Not That Kind of Doctor - Confronting Imposter Syndrome in Academia
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01/11/2024
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In this episode of "Not That Kind of Doctor," Guy and Nick dive deep into the pervasive issue of imposter syndrome, a phenomenon that affects academics at every stage of their careers. Whether you're a graduate student, an early-career scholar, or a seasoned professor, the feeling of not belonging or not being competent enough is something we all wrestle with at some point. Join us as we explore how imposter syndrome manifests in academia, how it intersects with DEI efforts, and practical strategies to navigate these challenging feelings.
🎓 What You'll Learn:
The impact of imposter syndrome on academic careers and why it's so common (3:00)
How conferences can both trigger and alleviate feelings of being an imposter (4:30)
The role of DEI in addressing and mitigating imposter syndrome, particularly for marginalized groups (45:00)
Strategies to reframe negative thoughts and build supportive academic communities (27:00)
The importance of recognizing and celebrating small victories in your academic journey (30:00)
Whether you're struggling with your first rejection letter or questioning your place in academia, this episode offers valuable insights and actionable advice. Remember, even though we’re not that kind of doctor, we’ve got your back on this journey.
Like, comment, and subscribe for more discussions that tackle the real challenges of academic life with honesty and humor. 🎓✨
#ImposterSyndrome #AcademicLife #DEI #HigherEducation #GradSchoolStruggles #GrowthMindset #MentalHealth
Imposter Syndrome - Not That Kind of Doctor with Nick Husbye and Guy Trainin
www.youtube.com/@tltenotthatkindofdoctor
Searchable Transcript
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- [00:00:00.139](upbeat music)
- [00:00:09.690]Leaving tomorrow for Atlanta, so.
- [00:00:12.627]For LA, right?
- [00:00:13.610]Yeah, LA.
- [00:00:14.670]32 hours. (Guy banging table)
- [00:00:16.380]Yeah. That's impressive.
- [00:00:17.550]That's impressive.
- [00:00:18.383]I don't know that I could do that.
- [00:00:20.130]From what perspective?
- [00:00:21.690]I just don't know
- [00:00:22.523]that I'm going to conferences ever again.
- [00:00:23.940]Oh, no.
- [00:00:25.200]I mean, I will at some point,
- [00:00:27.210]but right now I'm okay.
- [00:00:29.640]Yeah.
- [00:00:30.630]Totally, totally. I'm okay with it.
- [00:00:32.880]Yeah absolutely.
- [00:00:33.870]I had a six year thing when I went maybe
- [00:00:36.840]to one conference every other year and it was fine.
- [00:00:41.040]Nobody died.
- [00:00:41.970]Kind of feels like the age that I am in.
- [00:00:44.700]Yeah. Right?
- [00:00:45.690]Yeah.
- [00:00:46.800]But there is something interesting about like,
- [00:00:50.340]because I have taken kind of a COVID inspired
- [00:00:54.660]extended leave from conferences.
- [00:00:56.700]There is this like, but are you an academic
- [00:01:00.030]if you're not going to conferences and presenting?
- [00:01:01.484](Guy laughing)
- [00:01:04.200]And so that's been interesting to like-
- [00:01:05.777]Yeah.
- [00:01:06.610]Navigate because it does
- [00:01:10.230]somewhat interestingly create a sense of,
- [00:01:14.430]am I impostering, right?
- [00:01:16.980]Within academia.
- [00:01:18.300]Yeah.
- [00:01:19.133]And I was thinking about it
- [00:01:20.220]from the opposite way.
- [00:01:21.330]And that is, I think that,
- [00:01:25.440]which is a totally different argument than yours,
- [00:01:28.080]but one of the places you can learn not
- [00:01:32.640]to feel like an impostor is at conferences.
- [00:01:35.490]Hmm.
- [00:01:36.323]Yeah. I can see that too.
- [00:01:37.560]I can see that too.
- [00:01:38.430]So it's a cure,
- [00:01:39.810]but it's also part of the problem.
- [00:01:41.490]I don't know.
- [00:01:42.420]Yeah. There's a lot there.
- [00:01:43.470]There's an interesting symbiotic relationship there.
- [00:01:45.516]Yeah.
- [00:01:46.349]And that kind of helps us segue
- [00:01:48.120]into what we're gonna talk about today
- [00:01:50.700]on "Not That Kind Of Doctor",
- [00:01:52.470]I'm Nick Husbye, I'm an associate professor
- [00:01:54.570]of elementary literacy education here at UNL.
- [00:01:58.200]And I'm Guy Trainin, I'm professor
- [00:01:59.760]of education here at UNL.
- [00:02:01.680]And I think every single academic
- [00:02:06.750]that I know has been impacted by imposter,
- [00:02:11.147]by an imposter phenomenon at one point or another, right?
- [00:02:15.510]Like this idea of not really having
- [00:02:19.740]a sense of being as competent as other people,
- [00:02:24.345]as not belonging to certain spaces.
- [00:02:29.400]Right.
- [00:02:30.233]Which we talked about maladaptive perfectionism
- [00:02:32.610]in our students in a previous episode.
- [00:02:35.100]But when we're thinking about imposter syndrome
- [00:02:37.290]for particularly grad students, right.
- [00:02:40.980]And even early career, mid-career, late career.
- [00:02:46.350]Yeah.
- [00:02:47.183]Scholars, right.
- [00:02:48.016]There's this self-perceived competence gap, right?
- [00:02:53.520]That can make you feel
- [00:02:56.370]a bit like I'm a fraud.
- [00:02:59.040]Yeah.
- [00:02:59.873]And it is self-perceived up to a point.
- [00:03:04.020]I would like to argue that there's a lot
- [00:03:07.800]that happens in academia that is consistently feeding
- [00:03:12.052]that sense of being an imposter.
- [00:03:15.630]Because academia has the original social media
- [00:03:19.980]and that is the publication world is like Instagram
- [00:03:23.340]in that you see people's best work,
- [00:03:26.070]you don't see anything
- [00:03:27.330]that never got published. Right.
- [00:03:28.767]You just see the published,
- [00:03:30.300]you see the things
- [00:03:31.133]that were published after four or five,
- [00:03:33.180]maybe more rounds of corrections
- [00:03:36.342]and comments and improvements.
- [00:03:39.270]So you're taking that
- [00:03:40.647]and you're taking your manuscript you just sent
- [00:03:42.660]in that just got rejected
- [00:03:44.430]and you're always comparing it.
- [00:03:46.680]So in a sense, the system is built with feeding
- [00:03:51.836]that sense that we're inadequate
- [00:03:54.510]because there's a lot of rejection.
- [00:03:57.360]Most of the journals we submit
- [00:03:58.950]to have a rejection rate between five
- [00:04:01.920]and 20%, 20% is really a good number for us.
- [00:04:06.600]Rejection or acceptance?
- [00:04:09.240]Acceptance. Acceptance.
- [00:04:10.290]Okay. Acceptance.
- [00:04:11.123]So, you know, between one out of 20 to one out
- [00:04:14.910]of five is where most journals fall.
- [00:04:17.760]And one out of five is really good.
- [00:04:19.260]But that means that even with that 20%,
- [00:04:22.080]80% gets rejected, at least in first read.
- [00:04:24.630]Which means that this is the normal state
- [00:04:28.500]of affairs is to be rejected.
- [00:04:30.120]But when you get that rejection, you feel it,
- [00:04:32.490]you feel like you failed to a certain degree,
- [00:04:35.070]you learn to deal with that.
- [00:04:36.630]And that's part of growing in the profession.
- [00:04:38.520]But definitely early on it feels devastating.
- [00:04:40.860]I work with a lot of young scholars as I mentored them
- [00:04:44.160]through first publications especially,
- [00:04:45.960]we talked about this before
- [00:04:47.370]through their dissertation work,
- [00:04:49.380]and they get their revise and resubmit
- [00:04:51.840]and the sense is, I have completely failed.
- [00:04:53.760]What have I been doing?
- [00:04:54.720]I need to find a different career.
- [00:04:56.190]And the answer is not so fast.
- [00:04:57.257]You've gotta revise and resubmit.
- [00:04:59.160]That is the whole point.
- [00:05:00.060]They're telling you they want to see it again.
- [00:05:02.190]That is a win,
- [00:05:03.426]but it feels like a loss. A loss.
- [00:05:06.090]So the system, the system is really built to do
- [00:05:09.000]that all the time.
- [00:05:11.160]And we also have,
- [00:05:13.170]and informally we've talked about it just recently,
- [00:05:16.920]we also have a system that is very tiered
- [00:05:20.490]there are top institutions that are really
- [00:05:26.160]trying to create that separation.
