Operating with Empathy
Steve D’Agustino: [00:00:00] Hello, my name is Steve D’Agustino and my co host Anne Fernald and I welcome you to the Twice Over podcast, because to teach is to learn twice over. In this episode, Operating with Empathy, Anne and I are joined by Kim Aaron, artist, personal coach and instructor at Montclair State University.
Anne Fernald: Welcome back to the twice over podcast. I’m so happy to have you all here. And I’m really excited that this has given me an opportunity to introduce you all to my very good and beloved friend, Kim Arin, who is the founder of Kim Arin coaching. And Kim is teaching a course this semester at Montclair State University on creativity, which is totally up Steve and my alley.
Anne: So we want to talk to you about that. We want to talk to you about leadership, but I wanted to get started by [00:01:00] asking you a little bit about how you got here. And I know you because we met. Maybe surprisingly to our listeners in a running club, which is like a totally weird thing for me to have joined.
Anne: And I understand it’s a weird thing for you to have joined too. That’s where we became friends. So can you talk a little bit about that running club and what it means in your career
Kim: story? Yeah, I’d love to. And Steve and thank you so much for inviting me into the conversation today. I’m really psyched to be here.
Kim: Yeah. Running club was a completely bizarro thing for me to decide to do. And I like to chalk it up to midlife crisis. I was a theater kid. I was the kid who hid in the bathroom when it was time for gym class. And I would not only hide in the bathroom, but I would sing the entire. Book of rent while waiting for all my classmates to be done with gym class.
Kim: So for me to voluntarily [00:02:00] sign up to run half marathons was an insane thing to happen in my life. But I think what happened was I became a little bit stuck. I became a little bored. I became a little stale and was thinking about What is something that would pique my curiosity? What’s something new that I could learn?
Kim: And what I found through the running club was a couple of things. One, I learned a ton about my body and about what is possible if you just decide to run. To get up and do the thing that you have to do in order to reach that goal. So that was like a really new experience for me to be in my body in that way, and to learn about my body in that way.
Kim: And then the other thing that happened as a result is I made such great friends. Not only did I meet you, Ann, but I became really close with a group of women in [00:03:00] that club that I might not have otherwise connected with. So it was this amazing social opportunity where I was also having this. Personal gratification and really exciting new experience for myself.
Anne: So that’s great. I’m interested in two things about that. And the one is the something new I could learn because you worked in education your whole career. And so can you talk to me about how you think about learning? And the importance of learning for educators, because often I think we think of ourselves as when we think of ourselves as teachers, as educators, as coaches, we think of ourselves as transmitting or fostering learning.
Anne: And so how do you, what made you know that it was time for you to be the learner, rather than the teacher?
Kim: Yeah, I have always thought of myself as a lifelong learner. I think something I feel really [00:04:00] lucky to have learned early on in my career is, or I would say early in my life is how little I know that there is just like a vast amount of information that one could pursue with depth and with discovery.
Kim: So I always look at myself as being pretty dumb in a lot of ways to just use like the colloquial term. Like I really don’t know what I’m talking about. I would say 97 percent of the time. And I love that. I love that there’s always something new to learn or to be learned. Part of what I think has served me really well in education, whether I’m working with higher ed students or I’m working with K 12 students or even teaching adult learners in the workplace, which is a lot of what I do now, is to actually not take that expert position.
Kim: To ask these questions of discovery to really open up [00:05:00] the room to possibility and say, here’s an idea. What do we think about it? How can we improve this idea? How can we take this concept that someone who’s very brilliant has studied and explored and presented to the world? And how can we make it different or better or more interesting?
Kim: So, When I think about running in this way, I was like, there’s no way I’m going to be good at this. And I’m still not good at it. But the process of becoming a runner, the process of learning how to move my body so that I could run a half marathon was actually what the like interesting learning was for me.
Kim: It was not to become the expert.
Steve: That is just so interesting. Two big things that jump out to me are You know, experts just know good questions in, in your domain of expertise, what are good [00:06:00] questions that we can ask and whatever we feel like we know about sets the bounds of the questions we feel comfortable asking.
Steve: And something you said about your stance in the classroom or with your learners is getting them to accept that you don’t know. Anna and I have been thinking a lot, especially. Because of the emergence of generative AI is focusing on the process rather than the outcome that the outcome ultimately.
