Not That Kind of Doctor - What We Did on Summer Break and What's Coming in Season 2
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09/08/2023
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Welcome back to Season 2 of "Not That Kind of Doctor"! In this kickoff episode, Guy and Nick dive into their summer experiences, reflecting on what they accomplished, how they recharged, and the ideas that are shaping their academic year. From battling with dogs' health issues to tackling big projects like grant writing and course redesigns, it's a candid look at the highs and lows of a professor's summer.
đź“š In This Episode:
Recapping our summer projects and personal achievements
The challenges of balancing work and relaxation as an academic
Preparing for the new semester with fresh ideas and renewed energy
The books that inspired us over the break, including thought-provoking reads on education, innovation, and social issues
A sneak peek into the topics we’ll explore this season, like the impact of AI in education and the ongoing teacher shortage
Join us as we set the stage for another season of exploring the complexities and joys of academic life, with our usual blend of humor, insight, and practical advice.
If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more discussions that tackle the real issues in education. Let’s make this semester a great one together! 📚✨
#AcademicLife #TeacherEducation #HigherEd #Season2 #ReadingLists #AIinEducation #PovertyAbolition
Back From Summer Break - Not That Kind of Doctor with Nick Husbye and Guy Trainin
www.youtube.com/@tltenotthatkindofdoctor
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- [00:00:00.163](upbeat music)
- [00:00:10.320]The talent has left the building. (laughs)
- [00:00:13.260]So wait, wait, wait, wait.
- [00:00:16.710]So we're about to start
- [00:00:17.940]and then the talent leaves the building?
- [00:00:20.070]Is that how that works?
- [00:00:20.903]What kind of professional are you?
- [00:00:23.700]I'm still working on it.
- [00:00:25.230]On what kind of a professional am I.
- [00:00:26.213]I mean, aren't we all, aren't we all?
- [00:00:29.700]It's always the questions, right?
- [00:00:32.190]Yeah.
- [00:00:33.060]But yeah, so welcome back
- [00:00:35.430]to "Not That Kind of Doctor," season two.
- [00:00:39.240]Season two.
- [00:00:40.500]Which feels weird.
- [00:00:42.660]Why is it weird?
- [00:00:43.800]Well, because this might be
- [00:00:45.360]the longest relationship I've had in a while.
- [00:00:47.308](Guy laughs)
- [00:00:48.450]Alright.
- [00:00:49.283]And that's just, you know.
- [00:00:50.430]And it's production related.
- [00:00:52.380]And it's production related.
- [00:00:53.340]You know, how much I love a good functional meeting.
- [00:00:56.340]Alright. You know, like we get in,
- [00:00:59.460]we get stuff done and we move, that's great, so.
- [00:01:04.380]Not the topic for today, but I do agree,
- [00:01:07.140]and meetings can be 12 minutes
- [00:01:09.960]with making a personal connection.
- [00:01:12.600]Meetings can be an email making a personal connection.
- [00:01:16.200]So there's also that.
- [00:01:17.730]But that is true.
- [00:01:19.050]So this is episode one of season two
- [00:01:20.970]of "Not That Kind of Doctor."
- [00:01:22.410]I am Nick Husbye, I'm an associate professor
- [00:01:24.690]of elementary literacy education
- [00:01:26.370]here at the University of Nebraska Lincoln.
- [00:01:29.190]And I'm Guy Trainin and I'm a professor of education
- [00:01:31.890]here at the university.
- [00:01:33.390]And we are in the middle of what, week three?
- [00:01:35.580]Week three of the semester. Week three of fall semester,
- [00:01:38.820]and so we thought our first episode,
- [00:01:42.090]we would talk about getting caught up
- [00:01:45.030]and what we did with our summer vacation if it was that,
- [00:01:49.753]I like to think of it as summer unemployment.
- [00:01:52.920]And in my case it was summer employment.
- [00:01:54.630]Right, I mean, in some of my case
- [00:01:55.860]it was summer employment, but like, just wanna, you know,
- [00:01:59.130]shift that discourse a little bit.
- [00:02:02.760]Lay out some of the things that we're thinking about
- [00:02:04.680]this year as we're engaging in our work.
- [00:02:07.440]And then talking a little bit about books that we've read,
- [00:02:11.160]because part of the summer
- [00:02:13.740]is you actually have time and space
- [00:02:15.360]to do some of that kind of reading.
- [00:02:16.980]And so those are kind of our big items for this episode.
- [00:02:23.040]So how did you spend your summer?
- [00:02:25.680]How did I spend my summer?
- [00:02:28.560]So part of it was,
- [00:02:30.450]this apparently was the summer of my dogs
- [00:02:33.270]being up to crazy dog things, right?
- [00:02:36.450]So we had several bouts of Giardia,
- [00:02:41.490]which is super fun and disgusting.
- [00:02:43.860]Look it up by the way.
- [00:02:44.880]It's fun. Don't look it up.
- [00:02:45.810]Actually, don't look it up.
- [00:02:47.040]Don't look it up, it's terrible.
- [00:02:49.170]And I am so glad that it was over.
- [00:02:52.530]Like, it was, there's not very much
- [00:02:56.460]that makes me think, "Oh, I can't do this."
- [00:03:00.030]But I thought I couldn't do it, like it was, it was bad.
- [00:03:03.150]But the nice thing about that
- [00:03:05.415]was it kept me at home for a little while longer.
- [00:03:08.010]So I got to, you know, work in my garden a bit.