- [00:05:27.960]And we fight for students.
- [00:05:29.220]So we do try to create a separation based
- [00:05:31.530]on how highly you rated
- [00:05:32.877]on some kind of ranking or another.
- [00:05:35.220]And we can get into ranking another time.
- [00:05:37.140]But there's definitely a sense
- [00:05:39.447]of tears within the system
- [00:05:42.060]and people placing them
- [00:05:43.770]and talking about their institution,
- [00:05:46.890]especially if they come from one of those top tiers.
- [00:05:49.410]And they are really making those distinctions about
- [00:05:54.510]where you work and what you do based on that.
- [00:05:57.420]And that helps that as well.
- [00:05:59.070]It's like, yeah, I'm in this conference
- [00:06:01.500]with everybody else going back to conferences,
- [00:06:03.840]but am I part of the in-crowd,
- [00:06:06.810]even at the conference,
- [00:06:07.920]it's easy to feel like you are on the out.
- [00:06:10.530]And so,
- [00:06:13.984]that's really always there.
- [00:06:16.260]And I do believe that even
- [00:06:18.030]the people who go to those main,
- [00:06:19.650]to those big institutions
- [00:06:20.910]and all of that have imposter syndrome at one point
- [00:06:24.030]or another, because we all get rejected.
- [00:06:25.680]We all have, all of these things happen to us.
- [00:06:28.530]Well, and I think, I'm not in this situation,
- [00:06:31.470]but like I remember talking
- [00:06:33.150]to Jennifer Arousal about imposter syndrome
- [00:06:35.730]and she was like, I feel like an imposter all the time.
- [00:06:38.310]I have all of these articles,
- [00:06:39.630]all these books, all these grants.
- [00:06:41.460]I am endowed a chair, you know,
- [00:06:43.200]et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
- [00:06:44.906]When do you stop feeling like an imposter?
- [00:06:46.570]And I don't know that,
- [00:06:50.044]I think there are certain things
- [00:06:51.870]that you can do in order
- [00:06:54.300]to negotiate those feelings of imposter syndrome.
- [00:06:57.885]Yeah.
- [00:06:58.718]Because there's a lot of structural stuff,
- [00:07:00.060]there's a lot of social stuff that comes into play.
- [00:07:02.220]Right, and even outside of academia, just writ large,
- [00:07:05.910]when I was researching for this episode,
- [00:07:09.270]I came across the statistic
- [00:07:11.130]of 82% of people just writ large
- [00:07:15.240]have imposter syndrome at some point in time.
- [00:07:17.790]Right.
- [00:07:18.623]Experience an imposter phenomenon.
- [00:07:20.820]And so it becomes really,
- [00:07:23.850]really important I think for us
- [00:07:25.950]as academics for a variety of reasons to be aware of
- [00:07:31.740]and think through how to negotiate
- [00:07:36.030]when we experience imposter phenomena, right?
- [00:07:40.290]Like what is happening there?
- [00:07:41.815]When is that going?
- [00:07:44.490]So I'm kind of, as I was preparing
- [00:07:49.380]for this, I was thinking about like times where
- [00:07:53.340]I've experienced imposter syndrome.
- [00:07:55.410]I would love to know about times you've experienced
- [00:07:57.413]imposter syndrome, 'cause there's probably multiple points
- [00:08:01.920]in your career if you're like me.
- [00:08:04.860]But you are perfect. (Guy laughing)
- [00:08:06.000]So you're never an imposter.
- [00:08:08.010]Well, I think that anytime you are fairly new
- [00:08:13.380]to a situation, whether you get a new job
- [00:08:16.470]or you take on a new role, for a while,
- [00:08:19.590]you feel like an imposter.
- [00:08:21.300]And I think that that is connected
- [00:08:23.430]to how we behave inside the system.
- [00:08:25.260]There's a language to this systems, right?
- [00:08:28.140]So when you come to a new institution, all the people
- [00:08:30.720]that are already there know there's just the local knowledge
- [00:08:33.810]and you are new and that feels like you don't belong.
- [00:08:36.510]And often, although it doesn't have to lead
- [00:08:38.640]to an imposter syndrome, it can, right?
- [00:08:42.090]Obviously I have not learned anything
- [00:08:45.573]in my previous jobs that prepared me for this.
- [00:08:50.340]And I feel like I'm pretending, right?
- [00:08:52.920]That's at the heart of this.
- [00:08:54.540]I'm pretending to be somebody I'm actually not.
- [00:08:57.570]And that can drive you to a certain degree,
- [00:09:00.270]but that can also be a very hard
- [00:09:03.810]feeling to deal with.
- [00:09:04.860]So that's one space.
- [00:09:06.150]Every time you start something new,
- [00:09:07.350]every time you interview,
- [00:09:08.850]I think we talked a lot about interviews.
- [00:09:12.180]You suddenly go back and say, I thought I knew my stuff,
- [00:09:15.720]but now I'm not feeling that confident.
- [00:09:18.540]And so that's another one of these moments.
- [00:09:22.500]and definitely when you get a lot of rejections,
- [00:09:27.060]which is again, powerful, the course,
- [00:09:30.120]you are literally going
- [00:09:31.950]to get more rejections than acceptances.
- [00:09:33.900]It's just built into the system.
- [00:09:35.640]But there's a moment where you're like,
- [00:09:37.770]when it accumulates,
- [00:09:39.300]sometimes it can feel that way.
- [00:09:42.480]And those are moments,
- [00:09:44.700]and I have lots of these moments as somebody
- [00:09:47.550]who came from another country,
- [00:09:48.930]there's that layer on top
- [00:09:50.910]of this that is always there
- [00:09:53.612]and,
- [00:09:57.450]helps you negotiate this.
- [00:09:59.370]I mean, there are ways to negotiate this,
- [00:10:01.410]but there's always a certain amount of, for example,
- [00:10:04.410]when I talk about, to talk about American culture
- [00:10:08.040]and history, and we talked a lot about,
- [00:10:12.240]when we talked about DEI
- [00:10:13.920]and all of these things, we're talking about history,
- [00:10:16.080]that isn't my history.
- [00:10:17.940]So there's even a sense
- [00:10:19.980]of being an imposter when you talk about these things
- [00:10:22.950]because it's like, who is the us, right?
- [00:10:25.860]Did we do this?
- [00:10:27.300]We as a country definitely did.
- [00:10:29.160]I wasn't here, my family wasn't here.
- [00:10:31.200]So there's these moments where you feel like,
- [00:10:35.970]how much of this can I take on?
- [00:10:37.920]And that feels that there are moments there as well.
- [00:10:41.130]So lots of that.
- [00:10:43.012](Guy laughing)
- [00:10:43.860]Well, and I think that like thinking
- [00:10:45.930]through that DEI.
- [00:10:46.890]Yeah. Perspective, right?
- [00:10:48.000]I feel like that's something
- [00:10:48.833]that so many people wrestle with,
- [00:10:51.900]is this is a,
- [00:10:56.104]DEI work is really wrestling
- [00:10:58.719]with historical injustices.
- [00:11:01.980]And so what is our role in that if given
- [00:11:06.240]our contemporary moment?
- [00:11:07.590]Right?
- [00:11:08.423]Like I wasn't particularly
- [00:11:11.910]involved in those injustices. Yeah.
- [00:11:13.730]Yes.
- [00:11:14.563]Right. So I feel like a lot
- [00:11:16.860]of times there are those imposter
- [00:11:20.220]kind of feelings around that's important work,
- [00:11:24.810]but am I being an imposter?
- [00:11:26.687]'Cause I'm not responsible,
- [00:11:31.350]but responsible to adjusting
- [00:11:34.830]and rethinking systems in order
- [00:11:37.530]to ameliorate some of what's happened in the past.
- [00:11:39.930]Right. Yeah.
- [00:11:40.763]So there's that too.
- [00:11:41.596]There's tons of ways.
- [00:11:42.720]That you can feel like. To feel like an imposter.
- [00:11:45.750]Points to academia.
- [00:11:46.890]Yes.
- [00:11:47.723]Right, like even we had recently on our
- [00:11:52.140]Facebook page, I think it was, we were highlighting
- [00:11:57.930]student teachers because our student teachers
- [00:12:00.090]are finishing up.
- [00:12:01.676]Yeah. It's the last week
- [00:12:02.640]in November as we're recording this.
- [00:12:04.290]So our student teachers are wrapping up their semester long
- [00:12:08.220]student teaching experience.
- [00:12:09.660]And so they were highlighting strong student teachers.
- [00:12:13.200]And one of them called out my lit bloc class
- [00:12:16.560]as like their favorite class in the program.