Steve: That’s not the point. I think even as a teacher, we want the students to dwell in uncertainty for as long as they can tolerate it. Just feel what feels like right now to understand all that you could know,
Anne: which I
Steve: think is really an inversion of where we are now in teaching and learning where we’re focused on the grade, the answer.
Steve: Sure. The score, that kind of [00:07:00] stuff. Does any of this make sense to you? I heard all of that in your answer, but I don’t know if I’m interpreting it in, in my own interest.
Kim: Yeah, I, I hope that you’re interpreting it in your own interest. And yes, we have, and I don’t know if you all have found this in your teaching of late, but there is this focus on tell me what to do so I can get the good grade.
Kim: Basically, what I have said to my students this year is you all have a good grade. So now let’s have some fun with this. Let’s make some discoveries. Like sure, I can give you the rules, I can tell you what to plug into AI, And actually I gave them an assignment this semester that was like, I would say at least 75 percent of my students used AI for it and was terrible.
Kim: It lacked that depth that I think we all as [00:08:00] educators have. The reason we got into this is the pursuit of. Curiosity. It’s that spark within us that’s, I just want to know more about this because it’s cool. It’s interesting. Yeah, I think that I think a lot about process and what you were saying about Being freed up by the fact that you’re actually not the Smee in this situation.
Kim: Like you are What’s a Smee?
Steve: A subject matter
Kim: expert. Oh my god! Isn’t that such a fun phrase? Doesn’t it make you think of Captain Hook’s little friend?
Anne: Yeah, it’s totally like a minion or like some little gremlin. A Smee. A Smee. I know. Subject matter expert. Okay. Learning has occurred already. So we can fold up our tent.
Anne: That’s amazing. Wow. Okay. So when you’re not the Smee, when you’re not the
Kim: [00:09:00] Smee. Yeah.
Steve: Yeah. Because I think a lot of times students come thinking they know I want them to come. I want them to leave thinking they don’t know.
Kim: Yes.
Steve: Because they come with all this kind of presuppositional knowledge about whatever it is you’re going to do.
Steve: I hate chemistry. Chemistry is boring. They think they know this. This is a belief that we have to struggle against to get them to feel like, Oh yeah, I guess maybe I don’t. I didn’t know. I didn’t know about this.
Steve: I mentioned this a lot and I apologize. My wife is a kindergarten teacher. And I love talking about teaching and learning with her because of like, how to me, what she does is like pure teaching. It’s just teaching people how to learn what you would do when you want to know something. And then just that excitement around knowing just for the sake of knowing, what is that? And then they learn all about this thing and they get really excited. And I, I [00:10:00] think part of the focus on outcomes, we lose that joy of discovery.
Steve: And I think also it makes it hard for us as the teachers to communicate our joy in whatever it is we’re hoping to talk about, because it comes flattened and useful or practical. When sometimes, I don’t know if I’m ever going to use something, I don’t really know what that means ultimately. Or I don’t use a song, I don’t use music.
Steve: a painting or a performance. I just, I receive it and it has some effect on me, but I’m not sure those effects are, are going to get me a better job or something. Sometimes it’s just good to know things.
Kim: And it’s such a hard balance, especially when we’re confronted with students who, in my situation, many of my students are working while they’re in school, are [00:11:00] responsible for way more at home than I was responsible for.
Kim: have sort of commitments to being able to survive on their own once they graduate. And here I am talking to them about Mondrian’s line. Like, why does that matter? Why does it matter? But, I, my belief is, it actually does matter, that is, oh, there’s a cultural literacy, and this is, I’m really going to try very hard without, to not sound erudite about this, but there is a cultural literacy.
Kim: that connects us all. There is a way in which art and creation and words on a page and paintings and poems and sculpture actually connect us in ways that knowing how to apply for a job on [00:12:00] a website and having a resume that can be read by an algorithm just can’t reproduce. Yes, one will get us. Money so that we can pay for our rent so that we can pay for our food so that we can help our families live at a sort of like sustainable level.
Kim: But the other stuff, the creative thought, the making of things, the have, being impacted by beautiful things, like that’s actually what makes our society okay to live in. And when we feel like that, we’re like losing it, and I’m really scared of losing it.
Steve: Art shouldn’t be for the affluent.
Kim: Absolutely. So
Steve: there’s so much hoarding happening.
Steve: We don’t need like the hoarding of art and culture in that way. And this, the arguments that you’re making, I [00:13:00] appreciate them. There are certain core competencies one must need to thrive in our society, but we, we do want to work towards some kind of act, self actualization where people can experience joy.
