community with others, so that when these inevitable days happen, they are not filled with silence, but instead they're filled with these moments of connection. Wow.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Well, a wealth of information today. I've so enjoyed this discussion.

Absolutely same.

Thank you for listening to teaching and leading with Dr. Amy and Dr. Joy. Visit our website at govst.edu/teaching and leading podcast to see the show notes from this episode.

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