- [00:12:19.740]And my first thought was,
- [00:12:25.170]oh, she must not have been able to think
- [00:12:26.580]of any other classes.
- [00:12:27.796](both laughing)
- [00:12:29.730]Instead of thinking I'm awesome.
- [00:12:32.490]This was a foundational experience for them.
- [00:12:35.580]Well, and the more I thought about it, like, so,
- [00:12:38.790]'cause I think Jillian Harpster was the one who was like,
- [00:12:40.560]oh, you gotta mention on Facebook.
- [00:12:42.210]And I was like, I don't have a Facebook,
- [00:12:44.880]I don't have a, I don't know what's going on.
- [00:12:48.720]And so then I was thinking about it on the way home,
- [00:12:50.430]on the bus, like, and I was like,
- [00:12:54.900]I'm invalidating my student's opinion.
- [00:12:57.270]Yes.
- [00:12:58.103]I need to not do that.
- [00:12:59.550]Yes.
- [00:13:00.810]I don't have to be comfortable with it.
- [00:13:04.710]'Cause there's some like.
- [00:13:05.932]Yeah.
- [00:13:06.840]Ooh, was it that great?
- [00:13:08.040]Like I keep thinking of all the things
- [00:13:08.873]that I could have done better, that could better.
- [00:13:10.687]Yes. That semester.
- [00:13:11.820]And I think that's just part of,
- [00:13:14.790]it's part of the teaching.
- [00:13:16.920]Yeah. Right.
- [00:13:18.000]You always have things that you can do better,
- [00:13:19.560]but you always have to keep them in perspective.
- [00:13:21.690]And sometimes that perspective isn't difficult
- [00:13:24.600]to support in your own brain,
- [00:13:27.330]but like
- [00:13:30.361]it was an objective measure
- [00:13:32.940]that I just needed to take at face value.
- [00:13:35.580]Yeah.
- [00:13:36.413]And value it for what it was.
- [00:13:38.228]Yes.
- [00:13:39.061]I had a student who was of the opinion
- [00:13:42.060]that my class was a highlight of her program
- [00:13:46.003]and I need to be okay with that.
- [00:13:47.814]And that connects to the fact that it is easier
- [00:13:51.990]for us for whatever reason.
- [00:13:53.640]We can go into brain research.
- [00:13:54.840]But the bottom line is it's much easier for us
- [00:13:57.240]to pay attention to the one negative comment
- [00:14:01.260]or negative experience
- [00:14:02.370]or the one thing we're like,
- [00:14:03.840]we could have done this better
- [00:14:05.550]versus paying attention to the overwhelming
- [00:14:09.960]positive feedback.
- [00:14:12.510]And I'm, now, I'm thinking about teaching and that is,
- [00:14:15.930]I, and almost everybody else I know when they teach will pay
- [00:14:20.070]attention to the one student who gave negative comments,
- [00:14:22.920]but not to the 25 students
- [00:14:24.810]who gave really positive comments.
- [00:14:26.400]Right.
- [00:14:27.233]It's like, how did I miss this?
- [00:14:28.680]And we have this heavy feeling
- [00:14:30.300]and am I really doing the work?
- [00:14:32.745]And this requires
- [00:14:35.640]that rethinking, it's like, why am I thinking this?
- [00:14:40.410]How can I think about this differently without invalidating?
- [00:14:43.620]Because a negative opinion is also something
- [00:14:45.510]you need to validate, right?
- [00:14:46.950]There's a student, I, for whatever reason did not,
- [00:14:49.860]was not able to reach,
- [00:14:51.630]and I need to think about this better,
- [00:14:53.250]but I cannot let this
- [00:14:55.260]become the only way I think about the class
- [00:14:57.180]I just finished teaching.
- [00:14:58.710]And the one thing I love
- [00:15:00.270]about class, about teaching is in the moment of teaching,
- [00:15:04.560]in that flow of teaching, those are the moments
- [00:15:09.270]where I feel the least like an imposter
- [00:15:11.790]because I'm like, oh, I do know some stuff,
- [00:15:15.660]there's some knowledge there.
- [00:15:16.890]I have deep knowledge in some areas that I can share
- [00:15:20.460]with willing students
- [00:15:22.140]and we can really bring them
- [00:15:26.640]to what they need to know.
- [00:15:28.200]So they are able to be,
- [00:15:29.487]and in our case it's really fantastic
- [00:15:31.920]because we're educating teachers,
- [00:15:34.230]whether they're pre-service teacher
- [00:15:35.520]or in-service teachers
- [00:15:36.510]to be able to do something better
- [00:15:39.150]with the kids they're working with
- [00:15:41.100]and make their lives both easier
- [00:15:43.260]and more complete and more
- [00:15:46.355]and by that transfer to children
- [00:15:50.370]and community, those moments I cherish,
- [00:15:52.740]it's when you get that distance
- [00:15:54.600]and suddenly you have a comment,
- [00:15:56.670]whether it's in student evaluations or a random comment
- [00:16:00.390]or that invitation, we have invitations
- [00:16:02.850]to the students who appreciate you.
- [00:16:04.800]And we get a parent award
- [00:16:06.270]and all of these moments,
- [00:16:08.040]those are moments to celebrate.
- [00:16:10.020]But there's more distance it allows us to rethink
- [00:16:12.900]and sometimes not positively.
- [00:16:15.180]Yeah.
- [00:16:16.013]Which is just fascinating.
- [00:16:17.520]Something I've noticed about.
- [00:16:19.530]Yeah.
- [00:16:20.363]My own thinking around being an imposter
- [00:16:25.080]and trying to negotiate that.
- [00:16:27.660]and I think my sense of how
- [00:16:34.920]I sometimes will construct myself
- [00:16:38.100]as an imposter has shifted and changed
- [00:16:41.250]across my career, right?
- [00:16:45.570]Like- Yeah.
- [00:16:47.262]If you're a grad student, of course
- [00:16:48.270]you're, one of the things that you're trying
- [00:16:50.970]to do is establish a professional identity.
- [00:16:53.820]And so part of it really
- [00:16:56.220]is kind of faking it until you make it.
- [00:17:00.450]Yeah.
- [00:17:01.283]Really. Yeah.
- [00:17:02.300]And figuring out like
- [00:17:04.320]what are the professional activities
- [00:17:05.970]that you're engaging in and what kind of scholar,
- [00:17:11.370]what kind of academic you want to be?
- [00:17:15.810]And I think that is when it comes down to what
- [00:17:19.560]kind of scholar do you want to be, what kind of teacher,
- [00:17:22.860]what kind of academic, that's really important.
- [00:17:27.150]That idea of, I hate to say this
- [00:17:28.950]'cause it feels so kind of gross at times,
- [00:17:33.300]but what's your brand?
- [00:17:34.920]You know.
- [00:17:35.753]Okay.
- [00:17:36.619]Like what is the brand
- [00:17:37.530]that you are trying to put forth in the world is really,
- [00:17:42.810]really important in thinking through
- [00:17:46.050]that imposter syndrome, right?
- [00:17:47.760]Because when you think through, this is what I am about,
- [00:17:51.780]this is what I want my career to be about then,
- [00:17:56.370]and we'll talk a little bit more about ways
- [00:17:58.020]to negotiate that later.
- [00:17:59.728]But that branding becomes
- [00:18:04.050]not only a tool you can use to figure out where
- [00:18:07.440]to place your energy, where to place your resources,
- [00:18:09.690]but it also gives you some sense of internalized,
- [00:18:16.281]a set of metrics against which you can,
- [00:18:20.340]when you're feeling like an imposter.
- [00:18:22.950]Okay, but are you being true to who you are?
- [00:18:25.260]And is that just a mismatch? Yeah.
- [00:18:26.670]Right, like are you an imposter
- [00:18:29.970]or are you just in a new space?
- [00:18:33.330]Right.
- [00:18:34.163]And I think also one of the things
- [00:18:37.950]that I don't, I wish we did better,
- [00:18:41.910]I wish we did this better for adult learners.
- [00:18:44.880]Hmm.
- [00:18:45.713]But giving people
- [00:18:50.790]space and permission to suck.
- [00:18:56.400]Yeah. At things for a while.
- [00:18:57.790]Yeah.
- [00:18:58.623]Yeah.
- [00:18:59.456]Right, because-
- [00:19:00.690]Because that's a necessary step.
- [00:19:02.130]It's a necessary step in learning how
- [00:19:05.610]to do anything.
- [00:19:08.670]Yes.
- [00:19:09.503]And as adults, we don't do that particularly well.
- [00:19:15.150]I don't feel like we expect- Perfection from the get go.