Steve: And some of those joys require a certain level of understanding about what this particular piece of art is trying to accomplish. What are its terms? But I think that there are returns on those kinds of investments that go beyond a good job application. I don’t want to be, I feel like we’re getting, I don’t know.
Steve: I worry about these kinds of conversations. They become classist in a way, but
Anne: I don’t think that what we’re saying is classist because I think we’re talking about values that are extra economic, and I think it’s really important not to seed the field of value. just to money. And I think that everyone can appreciate that.
Anne: And I think that the economic stress [00:14:00] that we’re all living under to varying degrees and the degree to which billionaires are controlling our world is worth resisting. And I think that reminding students and creating that space in the classroom that acknowledges, yes, you’re going to have to pay your rent, But also let’s have 75 minutes together or an hour together this week where we’re not worrying about rent and we’re thinking about what matters to us.
Anne: I think that really is important and that already anyone who’s pursuing higher education is, has marked themselves off as Interested in something more than simple sustenance, interested in something better. And I think it’s helpful when they express that interest to suggest that interest is not [00:15:00] just money, that the thing that might make their life better isn’t the difference between earning a hundred thousand dollars and earning 200, 000.
Kim: It’s so funny. I was pushing my students the other day to have opinions. So I presented some thoughts in class and was met with silence. And I was like, how do you feel about that? What do you think about that silence? And I was like, it actually matters what you think, even if you’re not getting graded on it.
Kim: Like, it, it matters. Form opinions. Decide what you like. Decide what you don’t like. And I think, again, it goes back to process. So they might get a bit of information about an artist in my class with me that they never use. They may or may not go to the Met and see that piece [00:16:00] hanging. And that’s okay. But what I’m more curious about is, do you like it?
Kim: Do you think it’s interesting? What about it is interesting? If you don’t like it, what is it that you don’t like? Because that is what is going to serve them in the immediate.
Anne: When something happened in class yesterday that I felt like was a complete triumph where a student raised her hand and said, this is a half form thought, but it seems to me that, and she ventured something and we were able to toss it around.
Anne: And I realized it’s November, we’ve been together since the beginning of September, that she finally had the confidence that, yes, this was a place. And I had another student say, is there a right answer? I asked a question. She said, is there a right answer? I said, there’s not. And she said, okay then. And she offered her try.
Anne: And that [00:17:00] was, those two moments yesterday were so lovely because. When there’s silence, we can’t build on our ideas. So we venture something as one voice, and then someone says something that refines it, or pivots it 15 degrees, and you look at it from a slightly different angle, and that’s what allows the next person to come in, and all of a sudden the conversation is growing.
Anne: If the only voice is my voice, it falls flat really fast.
Kim: It’s that collaborative build that’s, that I find to be actually a creative practice. Right.
Anne: So can you talk to us a little bit about your teaching class on creativity? That’s bananas, right? It’s so huge. There’s no way to begin. There’s [00:18:00] no obvious thing to include or leave out.
Anne: So how did you think about designing it and what are you going to do differently next time? Oh my gosh. So many things.
Kim: So many things. So it is a class that’s being taught through the Department of Theater and Dance. At Montclair State University, which gave me, it’s a general studies course. So I get students from across the curriculum who take this class.
Kim: I have education students. I have sociology students. I have. Film and media students. So really very varied experiences in the classroom. So my approach in designing the course was maybe this is cross curricular. Maybe we take a look at creative thought in each of the disciplines and that is actually served me really well.
Kim: And so we started, we started the [00:19:00] semester with talk of the concept of creativity and creation. I pulled from Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic and also from Twyla Tharp’s body of work around creativity. And so we were able to look at process and look at creative thought from a different lens. I then We then talked about symbolism and archetypes and dreams.
Kim: And that was where there was a ton of unlock for my students. We talked a lot about the subconscious and for some reason that really just resonated with them. And what I found was the more I was able to spiral the curriculum, the more each assignment and thought piece spiraled on top of the last.
Anne: Can you talk about what you mean by spiraling?
Anne: That’s a really attractive metaphor, but I’m not sure I understand what you mean.
Kim: Yeah. [00:20:00] So a spiraled curriculum is one that sort of takes a concept and like a helix. continues to build on itself. So we started with, let me think about this. We started with Jung and we started with the archetypes. And so I taught them about archetypes.