- [00:03:12.810]I added two more raised beds this summer.
- [00:03:15.450]I grew a ton of tomatoes,
- [00:03:18.660]tried to figure out what to do about the lawn
- [00:03:21.930]in terms of like climate change
- [00:03:23.940]and grass and how, sustainability,
- [00:03:26.310]like had some time to think about that.
- [00:03:30.060]I read a lot.
- [00:03:31.680]I got my electrical fixtures switched out.
- [00:03:35.460]I got rooms painted, like.
- [00:03:38.430]A lot done in life.
- [00:03:39.990]I got a lot done in life.
- [00:03:42.360]And then also rewrote my children's literature class
- [00:03:46.200]that I taught at the end of the summer.
- [00:03:48.570]Did some writing, got some manuscripts out.
- [00:03:51.480]So that also got done.
- [00:03:53.640]So yeah, it was a fairly, if I look at it on paper,
- [00:03:57.570]it was a fairly productive summer.
- [00:03:58.710]There's always that sense of like,
- [00:03:59.970]I did not accomplish enough.
- [00:04:03.390]Is there ever enough?
- [00:04:04.950]I mean, yes.
- [00:04:06.210]Yeah, there is.
- [00:04:07.380]There is, and so I'm actively trying
- [00:04:08.760]to push back against that,
- [00:04:10.177]"Oh, I should have worked harder," I had a good summer.
- [00:04:12.990]Good, excellent.
- [00:04:13.823]I had a good summer.
- [00:04:14.970]I had a good summer.
- [00:04:15.930]And I would like to point out
- [00:04:17.520]that one of the most important things to do
- [00:04:19.650]to make sure that you feel that way
- [00:04:21.780]is to actually kind of find a moment
- [00:04:24.570]to summarize what you've done,
- [00:04:26.220]because often as we go along,
- [00:04:30.390]we always feel like we could have done more.
- [00:04:32.610]We could have skipped a movie in my case
- [00:04:35.100]and wrote more or something else.
- [00:04:38.400]And when you summarize what you've actually done,
- [00:04:40.680]you often find out that you've done quite a bit
- [00:04:43.260]and that should be enough.
- [00:04:44.640]So when I'm saying is there ever enough,
- [00:04:46.830]I'm talking more about our internal feeling
- [00:04:48.900]that we can always do more, which is true,
- [00:04:51.030]but also completely unproductive.
- [00:04:54.180]And so it's a way to go back.
- [00:04:57.840]What did we do?
- [00:05:00.270]How did we do it?
- [00:05:02.310]And there, and we talked at the beginning of summer, right?
- [00:05:04.920]If you go to our last episode,
- [00:05:06.870]we talked about preparing for summer.
- [00:05:08.280]We also talked about putting boundaries around that
- [00:05:10.500]because that's really important.
- [00:05:12.060]You can always imagine that you will write 20 manuscripts,
- [00:05:15.270]and some people do by the way.
- [00:05:17.100]But very, but that's not the expectation.
- [00:05:20.400]Definitely not me, not the expectations,
- [00:05:22.590]but it is an opportunity to finish certain things.
- [00:05:25.680]And I think summer is a great opportunity
- [00:05:27.660]to kind of put the period on some things and send them off.
- [00:05:32.550]So you start the year with a little bit less on your plate
- [00:05:36.420]and you can have that moment
- [00:05:38.970]where you're making some decisions.
- [00:05:40.620]And for me, I did not have problems with my dogs,
- [00:05:45.510]except they ran away a few times, but okay.
- [00:05:47.280]That's par for the course.
- [00:05:49.530]And I did teach quite a bit.
- [00:05:53.340]I choose my teaching more at the beginning of summer
- [00:05:56.160]or early, earlier in the summer.
- [00:05:58.680]So I worked over June and the beginning of July
- [00:06:01.320]and multiple workshops.
- [00:06:02.520]When you're working with teachers,
- [00:06:03.660]that's kind of the norm because teachers have a lot of time
- [00:06:07.800]over the summer, especially here in Nebraska,
- [00:06:10.140]it's the beginning of the summer
- [00:06:11.250]because by the beginning of August they're back in school.
- [00:06:13.890]So July is usually reserved for vacations
- [00:06:17.520]and family time for teachers, therefore for me,
- [00:06:19.920]and one of the things that I found out very early,
- [00:06:22.590]because I worked and I taught second summer session,
- [00:06:25.050]I found out that I really disliked
- [00:06:28.140]doing that just before semester starts.
- [00:06:30.360]Because then I feel like the semester
- [00:06:31.770]actually started in the beginning of August
- [00:06:34.530]and there's no break
- [00:06:36.060]before the beginning of the academic year.
- [00:06:37.590]So everybody's coming refreshed
- [00:06:39.300]and we're new and we're coming
- [00:06:41.070]and I'm dragging
- [00:06:43.170]and feeling like I've been here the whole time.
- [00:06:45.120]So I actually choose to take a break
- [00:06:47.610]just before the semester starts.
- [00:06:49.830]And that's what I did this year.
- [00:06:51.930]I took a break.
- [00:06:52.860]We actually traveled away from Nebraska
- [00:06:55.470]and for a week I did not do anything
- [00:06:58.050]that's even remotely connecting to academics,
- [00:07:01.556]and that was delightful.
- [00:07:03.870]Nice, that's kind of where I'm at.
- [00:07:04.860]My children's lit class was the last five weeks of summer.