- [00:19:19.080]Perfection like right away. That's the go, yeah.
- [00:19:20.903]Like what would the scarf look like if you
- [00:19:23.070]started knitting right now?
- [00:19:24.900]Yes. Right.
- [00:19:26.040]So like part of people always ask me like,
- [00:19:30.000]can you teach me how to knit?
- [00:19:31.500]Yes.
- [00:19:33.150]But it's going to take a year.
- [00:19:35.070]Yes.
- [00:19:35.970]And it's gonna be painful for while.
- [00:19:36.803]You're gonna suck at it for a year.
- [00:19:38.790]You willing to do that?
- [00:19:40.440]And, there is a tool
- [00:19:42.930]that I found really useful in my work,
- [00:19:45.210]especially more recently,
- [00:19:46.500]and that is I find that art is a great way
- [00:19:49.110]to negotiate with that.
- [00:19:50.910]Knitting would be an art
- [00:19:53.820]because there's always, there are two aspects, that is,
- [00:19:57.090]there's the picture in your head
- [00:19:58.170]and then there's what happens in reality
- [00:19:59.850]when it's a physical exercise.
- [00:20:02.280]And I think the physicality
- [00:20:03.600]of it is actually a really good metaphor
- [00:20:05.850]because people get that immediately.
- [00:20:07.620]Whereas in our brain, we should be able
- [00:20:10.170]to teach a lesson perfectly the first time we teach
- [00:20:12.091]it the way we saw it in our head.
- [00:20:14.310]It never happens.
- [00:20:15.270]Never happens.
- [00:20:16.170]But you have that picture in your head.
- [00:20:18.990]And so, and in art, much like knitting,
- [00:20:22.320]it's exactly the same way.
- [00:20:23.310]I know exactly what I want to create
- [00:20:25.950]and then I'm working with a paper
- [00:20:27.270]mache or whatever it may be.
- [00:20:28.980]And it doesn't look even anything close to that.
- [00:20:31.827]And there's something glorious
- [00:20:32.777]about learning to accept that.
- [00:20:34.950]And that again, connects to our previous,
- [00:20:37.456]a previous episode about perfection, perfectionism,
- [00:20:43.680]because that helps you deal with that.
- [00:20:46.590]It's never going to look like what you want.
- [00:20:49.923]And that's an emotion you've got
- [00:20:51.990]to learn to deal with
- [00:20:53.927]in order to move forward.
- [00:20:56.670]And we've gotta give permission
- [00:20:58.770]so it doesn't feel like you're an imposter.
- [00:21:00.170]It just feels like you are trying things out.
- [00:21:03.240]You're engaged in a process.
- [00:21:05.010]And some of it is gonna suck.
- [00:21:06.720]And by the way, just so we're clear,
- [00:21:09.000]some of it is gonna suck forever.
- [00:21:10.770]That is, some things will, you'll probably never,
- [00:21:15.150]you'll try and you'll say, you know what,
- [00:21:17.160]knitting is not for me.
- [00:21:19.110]I'm not gonna invest enough time
- [00:21:21.060]and effort- That's yes.
- [00:21:22.800]To being excellent.
- [00:21:23.940]There are other areas where I wanna put my time.
- [00:21:26.700]And I think that you can get to that point only if you try
- [00:21:29.039]and you allow yourself to fail
- [00:21:30.690]and we allow each other to fail.
- [00:21:32.610]Mm hmm.
- [00:21:33.443]Yeah.
- [00:21:34.320]No, and I think you hit on that notion
- [00:21:36.690]of you can be good at a variety
- [00:21:40.650]of different things, right?
- [00:21:41.490]We hear a lot about growth mindset and grit,
- [00:21:44.790]which can both get used in really unproductive ways.
- [00:21:48.150]But really it's about thinking through that.
- [00:21:52.740]If you devote time
- [00:21:53.970]and energy into something,
- [00:21:56.580]you can get better at it.
- [00:21:58.230]Yes.
- [00:22:00.253]You might not know it now,
- [00:22:02.550]but you at some point will.
- [00:22:05.160]Right, I keep thinking about situated learning communities
- [00:22:09.030]and how you go from marginal participation
- [00:22:13.800]into the center of that.
- [00:22:15.720]And of course you're gonna feel like an imposter
- [00:22:17.310]you're moving into and towards that center.
- [00:22:21.570]But if it's a really well constructed learning community,
- [00:22:26.070]like that those things are gonna be mitigated.
- [00:22:29.130]Right.
- [00:22:30.120]And I think the key word that you use there
- [00:22:32.068]and I think is the most important solution
- [00:22:35.190]on the way both systemically,
- [00:22:36.930]because we talk often about the fact
- [00:22:39.390]that systemically there are certain things that are systemic
- [00:22:42.030]and we need to take care of them systemically.
- [00:22:43.740]And not just individually,
- [00:22:45.540]but also as individuals,
- [00:22:47.250]especially at the beginning of our careers.
- [00:22:48.720]We can't affect the system.
- [00:22:50.280]It's not our role to affect the system.
- [00:22:52.140]Our role is different.
- [00:22:53.670]Our role is to survive and make a place for ourselves.
- [00:22:56.730]And in that it's about finding your community.
- [00:22:59.760]And I think that community,
- [00:23:00.960]that right community is critical.
- [00:23:03.420]I mean, we have a writing group we haven't met in a while
- [00:23:06.030]and I'm aware, but we have a writing group.
- [00:23:08.370]Whoa.
- [00:23:09.203]The judgment that you-
- [00:23:10.860]That was not judgment, that was self-judgment.
- [00:23:12.900]Why are you, I'm not judging you.
- [00:23:14.070]Why are you judging you?
- [00:23:14.903]I'm not. Let's have a check in here.
- [00:23:16.440]Why are you feeling judged?
- [00:23:17.273](Guy laughing)
- [00:23:18.450]Because I have not been a good
- [00:23:19.920]colleague with that community.
- [00:23:21.540]You have been a fine colleague,
- [00:23:23.100]who is telling you that you're not a good one.
- [00:23:24.330]'Cause it's not me.
- [00:23:25.260]I understand.
- [00:23:26.093]It's me.
- [00:23:26.926]Stop.
- [00:23:27.759]Okay.
- [00:23:28.592]Gimme your hand.
- [00:23:29.520]Stop. (Guy laughing)
- [00:23:31.770]Okay, continue.
- [00:23:32.603]All right. Now that I've.
- [00:23:33.436]So now that we've had an intervention, but.
- [00:23:36.350]Was that intervention?
- [00:23:37.672](Guy laughing)
- [00:23:38.505]It felt like an intervention?
- [00:23:39.539]I think that was just me yelling.
- [00:23:40.548](Guy laughing)
- [00:23:41.850]Anyway, but finding the community
- [00:23:45.090]where the people around you,
- [00:23:46.050]especially when you're down, are telling you are,
- [00:23:48.565]are helping you reframe that reality.
- [00:23:51.510]Because sometimes,
- [00:23:52.343]I mean, the solution is always to reframe
- [00:23:54.630]and say, have I failed?
- [00:23:57.930]Or as you just gave an example, right.
- [00:24:00.690]Or eh, how do I feel about it and validating
- [00:24:03.833]it and moving forward, right?
- [00:24:06.630]But sometimes you need somebody else to help you reframe
- [00:24:08.910]that is a mentor or,
- [00:24:10.170]and I think communities
- [00:24:11.340]are most helpful where they can say to you know, a check,
- [00:24:15.780]I can think about a good colleague
- [00:24:17.760]who once in a while would have this,
- [00:24:19.830]what am I doing here?
- [00:24:21.390]I don't belong here.
- [00:24:23.670]Everybody is better than me.
- [00:24:24.919]I'm just faking it.
- [00:24:26.430]I'm not making it, kind of moment.
- [00:24:28.240]And I, you would,
- [00:24:29.986]and the moment is, you know, you have a PhD
- [00:24:33.870]that's very few people in the world.
- [00:24:35.670]You've got the position at a good university.
- [00:24:40.620]That doesn't happen very often.
- [00:24:42.480]Tenure line position, that doesn't happen.
- [00:24:44.700]That's even rare.
- [00:24:45.799]You are part of a select group and you deserve to be here.
- [00:24:48.974]And you need that reframing
- [00:24:51.840]from your community.
- [00:24:53.040]And you need a mentor that will help you walk a mentor
- [00:24:56.700]or mentors who will help you walk
- [00:24:58.920]from the side of that community into the center, slowly.
- [00:25:02.760]You don't have to be there.
- [00:25:03.870]You don't have to be at the center.
- [00:25:05.070]It's actually not useful to be in the center immediately.