Kim: We looked at some classic film and they identified the archetypes in that film. Then I had them get into their favorite book or, or film that They could then go further on archetypes. And then we talked about dream symbolism. And from there, I had them create a dreamscape. So they went home, and they created a dreamscape using a recent dream.
Kim: And so they were drawing something
Anne: or making a collage or
Kim: collage, whatever spoke to them. And then we came in and [00:21:00] did a gallery walk. And when we were doing that gallery walk, I had them leave feedback for one another on their pieces. And then the lesson in class that day was ekphrastic art and how to steal like an artist.
Kim: And so I had them create a piece of ekphrastic work based on one of the dreamscapes that they Can you
Anne: remind people what ekphrastic art is?
Kim: Yeah. Ekphrastic art is essentially art that is inspired by other art. So one of the most commonly referenced pieces of ekphrastic art is Ode on a Grecian Urn, which was a poem written about a Greek Urn.
Kim: So I had my students write an ekphrastic piece based on one of the dreamscapes they saw in class. So that’s how the curriculum spiraled on top of itself. We created from [00:22:00] what we created. And that’s something
Anne: And you’re constantly reinforcing the archetypal ideas that you have. Taught from the beginning so that they keep thinking about that.
Anne: So I’m teaching this class, this Taylor Swift class right now, that’s on the tortured poet. And so fun, but the tortured poet trope is it seems like inadvertently I’ve created a spiraled curriculum because the trope of the tortured poet is controlling the class and we keep building on it, making it more complex, revisiting it, uh, Adding elements to it.
Anne: So now, as my students are moving into their final assignments, they’re doing a group project. We have a slide that has teen characteristics of the trope of the tortured poet. It’s way too many, but it’s this real feeling of abundance. And so when we open the course with the death of Chatterton, that Henry Wallace painting from [00:23:00] the.
Anne: uh, 19th century, that’s the classic idea of the tortured poet dead in a garret with a geranium on the windowsill. That feels like just one of many options for being tortured right now.
Kim: They’ve got a whole range of torture in there. Oh my gosh, I love it. What I love about your class is Listening to Taylor Swift is such a pedestrian thing to do, and we can do it so passively, and I certainly do it so passively, but now each of your students is going to understand the depth at which Taylor Swift was working when she was creating her music, which is pumped into our daily lives.
Kim: And so that’s like my hope for every single one of my students to see an ad on the subway and be like, Oh, that’s a reference to something else. And I now know what that is.
Anne: Because we’re teaching them about care, [00:24:00] right? What’s the level of care. What’s the level of thought that goes in to creating something that feels ordinary or that’s pedestrian.
Anne: No, that’s just, as you say, It happens to be on in stop and chop when I’m picking up. Paper towels.
Kim: Exactly. So there’s that, and then the other thing I want them to get out of the class is to know that it’s also not magic. That they are creators if they so choose to be. Like that’s a, that’s big for me. I, one of my personal missions, and this is true for all of the creative work that I do with adult learners is you can do this too.
Kim: The difference between you and me is that I just did it, but like you can wake up and decide to go run a half marathon. You can wake up and decide to pick up a paintbrush and paint a canvas. You can decide to sit down and write for 10 minutes. [00:25:00] This isn’t magic. This is a difference between making decisions to create something or not.
Kim: So that, I think that’s been a powerful unlock for a number of my students. In, in the work that I’ve done with them this year, and many of them started the class with a survey saying, one of my hopes for this class is that I get back into a creative practice that I lost in high school. Like there’s a way in which high school programs you to take an art class.
Kim: It’s a requirement. When you get to university, you may not opt to do that and then you completely lose it, but you don’t have to. It’s a choice. And I think it’s just reminding them about that continuous choice.
Steve: I think that’s what you’re saying about having the students understand the effects that this practice has on them as really [00:26:00] mattering in, in, in important ways.
Kim: It’s almost more important than what the thing looks like in the end, in some ways. Yeah, it’s amazing when you walk away and you’ve created something that you’re really proud of and that it looks the way it looked in your head and you, and that doesn’t happen all the time.
Steve: The closest I experienced to this is like when I cook, I love to cook, but I noticed when I cook these meals, I’m just like, I’m there, but I’m not ego involved.
Steve: I’m like so present, but it’s not me that’s present. I’m just, I’m present in a very different way.