- [00:07:08.490]And so like, I am not, my energy is not so much,
- [00:07:14.917]"Oh, summer's great, it's so nice to be back."
- [00:07:16.920]My energy's more like, "What are we doing?
- [00:07:20.310]Because I've already been at this
- [00:07:21.600]like, this is technically week three,
- [00:07:23.040]but this is technically week eight."
- [00:07:24.960]Yes, and that's a very different feeling.
- [00:07:27.420]And that's a really different feeling.
- [00:07:28.680]And it's fine, like it's not, like if you watch
- [00:07:34.350]the spring semester episodes it's not the de-evolution
- [00:07:37.740]that you saw of, you know, my energy levels.
- [00:07:40.091]It feels fine, it feels sustainable,
- [00:07:44.010]but it's also like, because I am technically
- [00:07:48.720]in week eight in my head, urgency is very different for me,
- [00:07:53.910]it feels.
- [00:07:54.743]Yeah, and, but the students who come in
- [00:07:56.790]and for them it's week three
- [00:07:58.680]are coming in with those energies and that helps.
- [00:08:01.230]Except half my lit block
- [00:08:02.550]is literally my children's lit class.
- [00:08:04.650]And so they're like, "Yeah, we're right there with you."
- [00:08:09.090]Which is delightful.
- [00:08:11.010]'Cause the other thing that's really nice during summer too,
- [00:08:13.200]is how it gives us a chance
- [00:08:16.890]to like not only put some punctuation marks on stuff,
- [00:08:21.450]but also get started on some things,
- [00:08:25.530]in order to, whether it's teaching
- [00:08:27.660]or research or what have you,
- [00:08:29.550]in order to kind of put those into play
- [00:08:32.160]during the academic year.
- [00:08:33.240]So I'd love to know like what are some of the things
- [00:08:36.030]that you're thinking about right now?
- [00:08:37.680]So a few things that started over the summer,
- [00:08:40.230]and there are certain things, for example,
- [00:08:41.850]publishing is really, in many ways, not always,
- [00:08:45.600]if you're responding to a call or something like that,
- [00:08:48.060]you do have deadlines, but many times,
- [00:08:50.550]especially if you publish
- [00:08:52.140]mostly from cold sending to journals, which I tend to do,
- [00:08:56.400]and you don't have a schedule around it,
- [00:08:59.490]but grants is one of those things
- [00:09:02.610]that does have a schedule
- [00:09:03.600]that is the Department of Education
- [00:09:05.730]or any other place you apply to does have a schedule.
- [00:09:09.750]Department of Ed grants tend to be due late summer,
- [00:09:14.070]early to late summer, sometimes early fall.
- [00:09:16.980]So my summer was involved with a lot of writing grants
- [00:09:20.460]or considering whether I'm gonna write grants.
- [00:09:22.830]I ended up writing only two.
- [00:09:25.357]"Only two," he says,
- [00:09:26.190]"Only two." Only two.
- [00:09:28.202]"Just two, no big," Because there were
- [00:09:29.490]two other ideas that were floating there,
- [00:09:31.800]and eventually I had to make the reasonable decision.
- [00:09:34.950]Anybody from the outside
- [00:09:36.180]would've told me from the beginning, this is too much.
- [00:09:38.880]You need to take a break.
- [00:09:40.050]You also need to make sure that you're not over committing
- [00:09:42.840]because the world of grants
- [00:09:44.130]just like all, or like sending for publication
- [00:09:47.910]or anything like that, you don't control it.
- [00:09:50.160]So you can apply for four and get zero,
- [00:09:52.020]and you can apply for three and get three.
- [00:09:54.420]And there's only that many hours in the day.
- [00:09:57.360]So part of it is seeing how this round goes
- [00:10:00.150]and then deciding how the following rounds proceed.
- [00:10:05.070]In general in grants,
- [00:10:07.080]I think that my hit rate is at about 50%.
- [00:10:09.990]So I'm like,
- [00:10:11.370]maybe if we get one of them. That's a good rate.
- [00:10:13.320]I'm perfectly fine and I'll be actually ecstatic
- [00:10:17.850]because these are important things to do.
- [00:10:19.740]One of the big ideas for the year for me,
- [00:10:22.020]and we're gonna talk about it in one of the future episodes,
- [00:10:24.690]AI is everywhere and we cannot hide from it.
- [00:10:29.010]We need to talk about what does it mean, how do we study it,
- [00:10:32.670]how do we integrate it into our coursework?
- [00:10:35.850]Where is it?
- [00:10:36.990]What's happening?
- [00:10:38.070]And that's partially because it's happening.
- [00:10:41.910]The the other part is, it's happening
- [00:10:43.560]whether we like it or not,
- [00:10:44.580]so we have a lot of ethical questions.
- [00:10:46.410]We have a lot of equity questions.
- [00:10:49.410]We are wondering how and where it's going to come.
- [00:10:52.710]But it is coming,
- [00:10:53.884]the economic forces around it are enormous
- [00:10:58.230]and they're really us boycotting it
- [00:11:00.810]or not talking about it does not make it go away.
- [00:11:03.360]So that's something that I'm thinking about quite often.
- [00:11:06.330]And the other thing that I'm really focused on
- [00:11:09.630]is the teacher shortage and how the work we do
- [00:11:14.520]really can impact making sure that our students
- [00:11:19.140]are ready to teach so they stay in teaching.