- [00:25:08.430]Yeah, no.
- [00:25:09.263]Well, and I think too, it's the point where,
- [00:25:12.630]there does come a point where you stop faking it.
- [00:25:14.640]Yeah. And you're just-
- [00:25:15.481]Part of it. Part of it,
- [00:25:16.950]and you're doing it.
- [00:25:18.120]and the trick is
- [00:25:21.300]recognizing when that happens
- [00:25:23.550]and understanding that it's going,
- [00:25:27.990]you're going to encounter
- [00:25:30.570]this imposter phenomenon at a
- [00:25:32.610]variety of different junctures.
- [00:25:34.200]Right?
- [00:25:35.033]So if we're thinking about, oh my gosh,
- [00:25:37.710]my university's adopting
- [00:25:39.510]a new LMS, a learning management system,
- [00:25:42.180]you're gonna start
- [00:25:43.013]feeling like an imposter again.
- [00:25:44.070]Like when you're pulling in new technology.
- [00:25:45.393]I can't make this work.
- [00:25:46.560]Right, like why can't I do this?
- [00:25:48.570]Right?
- [00:25:49.650]If you switch jobs,
- [00:25:51.240]like there's going to be,
- [00:25:54.570]having been at three different institutions,
- [00:25:56.280]like there's some commonalities between all of them,
- [00:25:59.400]but specific systems,
- [00:26:01.830]I still feel like an imposter in certain systems
- [00:26:04.740]as I push to understand them.
- [00:26:06.269]Yeah.
- [00:26:07.102]Right.
- [00:26:08.790]And so it doesn't go away.
- [00:26:11.580]It's not like you wrestle with it
- [00:26:15.900]and then it's over and then it's done.
- [00:26:17.610]Yeah.
- [00:26:18.443]It's ongoing.
- [00:26:19.276]And really I think for me it's about
- [00:26:23.550]just getting a sense of
- [00:26:28.560]who am I,
- [00:26:30.750]what do I want my work to be about?
- [00:26:32.430]How does it connect back
- [00:26:33.690]to my institution, et cetera, et cetera.
- [00:26:35.940]So that's like one way that I've worked to develop
- [00:26:39.340]for myself some ways to navigate those
- [00:26:42.750]kind of cognitive distortions, right?
- [00:26:45.270]Like someone posts something on Facebook
- [00:26:48.990]that's nice about my class, how do I not go
- [00:26:50.610]to a stupid space?
- [00:26:52.050]Right?
- [00:26:52.883]Yeah.
- [00:26:53.716]What are some ways that you find yourself
- [00:26:56.880]setting up systems in your own head
- [00:26:59.100]to negotiate that talk?
- [00:27:00.900]What are some things you do?
- [00:27:03.540]The external things and internal things.
- [00:27:05.850]And so in external things I make sure I have a community
- [00:27:11.370]around me of people I talk to on a regular basis.
- [00:27:15.330]And inside that community I feel supported
- [00:27:20.550]and I can bring that up and somebody can call me
- [00:27:23.310]on it and saying, why are you going down that road?
- [00:27:25.890]Don't go down that road.
- [00:27:27.570]Right. (Nick laughing)
- [00:27:28.403]That is incredibly helpful.
- [00:27:29.940]And I have that professionally but also socially.
- [00:27:34.290]So I have people in my life that are not part
- [00:27:38.460]of my academic world that helped me check in.
- [00:27:41.010]And that is important.
- [00:27:43.020]And the third thing is that I do often
- [00:27:47.520]very purposefully reframe.
- [00:27:51.510]So when I get a rejection
- [00:27:53.610]or when I have an interview that wasn't successful,
- [00:27:56.400]or when I have another experience that triggers that,
- [00:28:00.510]I then sit and work through not just my emotions.
- [00:28:03.660]So I let the emotional wave kind of crest and rest
- [00:28:07.470]because the emotional, at that emotional moment,
- [00:28:09.990]there's not much I can do.
- [00:28:11.310]I just need to feel the feels.
- [00:28:13.440]And after that I do,
- [00:28:17.160]I kind of analyze what did I do?
- [00:28:19.170]What do I want to do?
- [00:28:20.190]Is it even worth paying attention to?
- [00:28:22.770]Or is it something that I need to say
- [00:28:25.080]that it was a stupid feeling.
- [00:28:27.300]We all get rejections.
- [00:28:28.800]I got another rejection and it'll be just fine.
- [00:28:32.370]And so that is a huge piece of my practice
- [00:28:42.420]after any interaction.
- [00:28:44.190]And the advantage and disadvantage
- [00:28:45.990]of academic life is there's lots of opportunities.
- [00:28:49.140]Every conference we apply to,
- [00:28:50.760]every paper we send out, every book proposal
- [00:28:56.460]or you know, class we teach,
- [00:28:59.430]there's always the potential for negative feedback.
- [00:29:02.040]And there's always something
- [00:29:04.530]to be not super happy about.
- [00:29:07.290]And so that ability to start having the practice
- [00:29:11.040]of letting the emotions run through
- [00:29:14.010]and then do an analysis
- [00:29:15.390]of what is the appropriate response
- [00:29:16.920]and what is reframing that within,
- [00:29:21.480]you know, who I am, right?
- [00:29:23.970]Going back to those who do I want to be?
- [00:29:26.310]Is this, how does this play into that?
- [00:29:29.610]And move from there, is incredibly useful.
- [00:29:33.120]And also finding the positive
- [00:29:35.340]and having the good feels about the positive.
- [00:29:38.250]So for example, today I had a positive,
- [00:29:41.010]it's a stupid positive, but it's a positive.
- [00:29:43.045]Well, again with a judgment buddy.
- [00:29:45.150]No, no, no.
- [00:29:45.983]Because it's a little judgy.
- [00:29:47.460]But I have a good colleague from a different university
- [00:29:50.460]who is considerably more famous than I am,
- [00:29:53.040]as in kind of world famous kind of thing.
- [00:29:56.580]And he was interviewed on a podcast,
- [00:30:00.180]I was interviewed on a podcast four episodes beforehand.
- [00:30:03.510]So winning.
- [00:30:05.081](both laughing)
- [00:30:08.580]I told you it's stupid, but we gotta celebrate the stupid.
- [00:30:11.370]That's not whoa, whoa, whoa.
- [00:30:13.800]I did not make a value judgments on that at all.
- [00:30:18.757]So I'm gonna- It's a little petty.
- [00:30:20.132]It's a little petty.
- [00:30:20.965]It's not petty, that's not petty.
- [00:30:22.470]But I'm good with that.
- [00:30:24.780]Like, we gotta celebrate the wins.
- [00:30:26.280]A win is a win.
- [00:30:27.150]Yeah, exactly.
- [00:30:27.983]You know, and like, I think for myself,
- [00:30:31.500]going back to your notion of like building that community.
- [00:30:34.740]Yeah.
- [00:30:36.689]That's important.
- [00:30:39.450]and thinking through
- [00:30:40.920]how you leverage that community.
- [00:30:42.630]'Cause I'm not a good vibes only guy.
- [00:30:46.500]Have you noticed?
- [00:30:47.460]Yeah, I have.
- [00:30:48.327](both laughing)
- [00:30:50.088]But I.
- [00:30:53.340]Even Dan is laughing.
- [00:30:54.450]Even Dan is laughing. (Guy laughing)
- [00:30:58.440]But I'm constantly leveraging
- [00:31:02.880]all that angst. Yeah.
- [00:31:04.230]In order to engage in work that changes the things
- [00:31:07.500]that I am mixed about. Yeah.
- [00:31:08.520]Is how I like to reframe that.
- [00:31:10.230]But, as I'm thinking about imposter syndrome
- [00:31:14.872]and the rejection that sometimes triggers that.
- [00:31:19.860]One of the things that I have found really helpful is
- [00:31:22.860]that I have folks where I can just make a statement,
- [00:31:27.360]this rejection happened,
- [00:31:28.950]I'm salty for the next 72 hours.
- [00:31:30.882]Yeah.
- [00:31:31.715]And you've gotta give yourself the permission.
- [00:31:32.820]And like, and there's something about externalizing that
- [00:31:39.960]and making it, not, making that rejection not
- [00:31:43.650]reside just in me.
- [00:31:45.420]And I don't necessarily need a response.
- [00:31:47.280]Like, I don't need a response
- [00:31:49.038]to this rejection happened.
- [00:31:51.900]I'm salty for 72 hours.
- [00:31:53.040]I don't need a, oh I'm so sorry.
- [00:31:54.683]I don't need a- Yeah.
- [00:31:55.530]I just need a- Yeah.