Kim: Yeah.
Steve: And I think we, those transcendent, if that’s the right word, kinds of experiences are really important.
Kim: Oh my gosh, yes, yeah. I am, I’m a painter. That’s one of the things that I do. And I hooked up with a gallery who [00:27:00] is taking five pieces of mine to Art Basel in a couple weeks.
Kim: And. I have been having a mental breakdown about it and it’s seriously not a thing. I paint all the time. I paint for the joy of it. If I’m not teaching or coaching, I’m painting. I love it so much. It’s such a pure activity. And once I started being like, it has to look a certain way and it has to be a certain thing and this is art puzzle and everything I made looked terrible.
Kim: It wasn’t coming from the place where I actually make good art, which is not caring about the outcome.
Steve: You can’t lose your happy thoughts.
Kim: Yeah. Like the minute you start to think about your audience, the minute that you’ve stopped actually doing the thing that is desirous of, [00:28:00] that other people want. The minute you get into ego, like you were saying, like it’s, it, your cooking is not an ego driven thing.
Kim: It’s. A pure expression of like love, you want to bring others into it. You want to give to others. You want to nourish others. That’s what good creation does.
Steve: My stepdaughter is going to be at Art Basel. She’s in public relations. So I’ll have her look for your art.
Kim: Yeah. Tell her to look for my booth.
Kim: That’s awesome. That’s so exciting. Yeah. And honestly, this is like a fluke thing. This is not a gallery that. typically represents me. This is just, I raised my hand, they said yes, and I’ll have five pieces of paper in a bin with many other artists. So this isn’t like a big exhibit, but still my brain was on overdrive about it has to be perfect.
Kim: This is my only shot. My only shot at what? [00:29:00] I can still make art tomorrow. This actually means nothing.
Steve: Great. You’re an art basil, but right now you’re on the twice over podcast. So I
Kim: mean,
Steve: Literally, tens of listeners are out there waiting to
Kim: there might be 12 once I’m done with it.
Steve: So I’m wondering just from just to zoom out a little bit. How do you create an environment where your students are comfortable taking those kinds of risks and disclosing or being vulnerable in that way. Because I think risk taking is really integral to any kind of creative endeavor, I would imagine.
Kim: Yeah. We started out the year by setting some norms, and I found it to be really helpful.
Kim: The day one, I told them, this is a workshop model, so everything I teach you, you’re going to be trying. And in order to try things that you might really suck at, You’re going to [00:30:00] have to be willing to suck and let’s take this learner’s mindset of this is about the process. It’s never going to be about the product.
Kim: I’m never evaluating your product. And that’s true even for their final projects. They have to create something, but the evaluation is on their presentation of it and the paper they write about the process of getting there. It’s not about the thing. So we agreed to some norms and one of the things they came up with is take risks.
Kim: try new things, do things we’ve never done before. And so I just keep reminding them of that. I’ve also tried to keep it really fun and a little bit messy. I don’t give them a lot of technical instruction on how to do anything I’m asking them to do. So like we, we were studying Andy Goldsworthy, who’s a naturalist.
Kim: So essentially, he takes whatever he [00:31:00] finds in nature and creates these amazing, beautiful sculptures that are supposed to self destruct. So the art is in the making of it, and then the capturing the image of it, because Nature will wash it away, essentially. And so as a part of their workshop, I took my students outside, had them forage, and then we printed with the materials they foraged.
Steve: I’m grinning because my wife does this foraged art. There’s a book we found. We were just at a farmer’s market on foraged art, and she does it
Steve: with her kindergarteners, and they make these beautiful patterns and three dimensional pieces out of whatever they find. Twigs and acorns and rocks and they arrange them and they take pictures and she displays them and they talk about it and she uses this to teach her children about the difference between a question and a comment and so she filmed it and so this five year old would be like I have a question and [00:32:00] a comment and then they like do this thing and it’s so cool.
Kim: That’s so cool. Wow, I might actually change my curriculum to do exactly that for next semester. That’s so cool.
Steve: So they spend all this time thinking about the difference between a question and a comment.
Kim: And that’s actually the skill that they need to be successful grown ups. Right? To know how to ask great questions of other people.
Kim: To know how to give someone feedback. I’m teaching 40 year olds how to do that in the business context. Yeah, learn it when you’re five. You’ll be really well equipped for the workforce. I love it. And I would say even with my students, I took them outside, we printed with these materials, and I didn’t even look at what they made.