- [00:11:21.480]How do we make sure that teachers
- [00:11:23.910]who are already in schools, this is my number one priority,
- [00:11:27.690]teachers are in school, how do we support them
- [00:11:29.850]and make sure that they are not walking away
- [00:11:33.210]from a career they're actually interested in.
- [00:11:35.790]And so how do we, and we have limited influence
- [00:11:39.600]on what happens in schools, but we do have some influence.
- [00:11:42.330]How can we help to make sure,
- [00:11:45.240]first of all, the teachers are there, stay,
- [00:11:47.250]and then that there are more teachers coming into schools,
- [00:11:51.120]whether they're like our undergraduates
- [00:11:53.310]who are mostly young people
- [00:11:55.170]coming straight from high school,
- [00:11:56.940]or people who want a second career,
- [00:11:58.860]which is, I think a growing and an important segment
- [00:12:02.700]as we think about, if people leave the profession
- [00:12:06.000]after eight to 10 years on average,
- [00:12:10.680]we need some people back in.
- [00:12:12.060]So part of the grants I wrote this summer
- [00:12:15.780]address both those issues.
- [00:12:18.210]So that's where I am.
- [00:12:19.980]What are you focusing on for this year?
- [00:12:23.310]So kind of related to that, I'm gonna jump ahead.
- [00:12:26.490]Okay.
- [00:12:27.323]And so one of the books that I read
- [00:12:29.280]toward the beginning of the summer was Ali Smith's "Spring."
- [00:12:32.820]It's part of her Season's quartet.
- [00:12:34.350]It's fiction, she's delightful.
- [00:12:36.420]And there's a line that one of her characters says
- [00:12:39.420]that is essentially,
- [00:12:43.057]"Don't get at me for knowing I'm a dying species.
- [00:12:46.110]I'm that thing nobody out there thinks is relevant anymore.
- [00:12:49.530]Books, knowledge, years of reading,
- [00:12:52.380]all of which means I know stuff."
- [00:12:57.060]And in the world of generative AI
- [00:13:00.720]and the rapidly shifting environment
- [00:13:04.440]in which we see ourselves in terms of technology,
- [00:13:07.290]that idea of what does it mean to know stuff
- [00:13:12.180]and be someone who knows stuff,
- [00:13:14.220]has really weighed heavily on my brain.
- [00:13:18.030]Like as someone who works really intensely
- [00:13:22.920]at making sure that my undergraduate students
- [00:13:26.370]are prepared really, really well
- [00:13:28.500]to move into a classroom space and teach reading.
- [00:13:31.170]And know stuff.
- [00:13:32.070]And know stuff.
- [00:13:33.180]How is it that knowledge is built?
- [00:13:36.990]How is it that knowledge is maintained?
- [00:13:40.530]How do we move from surface knowledge into deep knowledge?
- [00:13:45.840]And what are kind of the nuances of that work?
- [00:13:50.400]When we talk about prior knowledge,
- [00:13:52.230]what are we truly talking about, right?
- [00:13:54.990]And so I've been thinking a lot of,
- [00:13:59.700]about what are, what do we know about learning
- [00:14:06.660]that has kind of gotten watered down?
- [00:14:10.050]What do we know about memory?
- [00:14:13.860]What do we know about the human brain
- [00:14:15.810]that helps us think through better ways to support students
- [00:14:22.740]in building that knowledge base.
- [00:14:26.040]So that once they're done with my classroom,
- [00:14:30.510]once they're done with my classes in undergraduate reading,
- [00:14:34.680]they're able to draw upon that work later on.
- [00:14:38.790]Like, what is it that I can shift and change
- [00:14:44.340]within my own practices in order to support that?
- [00:14:48.120]So I spent a lot of time this summer
- [00:14:49.770]reading a lot of educational psychology
- [00:14:53.070]and reading a lot of like randomized test trials.
- [00:14:57.540]Like, it was, it's been super interesting reading
- [00:15:01.043]and I'm starting to see some dividends
- [00:15:04.020]around some intentional changes
- [00:15:05.790]that I've made in my teaching
- [00:15:07.500]that started this summer because I want my students
- [00:15:11.070]to be someone who knows things, right?
- [00:15:16.838]And so thinking about that knowledge building,
- [00:15:20.190]like subsumption theory really helped me think through
- [00:15:23.280]and explain prior knowledge with my undergrads.
- [00:15:28.680]Like what do we do
- [00:15:29.670]when students come with no prior knowledge?
- [00:15:32.670]It's not as though, "Oh, they didn't come with any,
- [00:15:35.160]we can't do anything."
- [00:15:36.900]Right, there's very clear pathways forward
- [00:15:40.170]around what to do in those situations.
- [00:15:42.930]And so that's been super helpful
- [00:15:46.020]in terms of immediate teaching
- [00:15:50.790]and then working on building some kind of research designs
- [00:15:55.350]around that has also been a fun challenge.
- [00:15:58.433]And I think that especially as you're highlighting this,
- [00:16:01.380]especially when we think about the AI and what AI does,
- [00:16:05.923]somebody just recently described AI
- [00:16:08.400]as a D minus at everything.
- [00:16:12.030]And the problem that we have is our students,
- [00:16:14.730]especially elementary students, but not exclusively,
- [00:16:17.340]are what Ann Brown called universal novices.