- [00:31:56.880]Someone else knows.
- [00:31:58.200]Yes.
- [00:31:59.220]And like, that's just part of the process.
- [00:32:05.730]And I'm going to be salty for 72 hours.
- [00:32:07.830]Larry Nikoleski, one of my professors
- [00:32:10.290]at Indiana was always like,
- [00:32:11.700]you can be upset about a rejection,
- [00:32:14.267]but you give yourself 72 hours
- [00:32:16.080]and then you have figure out what's next.
- [00:32:18.076]Yeah.
- [00:32:18.909]Like what happens next?
- [00:32:19.742]So for that one, I'm an hour 46.
- [00:32:22.844](Guy laughing)
- [00:32:23.677]Yes.
- [00:32:24.510]I think, yeah.
- [00:32:25.343]So I still got some time.
- [00:32:26.700]I still got, you know.
- [00:32:28.290]One of the advantage for me
- [00:32:29.580]for with mentoring is you see
- [00:32:33.180]a younger professionals, younger in,
- [00:32:36.060]not necessarily in age,
- [00:32:37.200]but in experience
- [00:32:38.501]and you see how they're going
- [00:32:40.200]through it and it helps me see
- [00:32:41.970]and I am helping them refrain and that helps me too.
- [00:32:45.720]Right?
- [00:32:46.654]And I was like, oh yeah, we did get that rejection.
- [00:32:48.660]It's fine.
- [00:32:49.493]It was revised and resubmit.
- [00:32:50.580]This is what we do.
- [00:32:51.540]But you can feel the feels, I mean, again,
- [00:32:53.340]giving the permission for them to feel the feels.
- [00:32:56.250]Let's talk next week and think about next step.
- [00:32:58.980]'Cause right now just sit with it for a little while
- [00:33:01.620]because there's nothing,
- [00:33:02.850]there's nothing you can do about it.
- [00:33:04.716]Yeah.
- [00:33:05.549]And so it's not like there's an
- [00:33:07.140]appeal process for this, right?
- [00:33:08.520]Like.
- [00:33:09.353]No, there isn't there.
- [00:33:10.186]There's mentally an appeal process.
- [00:33:11.910]Like. Yes.
- [00:33:12.743]Can I reframe this?
- [00:33:13.576]Can I rethink what is, what is the,
- [00:33:17.280]so as we're thinking about ways to combat
- [00:33:21.000]this imposter syndrome, you know, one of the things
- [00:33:22.403]that we can do is really think through
- [00:33:26.970]what are the objective
- [00:33:29.250]and measurable evidences that I was competent.
- [00:33:32.730]Like if you get a revise
- [00:33:34.440]and resubmit submit,
- [00:33:36.090]that's an investment on behalf of that editorial board.
- [00:33:39.822]In your writing. In your work.
- [00:33:40.655]In your ideas,
- [00:33:42.570]what are they asking you to do in order to elevate
- [00:33:46.140]your writing, your ideas,
- [00:33:48.000]the work that you're doing.
- [00:33:49.317]Yeah.
- [00:33:50.150]And even if it's a rejection,
- [00:33:53.130]people still have spent time reading that.
- [00:33:55.770]And as long as you have in full faith
- [00:33:58.830]submitted something within the scope of that journal
- [00:34:03.150]and not just, you know, you chopped out a pc,
- [00:34:06.600]a chapter from your dissertation, which we've-
- [00:34:08.550]That has happened compensation before.
- [00:34:10.170]Right, as long as you've made a full faith effort,
- [00:34:12.630]chances are you're going to get some actionable advice
- [00:34:16.770]for how to turn that around.
- [00:34:17.976]Yeah.
- [00:34:18.809]Simply because, I mean it's journal
- [00:34:21.240]publishing is kinda like
- [00:34:22.073]dating, sometimes they just don't work.
- [00:34:24.540]Sometimes it's just not a match.
- [00:34:26.460]But you always get feedback around, oh,
- [00:34:31.320]this person didn't work.
- [00:34:33.150]I'm actually looking for this.
- [00:34:34.320]Like, the same thing happens there.
- [00:34:36.270]So what are some of
- [00:34:38.963]the objective and measurable pieces
- [00:34:42.120]of evidence that you can leverage
- [00:34:44.700]in order to think about what you're actually accomplishing
- [00:34:48.720]in terms of what you want your career to be about.
- [00:34:51.618]And I wanna pick that up a little bit
- [00:34:56.520]and say, we talked a lot about publishing
- [00:34:58.740]because it's the thing that comes to mind
- [00:35:00.420]where we get a lot of rejection.
- [00:35:02.430]But publishing is not the only,
- [00:35:03.954]it's not even the major part of our job.
- [00:35:06.690]Neither of us. Yeah. No.
- [00:35:07.923]It's a small important
- [00:35:09.540]but less than 50% of our job right now.
- [00:35:13.590]So the same thing goes for teaching
- [00:35:16.505]or for anything else you do.
- [00:35:18.900]And I once had one of my early mentors,
- [00:35:22.680]informal mentor,
- [00:35:23.640]not a formal mentor, but a peer at you know,
- [00:35:27.120]once talked about is we created the reading center
- [00:35:30.210]that still exists, not involved anymore.
- [00:35:35.280]He said, one of the things he said is, you know,
- [00:35:38.460]you've gotta think about it this way
- [00:35:40.320]because the reading center is a center
- [00:35:42.300]where we're teaching our students
- [00:35:43.680]how to work with students
- [00:35:44.790]who are struggling in reading and writing.
- [00:35:46.740]And that's important work to teach our students
- [00:35:48.870]and to help by proxy
- [00:35:51.780]to help the community and to support kids.
- [00:35:54.150]And he said something really interesting
- [00:35:56.970]because we weren't generating a lot of,
- [00:35:59.430]necessarily a lot of research out of that reading center.
- [00:36:03.510]We were focused on the doing.
- [00:36:05.851]And that was really important to us.
- [00:36:08.104]But there was some pressure
- [00:36:09.960]to produce some research based on that
- [00:36:11.940]and be a little bit resisted.
- [00:36:14.280]And he helped me resist that by saying, you know,
- [00:36:17.490]there are lots of ways to produce impact
- [00:36:19.680]and a journal article can help move research forward.
- [00:36:23.640]But when you're really honest with yourself,
- [00:36:25.320]sometimes it's like not every research
- [00:36:27.810]article changes the world.
- [00:36:29.130]Most of them don't, most of them get very few readers.
- [00:36:31.950]Right.
- [00:36:32.783]But when you are working there with a future teacher
- [00:36:35.130]who will teach for 20 years
- [00:36:37.500]and will know that much better,
- [00:36:39.660]how to help struggling readers
- [00:36:42.090]or when that child is being helped
- [00:36:44.400]and is on the right track with reading
- [00:36:46.740]and writing, that is real impact on the world.
- [00:36:49.860]And so the only, so what I'm saying
- [00:36:52.450]is don't narrow focus on research.
- [00:36:57.060]Even if you have research as part of your point.
- [00:36:59.190]And to remember we have lots of ways
- [00:37:01.290]to make impact on the world.
- [00:37:03.060]And some of it is very visceral and very, very real.
- [00:37:06.180]Especially when we work with pre-service
- [00:37:07.740]and in-service teachers.
- [00:37:09.000]We really make a difference
- [00:37:10.800]and we have to focus on that as well and elevate it
- [00:37:13.901]and focus on the things we are successful even there
- [00:37:17.280]because we can feel like imposters there as well.
- [00:37:20.070]Well in particularly, as I'm thinking about,
- [00:37:22.920]so I was in the reading clinic two weeks ago, subbing.
- [00:37:25.620]Excellent. For a tutor.
- [00:37:27.450]And one of the things that I continue to struggle
- [00:37:31.410]with as I've moved out of running my own reading clinic
- [00:37:37.110]and not having opportunities to interface
- [00:37:38.910]with elementary children very often is like,
- [00:37:43.380]can I do what I'm teaching my students to do?
- [00:37:47.640]Right? (Guy laughing)
- [00:37:49.650]Yes.
- [00:37:50.544]And so,
- [00:37:52.980]it was a really interesting experience to tutor.
- [00:37:57.900]Yeah.
- [00:37:58.733]A student who I had no connection with.
- [00:38:00.990]That's hard.
- [00:38:01.857]And did not, it actually really wasn't.
- [00:38:04.200]Oh, okay.
- [00:38:05.033]Like it really wasn't.
- [00:38:06.330]And the interesting piece was
- [00:38:11.190]I was surrounded by students I had taught.
- [00:38:13.140]Students were who were in my lit block.