Kim: But my last question to them was like, what was it like to create something outside? And they were all like, it [00:33:00] was relaxing. And I was like, great. You’ve learned something new today. It is relaxing to be in nature and to create things like maybe choose to do your homework outside. If that’s all they walk away from my class, knowing I feel like I’ve done some service to those young people.
Kim: That’s great.
Steve: I’ve told this story a few times, cause I’ve been in a lot of interviews this year. about being the first one in my family to go to college. And one of the first courses I took was by this poet, Marie Ponsot. And I’d never met such a person before. And I’m in this class, I guess it was 1982, just watching this person read this Emily Dickinson poem, the soul has bandaged moments.
Steve: And I’d never had such an experience. And I think part of what college [00:34:00] provides or your class provides is access to a person like you that the typical person may never encounter in any deep and meaningful way. What is, what are artists like? What do they do? When they’re making art, what, where does, what is that?
Steve: So part of it is really modeling, but to circle back to your comments about running, it’s also your embodiment, your presence in that space, just being an artist and letting them see what it’s like to be in the presence of such a person, which I think is really impactful in a lot of ways that maybe we don’t even realize or can even measure.
Steve: Does that make sense to you?
Kim: It makes total sense to me and I’m, I know that the same is true for you both and for your students, like your expertise in your [00:35:00] particular area gives them a model for, oh, maybe I could do that one day. Oh, maybe I could be like ’em. Maybe I can write a book. Maybe I can edit podcasts.
Kim: That seems like a really cool thing to do. I know that’s not all day.
Steve: It’s not that cool. Despite how cool it seems, it’s really not that cool.
Kim: But yeah, and it could be.
Steve: I want parts of this, right?
Steve: There’s something here for me. I’m going to try this on and see what this feels like because I think You know, part of what I love about being in teaching and learning spaces is the idea that I can be different.
Steve: I don’t have to be who I am right now, that there’s maybe a future version of me along certain dimensions that I’ve identified that I can change. You mentioned this before, as your body is like metaphor for these kinds of transformations that maybe we can help people understand. That this is within their [00:36:00] ability to do, because I think they’ve taken the first step, as Anne was saying, just by being in school is an indicator that I want to be different in some way.
Steve: What are the ways that I can be different? And you’re offering them a way, and that way may be one they’ve never really thought about before.
Kim: Yeah, it, you’re making me think about an activity that I did with my students. We did the wheel of life and I don’t know if you all have ever done it, but it’s a life coaching technique where essentially you create a pie which has different slices and each slice is an area of life.
Kim: So one is your work, one is your relationships, one is your finances, one is fun, and so on. And I had them sort of rate where they were on different quadrants and different high slices of their life. Like how would they rate themselves? And so we took a look at the health slice. [00:37:00] And I said, health is an interesting one for me.
Kim: I would rate myself pretty high right now. I’m, I take really good care of myself. I try not to eat too much sugar. I exercise. I have taken care of my mental health, my physical health. But when I was in college, man, I was smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. I was eating donuts. I was partying. And you could feel the energy in the Me too.
Kim: Oh, you were like me. You are doing all the things that I’m doing right now and you’re okay now. I think there’s a way that people who are typically undergrad, that 18 to 21, the idea of future casting And seeing yourself in the future, imagining being a 45 year old woman, what is that horrible destiny fate?
Kim: You can’t imagine being older than 25 and even that feels old. [00:38:00] So I think there’s a way in which what you’re saying about this, like seeing yourself in your professor, seeing yourself in the grownups who are around you, is this sort of passive but really powerful thing. Where we are modeling, in many ways, this is what it’s like to be a curious adult who is committed to a life of learning and teaching and education.
Kim: Like that, particularly right now in our society, given where we are right now as a country, AI coming in as being like this very scary force that’s going to take over the world or political discourse, all of it. For people to still be showing up in classrooms across the country as thoughtful, curious, questioning grown ups, that’s really important.
Kim: So what you’re saying is really hitting me. And it’s [00:39:00] just a really good reminder that even just the act of showing up as a teacher really matters right now.
Anne: Yeah. You’ve taught and coached in so many different contexts, and can you tell us just a little bit about them and what you’ve noticed is continuous across these contexts and any differences that you’ve seen?