- [00:16:19.770]So they start at a D if anything, or they might start with,
- [00:16:24.180]as you said, no background knowledge,
- [00:16:25.800]they don't know anything, and so easy to bring into it,
- [00:16:30.540]AI knows a lot more than you do,
- [00:16:32.520]and we need to make sure that they have enough knowledge
- [00:16:34.950]to be about that B minus,
- [00:16:37.500]and that takes some building and some conscious building
- [00:16:40.890]of skills and knowledge and capacities
- [00:16:45.120]that allow them to really learn, right?
- [00:16:49.890]So that's interesting.
- [00:16:51.390]I did not read anything like that this summer.
- [00:16:55.358]There were other things. I just say, yeah,
- [00:16:58.560]But I read in a different direction
- [00:17:00.780]and I read a couple of pieces,
- [00:17:02.970]and then I read some fiction
- [00:17:04.830]I read, and I'm still negotiating "The Price of Peace,"
- [00:17:09.630]which is a book about Maynard Keynes,
- [00:17:12.210]and what is amazing to me,
- [00:17:15.960]and the reason I'm sticking with this book,
- [00:17:17.850]despite the fact that it's not an easy book
- [00:17:19.770]to kind of process, is that here's a thinker
- [00:17:24.510]who is going in some ways against all of the thinking
- [00:17:28.110]in economics at the time.
- [00:17:30.300]And to this very day, he's popular in some circles,
- [00:17:33.870]but really unpopular,
- [00:17:35.190]and many of his ideas are misunderstood.
- [00:17:37.620]So a lot of his ideas right now
- [00:17:39.240]are discussed within the context of economics
- [00:17:43.710]and what does economics, his economics theory says,
- [00:17:47.610]but his focus is actually
- [00:17:49.140]on what happens when we have enough, right?
- [00:17:52.020]If we stop manufacturing demand and constantly thinking
- [00:17:55.440]that we're short of everything, right?
- [00:17:58.710]And we start thinking about what happens
- [00:18:01.200]if we have enough to live,
- [00:18:02.400]if we have enough to be okay as a society,
- [00:18:04.560]AI bringing that question again,
- [00:18:06.960]what happens if we have to work less?
- [00:18:08.610]And really it's, I'm less interested in that question,
- [00:18:12.030]more I'm interested in how does somebody
- [00:18:14.730]think completely differently
- [00:18:17.220]about the same problems that we're encountering?
- [00:18:19.380]And that's what I think about
- [00:18:20.940]when I think about what we teach
- [00:18:22.350]and what we do in schools is, is there,
- [00:18:25.050]what is a radically different vision of what this could be?
- [00:18:30.630]And then starting to think about
- [00:18:32.280]what would it take to get there?
- [00:18:33.630]But I'm incredibly interested
- [00:18:35.430]in not just trimming what we're doing right now
- [00:18:40.560]and changing it a little bit,
- [00:18:42.030]but having a vision of where it's going,
- [00:18:43.560]even if changes will go slowly.
- [00:18:45.270]So this goes back to the fact
- [00:18:47.640]that there are some books I go back to,
- [00:18:49.500]I go back to the Steve Jobs biography often.
- [00:18:52.950]Oh, wanna learn more about that.
- [00:18:54.630]And because there are a few pieces there
- [00:18:59.190]that are interesting.
- [00:19:00.630]First of all, innovative thinker that says, "I don't care."
- [00:19:05.220]And one of the things I love
- [00:19:06.600]about the work he's done in design
- [00:19:08.880]is he did not care as much about
- [00:19:15.357]what are the people thinking about what they want?
- [00:19:18.510]Because he's saying, "If we haven't made it yet,
- [00:19:21.150]they don't know they want it."
- [00:19:22.470]And this is a really important thing
- [00:19:24.120]if we start dreaming up what schools might look like, right?
- [00:19:28.140]If people have not seen it, how would they want it?
- [00:19:30.463]I mean, the natural thing is to be small C conservative.
- [00:19:34.020]It's like, I want my kids
- [00:19:35.460]to go to the same school I went to.
- [00:19:37.350]It was a delightful time, or maybe not,
- [00:19:39.540]but that idea of replicating the experience
- [00:19:42.210]is really, really strong,
- [00:19:43.410]which is what makes it really, really hard
- [00:19:45.090]to innovate in something
- [00:19:47.430]that is such a central institution in society.
- [00:19:49.308]The institution itself is a jerk
- [00:19:50.670]is essentially what it comes down to.
- [00:19:52.140]Well, yeah, and also that everybody
- [00:19:55.440]wants it to be different.
- [00:19:56.460]A lot of people will admit
- [00:19:57.570]that school was not great for them,
- [00:19:59.460]but the minute they get new math, their kids get new math
- [00:20:03.390]or a different reading program or something like that,
- [00:20:05.820]or don't do cursive, parents go up and be upset.
- [00:20:10.230]And it's like, you didn't like it
- [00:20:11.640]when you had to go through.
- [00:20:12.810]Also when's the last time you wrote someone a postcard?
- [00:20:15.240]Like, why do you need cursive?
- [00:20:16.800]You do not, if you've ever seen my cursive,
- [00:20:18.900]you know, nobody needs cursive, especially not my cursive.
- [00:20:21.570]But those are real questions
- [00:20:25.110]that, so I love listening to what do other thinkers do?
- [00:20:32.850]Innovative thinkers, how do they break the mold?
- [00:20:35.940]How do they think about it?
- [00:20:37.110]What did they do?
- [00:20:37.943]Because Maynard Keynes, one of the interesting things
- [00:20:39.960]about it and where he's somewhat liked Jobs,
- [00:20:42.690]he was incredibly influential
- [00:20:44.700]in government circles for a while.
