Latest / Teaching through Emotions: Teacher Mental Health / ”How do I not take rude students personally?” Teachers Setting Boundaries and Managing Guilt

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”How do I not take rude students personally?” Teachers Setting Boundaries and Managing Guilt · Teaching through Emotions: Teacher Mental Health

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, listeners.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of love has come TTE's way since the season launch,
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: so I want to start this episode on a high, grateful note.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of outlets have supported the launch of TTE's fourth season.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: True fans, Pocket Casts, and Amazon Music all have featured Teaching through Emotions recently.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Their promotion of the pod draws new listeners to TTE, which is super important.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: The more teachers hear about the miracles of teacher support groups,
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: the better for them and our students.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: A huge thank you to these outlets.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: But they're not the only ones.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Something like 16 additional outlets and reviewers have highlighted TTE over
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: the past couple of weeks.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: I cannot thank them enough for putting their weight behind this project.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, wow, you're all wonderful.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: As is my TTE team who makes so much of this happen.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you one and all.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: And now let's get to the episode.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Students suck sometimes.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: New teachers and subs get thrown into the deep end,
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: dealing with rude or chaotic students at every level.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: We tell teachers not to take it personally.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: That kid who rolls his eyes at you, the parent who cc's the principal, don't take it personally.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, you cannot take it personally.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Those rolled eyes are the kid's problem.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: The meddlesome parent is someone to be aware of.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: But what if you're still thinking about a student's behavior two weeks later?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: What if you feel guilty for handling a problem so well?
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: This can happen to any teacher.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Today, it happens to a college professor.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Last week we heard from high school teachers who have come together in a teacher support group.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: This week we'll listen in on a college professor's TSG.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Very different.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: College profs rarely have to deal with students' parents,
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: but they're more likely to have to take action as if they were
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: the students' parents.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: In loco parentis, don't you know?
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: And college profs have not necessarily gotten any teacher training,
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: as most high school teachers have,
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: so they can be completely at sea at the drop of a hat,
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: which is really nerve-wracking.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Still,
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: anyone can benefit from listening to college profs' struggles because they are
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: the struggles of educators, people who hope to support growth and development.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's pretty much all of us, right?
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Whoever you are, you're going to resonate with this situation.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is Teaching through Emotions,
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: a podcast where real teachers talk about real feelings and bad behaviors
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: from students, colleagues, admin, and parents.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Together, we transform those feelings into relief through a teacher support group.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's right, Crucial Teacher Support.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Betsy Burris, a teacher educator and psycho coach.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: For the past 20 years,
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: I've helped teachers understand how emotions influence student behavior
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: and teacher mental health.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: In each episode,
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: a real teacher brings to their teacher support group
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: a real problem that's really bugging them.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: The group and I break it down, reframe it, and come up with a data-based plan of action.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Then you get to find out how things play out.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get into the episode.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: The second day he arrived, like four minutes late.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: I noticed it.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: He hasn't done the prerequisite.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I said, Andrew, I think that maybe you missed something before you came to class today.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: He was looking down at his phone and he said, oh, what?
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: Go ahead.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's day two of a college class and your instructor is sitting next to you,
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: looking at you, talking directly to you and you're not listening.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then you say, oh, OK, go ahead.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, my God.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: So Claire is agitated.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Her long, deep sigh says it all.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's why the emotion she's feeling two weeks after this happened is completely unexpected.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I actually never circled back to make sure that he was okay,
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: and he has since dropped from the class.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: I kind of wish I could smooth it over.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: I like the way I handled it.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: I don't like the way I feel about it after.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Let's start with a group's check-in,
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: when every teacher has a chance to say what's going on with them.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: What's good, what's bad, what's eating at them.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_03: Sasha, what's going on?