Anne: Like, I know that you run a group that I’ve participated in for writers that’s. That’s a very simple, incredibly powerful zoom where we meet and we’re just accountability partners on zoom and just sit for two hours and work on our writing and then check in at the end of two hours and say, well, that was a bust.
Anne: I played my past seven levels of candy crush. I kept trying to get myself back to the page. I didn’t do it, but I’ll see you next week. And so you do that, you coach adults, you’ve worked in higher ed. And now you’re teaching in, at the, in the [00:40:00] college classroom. So can you talk a little bit about continuities and differences, whether it’s one on one or by age?
Kim: I would say similarly across all levels. People tell themselves stories about why they can’t do X, Y, or Z. It doesn’t matter how old you are. Everyone has self sabotaging thoughts. And ideas about themselves and con preconceived notions about what is possible for you. And it doesn’t matter if I’m working with the CEO of a startup, or if I’m working with a seventh grade ELA student, like everyone is like, Oh, I can’t do that because so that’s universal.
Kim: What I find so. I think beautiful and impactful about coaching work, regardless of the context that I’m working in, whether it’s my writing right [00:41:00] on group, whether it’s at the university, whether it’s doing that executive coaching in a space, be standing with individuals when they discover something new about themselves.
Kim: Or a story that I’ve heard over and over again being told by them changes. Or they have a moment where they’re like, I’m sick of hearing this. I don’t want to say this about myself anymore. I want to do something different. Like that, those moments of choice, I just find, To be completely inspiring and powerful and beautiful and they happen all over the place.
Kim: I think what it takes is what we were talking about, like teaching other people how to stand with people. How to ask a question or how to make a comment. That’s That’s [00:42:00] how we connect with one another. That’s how we impact one another.
Anne: To say I just got chills. That’s really beautiful because it’s not just about what you’re doing.
Anne: I like what we were saying before about what a teacher is as a model. But even more, if we can teach our students to be that for each other, that’s incredible. If they can comment on each other’s projects in ways that Make the hearer, the creator who’s being critiqued, feel inspired to keep going instead of feel broken or devastated or I’m not good enough, but rather, yeah, I totally get where you’re going.
Anne: And if you just pushed a little harder here, next time, do it a little more. Then you’re like, yeah, that’s what I’m going to do next time. And that to keep that hunger alive is so thrilling.
Steve: Yeah. I think part of it is really understanding the creator’s [00:43:00] intention and how difficult it is to train, to translate a visual art into words.
Steve: Because if you could do that, you wouldn’t need the visual, like the visual art is doing something that the, you know, an oral expression or written expression just cannot do. And, but I think it’s helpful to make that effort at greater connection and understanding. But I think you’re right, Anne, I think it’s about, again, coming back to kindergarten, what do good listeners do?
Steve: Those kinds of, that kind of teaching is all about intention and definition. What does this mean? What does it mean to you? What does it mean to us? What does it mean in this context? And, and a lot of the work of teaching is consensus. And one of the hardest things about, I think, discussion in higher ed [00:44:00] is students who come believing that this is like a debate.
Steve: They’re under, they’re entering into the space thinking there’s a right and a wrong and we’re going to, it’s a sort of, it’s a contest in a way to get as close as I can to rightness when really it’s not, that’s not what it is. And it’s more about. a shared understanding. Because any conclusion is just so transient.
Steve: We don’t even know, I think at this moment right now, I think this is something, I think this is an idea, and we can make this idea into something. So to have those moments in a classroom are really valuable. But it takes so much to get to that.
Kim: Yeah, yes. And I think what I’m, hearing you say is we need to build communities of trust in order to be able to get to that higher order collaboration.
Steve: Yeah. Yeah. I always feel like [00:45:00] the, when the class, the semester is almost over now. And I feel like we’re just going to be at a point of readiness to really start doing something and the class is over
Kim: and we’re done and we’re done. Oh, absolutely. One, and you asked me what I might change next time. And one thing I’ve been thinking a lot about is like, how do I get my students quickly to the place where they are operating with.
Kim: Where they are standing next to one another saying, I know that was really hard for you to answer, and I want to celebrate you trying and putting yourself out there. And I heard what you were saying and I want to build on it. So Brene Brown is the Person I always turn to the expert I always turn to when I want to really think about how do you build empathic community?
Kim: and how do you [00:46:00] build A lexicon for how we talk to one another And so she has this great video on empathy actually where she illustrates the difference between being empathic and being compassionate Right? So there’s a way in which you can be like compathic, compassionate, and you can be kind and be like, Oh, that’s too bad.