- [00:20:46.080]His ideas were very, very strong.
- [00:20:47.940]That, between the wars
- [00:20:50.100]and then obviously after World War II,
- [00:20:52.770]his ideas become strong,
- [00:20:54.000]although from the United States to a certain degree.
- [00:20:56.640]And so these are people who were not just thinkers,
- [00:20:59.760]but they were also doers,
- [00:21:00.930]and that to me is really incredibly important.
- [00:21:03.840]They were not afraid to go beyond their ideas
- [00:21:07.050]and actually do something even,
- [00:21:08.970]and they all change their minds,
- [00:21:10.680]and that's the other important thing,
- [00:21:12.440]is that ability to say, "I was wrong.
- [00:21:15.360]Here's another way to look at it,"
- [00:21:16.830]without giving up on a general vision,
- [00:21:18.600]but really thinking about is there room to change our minds?
- [00:21:22.620]And if you're doing things in the real world,
- [00:21:24.480]you have to be ready to change your mind
- [00:21:25.980]because reality is a challenge.
- [00:21:30.000]You have to revise your thinking.
- [00:21:31.620]And so those two pieces, for me,
- [00:21:36.720]are really, really important.
- [00:21:39.360]And then I do, as I do every summer,
- [00:21:42.480]I went back to "Getting Things Done,"
- [00:21:45.090]just because I need that refresher.
- [00:21:46.534]David Allen?
- [00:21:47.367]David Allen
- [00:21:48.217]"Getting Things Done" Oh, a classic.
- [00:21:49.950]Because while there are some, quite a few things
- [00:21:53.400]that I disagree with in the work that is there,
- [00:21:57.360]it helps me reorganize and forces me to do that whole,
- [00:22:02.730]let's get everything I want to do on a piece of paper
- [00:22:05.640]because that also allows me to start sorting through
- [00:22:10.530]what's possible and what's not.
- [00:22:12.090]Five grants in the summer, maybe not three, maybe yes.
- [00:22:15.789]That kind of an approach allows me to reevaluate
- [00:22:21.480]and get the little things done
- [00:22:23.460]so I can move on bigger thoughts.
- [00:22:26.580]So have you read, outta curiosity,
- [00:22:29.107]"Building a Second Brain?"
- [00:22:31.050]I did not, but I know of it.
- [00:22:33.810]I feel like that dovetails really well with David Allen.
- [00:22:37.890]And the thing I love about that particular book,
- [00:22:41.550]and he just released another one, "The PARA System,"
- [00:22:46.830]is he talks about arranging your digital life in such a way
- [00:22:52.320]that you're able to actually like access stuff, right?
- [00:22:55.680]Like he starts it with a David Allen quote
- [00:22:59.490]even where it's like, your brain is for thinking,
- [00:23:02.610]not for storing stuff, right?
- [00:23:04.410]And so he really lays out such a lovely, simple,
- [00:23:10.890]an adaptable system for thinking about
- [00:23:15.270]how to begin a digital, like commonplace book.
- [00:23:18.510]And it's just really resonated
- [00:23:20.520]with helping me think through some structuring.
- [00:23:23.910]That'll be really interesting,
- [00:23:25.590]because I have structured my digital life
- [00:23:28.110]very much as a storage space in my email, in my calendar,
- [00:23:33.720]and in my, the way I organize my resources
- [00:23:38.970]on the storage, SharePoint in our case,
- [00:23:41.880]but whatever it may be.
- [00:23:43.410]SharePoint purgatory, as I like to think about it.
- [00:23:46.890]Where files go to die and I can't find them.
- [00:23:50.010]So I use the SharePoint site,
- [00:23:51.420]but they are organized in parallel ways.
- [00:23:54.300]So they're similar folder structure.
- [00:23:56.700]It took me many years to get there,
- [00:23:58.140]but I have, so I systematize all of that.
- [00:24:01.500]So I feel it, I'm gonna look it up and see,
- [00:24:04.440]maybe we'll do an episode about that.
- [00:24:05.367]Oh, I'm finishing up with it.
- [00:24:06.630]I'm doing a second read.
- [00:24:08.250]So once I'm done, I will pass it along,
- [00:24:09.930]but it's not an ebook and I know you prefer an ebook.
- [00:24:12.360]That's fine, I do read paper occasionally.
- [00:24:14.970]Do you?
- [00:24:15.803]Yeah, very occasionally, maybe one outta 20.
- [00:24:18.994]Okay, I'm a paper book guy.
- [00:24:21.765]I need paper books.
- [00:24:24.016]You need the, is it physicality?
- [00:24:25.740]There's something tactile about it that I need.
- [00:24:28.710]So that's one of the books that I've read
- [00:24:31.620]and been thinking about this summer.
- [00:24:33.960]I also read, fiction-wise, Kingsolver's "Demon Copperhead,"
- [00:24:40.272]which was, okay, you'll get this.
- [00:24:47.694]So it is as though Lorelei Gilmore
- [00:24:53.970]was a teenage boy growing up in the '90s, in Appalachia.
- [00:24:59.760]Oh wow, okay.
- [00:25:02.052]And I devoured it, and it's a thick boy.
- [00:25:05.520]Like this book, it's not skinny.
- [00:25:07.980]Like he eats, like this book is thick, but I devoured it.
- [00:25:13.593]Like I thought "Demon Copperhead"
- [00:25:15.900]was such a beautifully written character.