- [00:38:15.330]Yeah.
- [00:38:16.163]And so there was this sense of oh, so can, so yep.
- [00:38:21.150]Rubber's gonna hit the road right now.
- [00:38:22.650]Yeah.
- [00:38:23.520]And you know, it was fine.
- [00:38:25.830]It was great.
- [00:38:26.663]Like afterward, my former student who was sitting next
- [00:38:31.020]to me was like, you got through everything.
- [00:38:33.570]I never get through everything.
- [00:38:34.403]And I was like, yeah.
- [00:38:35.236]'Cause we gotta move.
- [00:38:36.540]Yes.
- [00:38:37.373]There's certain things I need this.
- [00:38:38.206]We gotta move and I always,
- [00:38:40.530]because I want to make sure they don't have imposter
- [00:38:42.930]syndrome as a result of seeing a seasoned professional
- [00:38:45.570]is to say, just remember I've been
- [00:38:47.700]in this profession when I
- [00:38:49.140]talk about publication, for example, say to people,
- [00:38:51.453]I've been in this world for 24 years,
- [00:38:53.850]I've been writing for publications.
- [00:38:55.500]You are in your first run at this.
- [00:38:57.780]You can't expect to be here.
- [00:38:59.580]This is one thing that my mentors
- [00:39:01.170]did not talk to me about,
- [00:39:02.460]which I now look back.
- [00:39:05.670]And it's like, that would've been helpful
- [00:39:07.860]because I used to look at, I worked with Bob Calfie
- [00:39:10.830]and he would just write, he would sit
- [00:39:13.102]and he would just write and it looked like magic.
- [00:39:15.900]And I realized, and it wasn't magic.
- [00:39:18.540]No. Don't get me wrong.
- [00:39:19.380]It was not magic.
- [00:39:20.400]It was just experience.
- [00:39:21.780]He had 40 something years
- [00:39:23.100]of experience writing for publication.
- [00:39:25.230]It gets easier.
- [00:39:26.400]I will tell you it does get easier.
- [00:39:28.200]So once in a while you have to say, yes, I can do this
- [00:39:31.890]and you will be able to,
- [00:39:33.600]but remember I have a lot more experience.
- [00:39:35.760]I've worked with thousands of students before you
- [00:39:38.790]or I've written, you know, hundreds
- [00:39:41.160]of things for publication.
- [00:39:44.160]Not all of which have ever seen the light of day.
- [00:39:46.860]And that's fine.
- [00:39:47.880]But I've learned some things along the way
- [00:39:49.440]and I'm happy to teach you.
- [00:39:51.500]And here are some opportunities to interact.
- [00:39:54.000]But we do need, when we model, we also need
- [00:39:57.390]to remind people that we've been doing this
- [00:39:59.460]a lot longer than they have.
- [00:40:00.810]Well, and the most heartening thing to come out
- [00:40:02.580]of that was that this particular student
- [00:40:05.190]that I was teaching next to.
- [00:40:06.023]Yeah.
- [00:40:06.856]Was like, I saw things that you were,
- [00:40:08.730]you had taught us.
- [00:40:09.563]Like I forgot about that.
- [00:40:10.800]Yeah.
- [00:40:11.633]And you did that and now I'm gonna do that next time.
- [00:40:13.800]Because it moved, it was, it enabled you
- [00:40:17.340]to get your pace moving.
- [00:40:18.630]Right.
- [00:40:19.463]So like, and I'm trying to figure out why that piece
- [00:40:22.230]of feedback was more fortifying than the Facebook
- [00:40:25.320]shoutout in my head.
- [00:40:26.850]And I don't have an answer there yet.
- [00:40:27.960]But it's interesting.
- [00:40:28.860]It's more concrete
- [00:40:29.730]and very specific to actual performance.
- [00:40:32.520]I would argue.
- [00:40:33.353]I mean pause.
- [00:40:34.203]It's really.
- [00:40:35.036]Absolutely. Instead of.
- [00:40:37.140]Yeah.
- [00:40:38.044]I don't know, I'm gonna think that through.
- [00:40:39.302]'Cause like. Okay.
- [00:40:40.135]'Cause the other thing that I think we can do
- [00:40:44.700]to kind of help when we're experiencing this
- [00:40:47.760]imposter syndrome is to engage in that self-reflection.
- [00:40:50.220]Like where are you experiencing those tensions and why?
- [00:40:54.240]And oftentimes that comes back to,
- [00:40:58.830]what are your core values
- [00:41:01.170]in terms of the work that you do.
- [00:41:02.700]And sometimes for me it's why do you care?
- [00:41:05.700]So there are certain things I care about feedback from my
- [00:41:07.860]students, but when somebody
- [00:41:09.900]that is fairly random is making a, or I'm interacting
- [00:41:14.190]and I feel like an imposter at the meeting,
- [00:41:16.170]like university-wide or whatever,
- [00:41:18.600]and I go, do I really care if I'm an imposter here?
- [00:41:22.590]It's not one of my main goals.
- [00:41:24.060]I'm doing some service I'm helping around,
- [00:41:25.980]but it's not very important.
- [00:41:28.140]So that going back, not just to values,
- [00:41:30.450]but to your own goals
- [00:41:31.530]and how you see yourself professionally.
- [00:41:33.660]There are some places where I don't feel like I have a lot
- [00:41:36.960]to contribute and I sit back and I contribute when I can
- [00:41:41.070]and then I move on
- [00:41:41.970]and I try to disassociate with, with that as part
- [00:41:47.850]of my core identity.
- [00:41:49.290]And because that feeling is always there right.
- [00:41:53.790]In that new session
- [00:41:55.110]or in a place where you don't know a lot.
- [00:41:57.780]But part of that check is do I care,
- [00:42:02.017]when I really think about it?
- [00:42:03.307]Well, and also not only do you care,
- [00:42:05.700]but are you giving particular things weight?
- [00:42:09.120]Right? Yeah, yeah,
- [00:42:09.988]Like if we're thinking about end
- [00:42:11.190]of semester student evals,
- [00:42:15.300]if we think about what we're told those measure versus
- [00:42:18.900]what they actually measure,
- [00:42:19.920]it's kind of two different things.
- [00:42:21.073]Yeah.
- [00:42:21.906]Because one is students' perceptions
- [00:42:23.430]of their learning in your class,
- [00:42:27.690]which is a, I mean I.
- [00:42:31.500]Okay.
- [00:42:32.333]I have a different perspective on the.
- [00:42:34.350]What's your perspective?
- [00:42:35.183]Tell me more.
- [00:42:36.016]My perspective on student evaluation is
- [00:42:38.196]it's determined about 85%.
- [00:42:41.970]But how much they like you,
- [00:42:43.440]which is not a relevant measure necessarily,
- [00:42:46.140]they are not really evaluating how much they've learned.
- [00:42:50.550]Right.
- [00:42:51.383]It's not even their perception of
- [00:42:52.410]how much learning happened, it's their perception
- [00:42:54.720]of how much of a connection they created with you.
- [00:42:56.910]I'm not saying that connection is not important,
- [00:42:59.010]it's an entry point to learning,
- [00:43:00.780]but it's not the whole thing.
- [00:43:02.670]So I can, and I have seen very effective instructors
- [00:43:05.940]who were not very well liked.
- [00:43:07.620]And I have seen people that were very well liked
- [00:43:10.350]and got very high evaluations,
- [00:43:14.550]but really did not provide a lot of content
- [00:43:17.370]and a lot of things
- [00:43:18.960]that students could use in their whatever they
- [00:43:21.060]were doing next.
- [00:43:21.960]Well and so. And so and so that,
- [00:43:25.620]we can do a whole thing about evaluation.
- [00:43:26.707]Well, and I think you've hit on I think
- [00:43:28.590]we're thinking of it the same way
- [00:43:30.330]because I feel like in our student evals,
- [00:43:32.310]learning gets confused with did they like me or not?
- [00:43:36.390]Yes, absolutely.
- [00:43:37.584]And so when I'm thinking about my teaching
- [00:43:41.070]and I'm thinking about again, objective assessments,
- [00:43:45.600]I'm careful to remember the limitations to that.
- [00:43:50.070]Yeah. Right.
- [00:43:50.903]And even in terms of the relationships
- [00:43:53.340]that I build in my classroom,
- [00:43:55.650]my evals don't really get at that.
- [00:43:58.290]In fact, I'm doing a separate eval this year just
- [00:44:01.170]to get at more,
- [00:44:04.830]more actual actionable data.
- [00:44:07.740]Yeah.
- [00:44:08.573]For me to improve my teaching on,
- [00:44:12.420]so not giving that as much weight.