Kim: You okay, honey? How you doing? Okay, let’s move on. Whereas empathy is the process of like actually getting in there with someone, getting down into the hole that they’re in and standing right next to them and saying, take your time. You got this. I’m right here for ya. This does seem hard and I’m here as opposed to being like, Oh, you’re going to be fine.
Kim: Let’s draw a silver lining around it. So I want to spend more time building out with my students. that understanding [00:47:00] so that we can continue to build these really meaningful, rich conversations with one another.
Anne: I love that. I love that. I did a tiny thing towards that in my class where I often have exit tickets.
Anne: It’s a anonymous Google form. And what do you want to take forward from class today? What’s the muddiest point? And recently I asked students in one of my classes, Is there someone whose comments in class you look forward to hearing? Someone whom you typically, who, whose contributions to the class community you admire?
Anne: And some people just put a name, but some people said, So and so always makes me feel smarter. So and so makes complicated ideas easier for me to understand. And it was so moving. And I was able to give everyone who got named a participation point, but then I also put the comments, if they had a [00:48:00] substantive comment, they don’t know who it is, but I put that in the remarks in their black, in the, in the form.
Anne: And so that my students got just a little anonymous cheer. From a classmate about why it matters that they take the time to raise their hand in the room. And I’m just hoping that pays forward for the rest of their college career and for their life when they’re in a meeting that they know that actually when I speak up in a meeting and try and summarize what I’ve heard so far, I may not know it, but someone in that space is grateful that I said, wait a minute, what I heard you say is this.
Anne: And I’m wondering if I got it right. We like those people. And we can aspire to be those people. And we can tell them, Hey, thanks a lot for speaking up because I was super confused. So Kim, this has been incredible. It’s been so [00:49:00] fun to talk to you. I always love talking to you, but this was great. I knew this was going to be great, but it’s great.
Anne: And always the last thing we ask people is to tell us about a teacher that’s mattered to them in their lives. I invite you to share a story of someone that has had an impact on you.
Kim: So I am one of the very, very fortunate people that have had quite literally dozens of incredible teachers. So I feel really truly blessed by that.
Kim: So I say all of that to say I’m picking this one story because I could probably pick a hundred, but I had a, I had an English teacher in high school, Mr. Orsini. Who was just this, like, awesome guy. He had a great mustache and was really passionate about literature. And we read great things in his class and we were reading poetry.
Kim: We were in our poetry unit and he assigned me a poem. He assigned each of us a poem to read out loud. And he assigned me a poem by Sylvia [00:50:00] Plath. And I’m forgetting which poem it was. And I read it and I tanked. I was, it, I just did not do a good read and he pulled me aside and was like, I gave you that poem for a reason.
Kim: Like you’re an actress and you gave me nothing. So we’re going to meet after class and you’re going to read it to me because I don’t think you get it. And then you’re going to read it again in class. And he was totally right. I did not get it. I just like poetry still to this day. It just takes me a lot to get in there.
Kim: I just don’t naturally get poetry and we read it together and I got it and I was like, Oh, now I even understand why you gave this to me. This makes total sense. Yes, I am that angsty person who has daddy issues. Like I should read [00:51:00] this in class. And then I came back the next day and I read it and he was like, that’s.
Kim: It’s nailed it. Like
Anne: amazing. So
Kim: yeah, just do the extra, like 10 minutes with you. It matters.
Steve: Sometimes they see something in us that we don’t see.
Anne: That’s it. But he didn’t. Humiliate you. He encouraged you even though you weren’t there yet. That’s incredibly powerful because it’s not saying, Oh Kim, you’re terrific.
Anne: It’s that was not good enough.
Kim: I had a vision for you and you didn’t meet that vision. So now we’re going to, you’re going to do it until you meet my vision. I didn’t even know that vision existed, but we got there. We got there.
Anne: Kim, this has been so fun. Thank you so much for being our [00:52:00] guest. Thank you.
Kim: Thank you for having me. And thank you for having these like fantastic conversations.
Steve: Thank you so much. This is really wonderful. Thank you.
Kim: I appreciate it.
Steve: Twice Over Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and Spotify. New episodes update intermittently. We aim for once a week, but sometimes we just can’t get it done. You can also find us on our blog, twiceoverpodcast. com. Thanks so much for listening.
Twice Over Podcast 