- [00:25:20.640]And Kingsolver for me is kind of hit or miss.
- [00:25:23.100]Like I either am all in or I'm like, "Eh," which is fine,
- [00:25:28.080]like every author is gonna have that,
- [00:25:30.270]but "Demon Copperhead" was, you know,
- [00:25:32.880]a knock out of the park for me
- [00:25:34.410]in terms of like, 10 out of 10 would totally read again.
- [00:25:39.990]So my question about that,
- [00:25:41.640]is summer a better time to take on a read like that?
- [00:25:45.870]No, I don't think so.
- [00:25:49.980]I think what summer allowed me to do
- [00:25:52.290]was I literally read it
- [00:25:53.520]in like a day and a half without guilt.
- [00:25:57.270]So maybe it is a better choice for longer books.
- [00:26:00.810]Like right now I'm reading this Polish translation,
- [00:26:05.287]"Swimming in the Dark" that I find, I look forward
- [00:26:08.760]to reading it every single day
- [00:26:11.610]because it's, and it's equally compelling, right?
- [00:26:15.450]But it's the, I got to glut on that,
- [00:26:19.710]on "Demon Copperhead" for an entire, you know,
- [00:26:22.410]day and a half and it was delightful.
- [00:26:26.100]So yeah, that one was a good one.
- [00:26:28.710]And then I taught children's lit this summer,
- [00:26:32.160]so I was reading tons of middle grades novels.
- [00:26:36.540]I'm preparing for a children's literature
- [00:26:38.010]study abroad in London.
- [00:26:38.970]So I was reading a ton
- [00:26:39.870]of middle grades novels set in London.
- [00:26:42.120]I loved "Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus."
- [00:26:45.480]Which, if you're a fan of "Wonder,"
- [00:26:48.360]it's a more nuanced "Wonder."
- [00:26:51.030]I feel like it's a more approachable "Wonder."
- [00:26:53.220]There's some class stuff in "Wonder"
- [00:26:55.050]that always struck me as a little weird,
- [00:26:58.050]but "Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus"
- [00:27:00.607]was phenomenal.
- [00:27:02.640]And then another book that stuck with me
- [00:27:07.740]is "Poverty, by America,"
- [00:27:12.510]which connects with your "Price of Peace."
- [00:27:16.530]Where, hold on, I always get, is it Desmond,
- [00:27:21.390]I think it's Jared Desmond.
- [00:27:24.630]So let me look it up in my database.
- [00:27:31.969]In your database.
- [00:27:32.820]In my database.
- [00:27:37.170]I just let the library keep the database.
- [00:27:39.060]Matthew Desmond.
- [00:27:40.387]"Poverty, by America," and in this book
- [00:27:43.230]he is talking about poverty abolition
- [00:27:49.650]and how, as an American system
- [00:27:55.080]within which we as educators and education
- [00:27:59.550]is tied up within, and how
- [00:28:08.250]based upon the systems that we design
- [00:28:12.090]to address the needs of those in poverty,
- [00:28:17.460]we actually exacerbate the condition of being in poverty.
- [00:28:23.520]Like we make it hard to be in poverty
- [00:28:27.390]and seek out help to get out of it, right?
- [00:28:33.270]And it was,
- [00:28:37.110]his argument really helped me identify some of my own biases
- [00:28:43.590]within that structure of thinking about
- [00:28:47.100]why do social safety nets exist?
- [00:28:49.890]And what happens if you end up on a social,
- [00:28:52.860]within a social safety net situation?
- [00:28:54.480]Like you need this assistance.
- [00:28:58.260]Why is it so hard to access that assistance?
- [00:29:00.960]Why is it that we are the most powerful country
- [00:29:05.550]in the nation?
- [00:29:06.992]In the world. Or, in the world,
- [00:29:08.670]sorry, this is my first cup of coffee today.
- [00:29:10.860]Normally I'm on like three by now,
- [00:29:12.780]so the brain is not functioning as it should be
- [00:29:15.090]in the world, and yet we cannot
- [00:29:18.030]seem to get our hands around this problem.
- [00:29:20.520]And part of it is, the other thing
- [00:29:22.470]that he makes ridiculously clear
- [00:29:25.090]is going back to your question of what is enough,
- [00:29:31.230]we've slowly but surely accepted the fact that in society
- [00:29:36.210]privatization is okay and preferable.
- [00:29:40.791]To a degree.
- [00:29:41.624]Like, the fact that, oh, it's a private school,
- [00:29:44.220]there's an indication that oh, that's automatically better
- [00:29:47.250]than a public school.
- [00:29:48.390]Oh, a private club is better than a public club.
- [00:29:53.760]And then there's, hold on, let me find the line.
- [00:29:57.630]I'm all about.
- [00:29:58.980]Picking up the lines.
- [00:30:00.030]Picking up the lines, because there's some stuff that,
- [00:30:05.910]one of the things, he's written a couple of things,
- [00:30:08.130]but I loved how he also talks about complexity
- [00:30:15.570]and the fetishization of complexity.
- [00:30:22.740]And he writes, you know,
- [00:30:24.967]"Complexity is the refuge of the powerful,"
- [00:30:28.590]which I've thought about,
- [00:30:33.540]oftentimes it's one of those lines
- [00:30:34.620]that like, I wish I had written that
- [00:30:36.900]because I thought that a lot.
- [00:30:37.733]There are lots of lines that I wished I would've written.
- [00:30:40.110]Right, like, but that one I gripe about that one.