- [00:44:14.899]Too much weight.
- [00:44:15.732]Because I know, I know some of my colleagues
- [00:44:17.820]and my grad students who- Can assist.
- [00:44:19.860]Get devastated.
- [00:44:21.660]Yeah.
- [00:44:22.493]And it's like, here's the boundaries
- [00:44:24.150]for what this is telling you.
- [00:44:26.580]Yeah.
- [00:44:27.413]Here's what you can take from it.
- [00:44:28.530]But the rest of it's not measuring
- [00:44:30.960]what you think it's measuring.
- [00:44:32.130]Yeah.
- [00:44:32.963]And there are ways to disassemble
- [00:44:34.710]and we can do a whole, a whole session about that.
- [00:44:36.990]That might be an idea.
- [00:44:38.580]How to make sense of your student evals.
- [00:44:39.720]Yeah.
- [00:44:42.284]How to not make sense.
- [00:44:43.290]I don't know if it's worth the whole, I don't know.
- [00:44:45.360]I've gone back and forth with that.
- [00:44:47.760]There's some research about that.
- [00:44:49.320]But. I mean.
- [00:44:50.670]Suspect of all of this.
- [00:44:52.650]I haven't found any research
- [00:44:53.850]of them that are like,
- [00:44:54.690]these are a great tool, they help us out.
- [00:44:58.380]Yeah.
- [00:44:59.213]Which is interesting that we are
- [00:45:00.150]so institutionally invested in them.
- [00:45:03.390]Well, less so actually our institution has gotten
- [00:45:06.090]further and further away, but.
- [00:45:08.070]I mean, kind of. Kind of.
- [00:45:10.350]Not really.
- [00:45:11.490]Like.
- [00:45:12.840]Alright, that'll be for another time.
- [00:45:15.090]Another time, another time.
- [00:45:16.830]But like this does, so one of the other things
- [00:45:19.560]that imposter syndrome can be mitigated by
- [00:45:23.340]is DEI efforts.
- [00:45:26.070]Yes.
- [00:45:27.180]Because one of the things Very important.
- [00:45:29.280]Around very DEI efforts are
- [00:45:31.320]they're meant to make expectations
- [00:45:34.980]of jobs, expectations of learning
- [00:45:38.550]and access to being able to do that work
- [00:45:41.190]or that learning clear and explicit.
- [00:45:44.220]Yeah.
- [00:45:45.053]Right?
- [00:45:45.886]So,
- [00:45:48.120]really thinking about
- [00:45:51.210]when we're talking about
- [00:45:53.820]mentoring grad students, what are we talking about?
- [00:45:56.430]Are all of our grad students getting
- [00:45:58.320]this bare minimum level of care.
- [00:46:04.020]Yeah.
- [00:46:04.853]Of mattering.
- [00:46:05.790]And I think one of the discourses
- [00:46:10.170]that often gets picked up around
- [00:46:11.820]that is, oh, we need to trust our colleagues,
- [00:46:14.850]trust my colleagues to do what, I don't know
- [00:46:16.863]what I'm trusting my colleagues to do.
- [00:46:18.840]Yeah.
- [00:46:19.673]Clarity. You know.
- [00:46:20.550]Helps.
- [00:46:21.383]So it's not that I don't trust my colleagues,
- [00:46:23.070]but I don't know what to trust them with.
- [00:46:26.190]And so hat's one of those things where
- [00:46:33.600]the lack of clarity, the lack of systemic support
- [00:46:39.030]for that can create some imposter syndrome.
- [00:46:43.333]Mm hmm.
- [00:46:44.166]And DEI efforts to systematize
- [00:46:48.540]and ensure that every student gets this
- [00:46:52.530]bare minimum amount of care.
- [00:46:54.761]Yes.
- [00:46:55.594]And being clear about what that minimum amount
- [00:46:56.910]of care is helps with that.
- [00:47:00.300]And that again, going back to DEI, that people
- [00:47:05.340]of color especially need a different
- [00:47:08.220]kind of mentoring sometimes or additional.
- [00:47:10.710]So it's not a system where it's one size fits all
- [00:47:15.360]because systemically these have been less clear.
- [00:47:21.000]Mm hmm.
- [00:47:21.833]Right?
- [00:47:22.666]So you need overall clarity,
- [00:47:24.000]but then you need systems of support
- [00:47:26.310]that makes sure that the clarity is carried through.
- [00:47:31.290]That there is a sense that the institution
- [00:47:36.210]and the systems are actually serious about
- [00:47:38.880]that clarity because there's always that sense
- [00:47:41.670]that there are unwritten rules
- [00:47:43.650]that we have written rules
- [00:47:45.660]and there's supposedly clarity,
- [00:47:47.490]but there's a story behind the story
- [00:47:49.470]that is not being shared.
- [00:47:51.450]And so, and that's true of anybody.
- [00:47:53.490]It's definitely true of students of color.
- [00:47:56.550]It's definitely true of international students
- [00:48:00.180]where culture is different.
- [00:48:02.400]So you need that clarity just to make sure
- [00:48:05.850]that there's a sense about what are the expectations
- [00:48:09.240]and then what does it mean to meet them?
- [00:48:11.820]What are the systems that are there
- [00:48:13.020]to support you in meeting them
- [00:48:14.940]and help you evaluate whether you're making progress.
- [00:48:18.180]Right.
- [00:48:19.013]And one of the things that's important about
- [00:48:20.550]to keep in mind around DEI
- [00:48:22.290]and imposter syndrome is what tangentially related
- [00:48:25.920]to what you just stated
- [00:48:26.753]is students who are of color, first gen,
- [00:48:31.350]LGBTQIA+,
- [00:48:34.444]who are coming from different socioeconomic
- [00:48:39.540]backgrounds, like their experiences
- [00:48:43.980]of imposter syndrome are more amplified.
- [00:48:47.430]Yes. For sure.
- [00:48:48.263]And more frequent. Yes.
- [00:48:49.500]And if we're engaging in
- [00:48:54.090]student centered or new colleague centered
- [00:48:57.420]or just people centered ways of doing things,
- [00:49:01.290]we have to be able to prep for that.
- [00:49:02.790]We have to be able to respond to that.
- [00:49:04.590]And part of that response is being aware of our own,
- [00:49:07.500]when we are feeling like imposters
- [00:49:09.060]and what are we doing to navigate that.
- [00:49:12.540]Right?
- [00:49:13.373]Absolutely.
- [00:49:14.206]So I mean, given the statistics,
- [00:49:16.320]82% of people at some point,
- [00:49:18.870]regardless of whether they're in academia or not,
- [00:49:20.490]are going to experience, you know, imposter syndrome.
- [00:49:23.160]So it's something worth talking about.
- [00:49:26.493]It's something worth thinking through and acknowledging.
- [00:49:32.070]And only when we acknowledge it can we figure
- [00:49:34.020]out how to work through it.
- [00:49:35.670]Right.
- [00:49:36.503]So hopefully in this episode
- [00:49:40.050]we have given you some insights
- [00:49:42.210]into how we navigate that
- [00:49:43.650]and maybe some strategies that you can use in your own
- [00:49:48.780]as you're navigating it,
- [00:49:51.180]but, you know, take, take our advice
- [00:49:54.330]for what it's 'cause we are not that kind of doctor.
- [00:49:56.940]We are just two guys who
- [00:49:58.860]talk about things that are important to us.
- [00:50:00.690]Talk about the imposter syndrome
- [00:50:02.490]and the phrase that.
- [00:50:04.500]Oh no.
- [00:50:05.429](Guy laughing)
- [00:50:06.262]Again. And shrines that.
- [00:50:07.095]Again. Again.
- [00:50:08.280]Remember Josie Fox?
- [00:50:09.510]Yes.
- [00:50:10.343]This is my grandson.
- [00:50:11.176]He's a doctor, but he is not that kind of doctor.
- [00:50:14.280]It's where the name comes from.
- [00:50:15.510]Yeah.
- [00:50:16.460]I'm not being an imposter.
- [00:50:18.330]I'm claiming, I'm claiming my space.
- [00:50:20.190]Yeah.
- [00:50:21.023]Articulating my boundaries.
- [00:50:22.560]This is my branding.
- [00:50:23.820]I am not a medical doctor.
- [00:50:25.500]I don't have a psychology.
- [00:50:26.790]No, that's a lie.
- [00:50:27.623]I don't have a MD in psychiatry
- [00:50:29.970]or a advanced degree in psychology.
- [00:50:32.100]That's not me, so.
- [00:50:33.897]All right. Thanks for watching.
- [00:50:35.160]See you in the next one.
- [00:50:36.451](bright music)
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