- [00:30:43.770]I can vetch you about that one all the freaking time.
- [00:30:46.170]Like how much complexity is enough complexity?
- [00:30:48.450]Like at what point do we hit saturation
- [00:30:51.000]and everything else is just noise, right?
- [00:30:54.270]And we as academics love to do that,
- [00:30:55.717]"Oh, it's complex and here's all the complexities,"
- [00:30:58.350]but what are the complexities
- [00:30:59.280]that actually matter in this moment?
- [00:31:01.740]And he talks about that
- [00:31:02.850]in terms of like how we solve poverty
- [00:31:04.800]and how poverty is this intersecting issue
- [00:31:07.500]that, you know, race, gender, et cetera, et cetera.
- [00:31:11.610]All of them combine within this issue.
- [00:31:14.730]And so I also really loved, last one, where he talks about
- [00:31:19.807]"A retreat into complexity
- [00:31:21.240]is more often a reflection of our social standing
- [00:31:24.360]than evidence of critical intelligence."
- [00:31:29.400]And that has also stuck with me, like again.
- [00:31:33.480]And for me, connecting to what I've read,
- [00:31:36.840]it's that ability, because for me,
- [00:31:39.540]when people say things are complex,
- [00:31:41.070]they are often, often, often looking at the trees
- [00:31:44.220]and not at the forest.
- [00:31:45.390]It's like, what is the big problem
- [00:31:47.010]and what are some ways we can address them?
- [00:31:49.260]Knowing that it's always imperfect
- [00:31:51.090]and knowing that any kind of doing
- [00:31:53.550]has the chance for some effects you can't predict, right?
- [00:31:57.600]And that has to be part of the game.
- [00:31:59.310]But that does not excuse inaction
- [00:32:01.710]when things are not going well.
- [00:32:03.510]Right.
- [00:32:04.343]And so I'm a hundred percent with you
- [00:32:06.270]from that perspective because it's like you can always find
- [00:32:10.620]50 things that contribute to a problem,
- [00:32:13.200]but there are some simpler solution.
- [00:32:16.440]Well, and it's the question of like,
- [00:32:17.670]what in the moment is actually going to solve the problem?
- [00:32:19.800]And so when you're thinking about,
- [00:32:21.420]how do we build up pipelines to support schools,
- [00:32:26.880]like yep, there's some complexities there,
- [00:32:29.940]but what of that complexity actually leans in on the problem
- [00:32:34.980]and which ones are just kind of like there,
- [00:32:37.170]and they're interesting to think about,
- [00:32:38.700]but they're not really that important
- [00:32:40.380]to actually solving the problem, right?
- [00:32:43.650]So that book has stayed in my head
- [00:32:47.610]longer than I thought it would.
- [00:32:48.570]It was not, I went in expecting one thing,
- [00:32:51.750]and left it with an entirely different set of understandings
- [00:32:59.010]and was a bit fired up and it's really-
- [00:33:03.782]We should maybe do an episode
- [00:33:06.600]where I do some reading too, because I haven't read it,
- [00:33:09.870]and maybe we play with those ideas a little bit,
- [00:33:12.690]especially as it reflects on
- [00:33:14.850]what can we do from academia.
- [00:33:17.250]I mean, here's one of the things
- [00:33:18.900]I thought was really powerful about that particular book
- [00:33:20.880]is it's one of those books that allowed me to,
- [00:33:25.200]as someone who likes to live correctly
- [00:33:27.330]within my personal set of politics,
- [00:33:29.370]it allowed me to further refine that set of politics.
- [00:33:32.580]And it's given me some boundaries
- [00:33:36.360]around which I wanna organize my activity
- [00:33:39.210]and my energy around poverty abolition,
- [00:33:42.540]and how that connects to my work here
- [00:33:44.220]in the College of Education and Human Sciences, so.
- [00:33:47.340]That's a tall order.
- [00:33:48.990]It was a tall order and like,
- [00:33:50.220]that's not what I was expecting
- [00:33:52.380]when I walked into that book.
- [00:33:56.535]Well that's what we did on our summer vacations.
- [00:33:59.010]It's been, it's nice to catch up.
- [00:34:01.140]It feels good to be back, this is-
- [00:34:03.000]In this room with the camera chatting.
- [00:34:06.510]With Dan behind the camera.
- [00:34:07.800]Dan behind the camera, who you know.
- [00:34:09.720]Thank you Dan.
- [00:34:10.553]Keeps us, oops, sounding good
- [00:34:12.270]as long as I don't break his equipment.
- [00:34:14.520]But we're excited for season two,
- [00:34:18.360]we've got lots of interesting ideas
- [00:34:21.810]to explore across this entire season.
- [00:34:24.000]So yeah, it's fun to not be that kind of doctor again.
- [00:34:29.700]It is. It's nice to be back.
- [00:34:31.366]It's nice to be back, have a great fall.
- [00:34:33.810]Yeah, enjoy your fall
- [00:34:34.950]and we'll see you back here when we talk about,
- [00:34:37.890]I think we're talking about maybe AI next, potentially?
- [00:34:41.880]So unless we run into editing problems,
- [00:34:43.500]don't hold us to that.
- [00:34:45.060]Yet.
- [00:34:45.960]Yet.
- [00:34:46.890]Scheduling is always a barrier but we're working on it.
- [00:34:48.608]But we'll see you here where we talk about things
- [00:34:52.410]that aren't medical 'cause we're not that kind of doctor.
- [00:34:54.870](upbeat music)
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