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_03: So we start classes next week.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_03: So I haven't had class,
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_03: but I am starting to get some of the pre-semester jitters,
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_03: finalizing syllabi, just doing all the logistical stuff.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: But pre-semester jitters are pretty great to talk about.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Sasha is teaching an introductory course and a capstone course in her subject matter.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: So she's basically bookending the experience of students who decide to major in her field.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: She has also just submitted her portfolio for tenure, which is a big deal, of course.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so like Sasha, we haven't started.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: I'm in the weeds of finishing my syllabi and getting everything ready.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: So no interaction with students or nothing that seems very,
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, problematic or exciting to talk about.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: This is Rachel,
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: who is a visiting professor teaching an intermediate language course and
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: a literature course in public health and the medical humanities.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: So we're two weeks into classes and I did have a interaction with a student on
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: the second day of class that annoyed me.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: I don't love the way I responded, but it also annoyed me and continues to.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: So there might be something there to talk about.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: This is Claire.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: She's a veteran teacher.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: She taught high school Spanish for a few years,
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: then got her PhD and began teaching Spanish at a large university.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: She doesn't just teach Spanish,
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: she designed her department's curriculum and oversees the dozens of TAs
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: who teach lower-level courses as well.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: The group chooses Claire's annoying interaction because, well, it was annoying.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: But as often happens in TSGs, the group hasn't unearthed the real issue yet.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm going to call the kid Andrew.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's about a minute in and he arrives late.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: Happens on the first day.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: I liked his energy.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, hola.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: And he was like, hola.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, he sat down.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: He had good energy during the class.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: The second day he arrived like four minutes late.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: I noticed it.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: Speaking of designing syllabi,
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: designing what the beginning of a course looks like,
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: students in my class between the first day and the second day are asked to jump
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: through kind of a variety of very manageable hoops on Canvas,
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: which is our learning management system.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I say to them at the end of the first day,
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: y'all have to follow this list of things that I'm projecting on the board right now.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: You have access to it too.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: Follow the list.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: You're going to be 100% set for class.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't follow the list,
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: there's stuff that you're not going to be able to do in class on Friday.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: So naturally, half of them do it, half of them don't.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so this student had been one of the ones who hadn't done it.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I can tell that on my end.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: So he's in his group working with two peers who had done it.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that they're doing an assignment on Canvas right now
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: that Andrew does not have access to.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: He hasn't done the prerequisite that was supposed to unlock him.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I said, Andrew,
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think that the thing that everyone's working on right now,
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: you might not have access to on Canvas yet.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think that maybe you missed something before you came to class today.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'd like to make sure you know what it is.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: And he was looking down at his phone.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, what?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: Go ahead.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, no,
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: you can talk to the other people in your group about what I just said
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: and catch you up.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to circle back later to make sure you're all set.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: And he was kind of still looking at his phone.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I circled back later.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: And he was still between his phone.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: He was doing something on his phone.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, sorry, I'm trying to change a Spanish class.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: My schedule is a mess, blah, blah.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, if you need to step outside to figure it out, that's totally fine.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're in this classroom, you've got to be in.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I actually never circled back to make sure that he was OK.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: And he has since dropped from the class.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: So this won't be necessarily an ongoing thing.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: But I was as strong with him as I would have wanted to be, ideally speaking.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because he was ignoring me while I was talking directly to him about something he missed.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: It was like he was talking to his friend about something casual.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: And it annoyed me.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: But part of me wants to also wish I could smooth it over.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a little conflict there.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: I like the way I handled it.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: I don't like the way I feel about it after.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's interesting.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking Claire should be feeling pretty darned 100% happy with herself
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: for doing such a good job resisting the urge to breathe fire on this kid
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: and making her classroom boundaries crystal clear.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: But the story is not turning out the way I expected, which is almost always the case in TSGs.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: What I or you can't possibly know at this point is how unexpected this conversation gets.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, we obviously need more data.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: So we move on to the next step,
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: which is not to wail on Andrew,
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: but rather to suspend our judgments and ask questions of Claire.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: Questions for Claire.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have a classroom policy of like no phone or no tech in the classroom?
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: The phone thing since the pandemic has just been a can of worms
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: because we use enough stuff tech wise that sometimes it's a real legit thing
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: at this point for students to be referring to their phones.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: So there isn't a policy on that, which I have conflicted feelings about.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: My biggest reason for not having it is I think I would be really wishy-washy
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: in my ability to enforce it.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: Because you use it for, like, some activities and some homework and stuff like that.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: They might need it to just even log in with a two-factor whatever.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: Someone needs to play Kahoot on there.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: They want to use the Kahoot to do on their phone.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: Like, there's so many little things that I think are understandable
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: and people just do them on their phone quickly in this day and age.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: Ah.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: And with 27 students in that class, I don't feel like I want to please it.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think it would suck my energy in the wrong direction to have one more thing to say no to.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: I love this.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: It does truly suck energy from a teacher or parent or any other authority figure
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: to have to say no to one more thing.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because no implies,
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: as Claire says,
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: policing,
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: sniffing out violations,
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: as well as opposition,
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: getting pushback from someone who can't take no for an answer.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: And therefore, no can lead to exhaustion.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Claire is protecting herself from all of this.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Seems smart.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: But maybe Claire is lucky.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe she doesn't have to say no because there's actually no need.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Has it been a problem?
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Have phones and other devices been a problem in the past for you?
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: With some students, yes.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: But students who have them out on their desks generally are using them.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: It seems pretty appropriate to me.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because I can imagine that if there were a problem,
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: if it were a real big problem for you, you would be dealing with it.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's not enough of a problem.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: It might be a problem for the students.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't have a control group about how amazing my group
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: of students would possibly be if none of them had phones.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: I have had classes where we've collectively decided on a no tech day,
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: we'll find one or two days in the semester early on,
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: and all of our phones are going to be away.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to plan so that we don't need to use computers.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm even going to not use the projector.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to do like
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: And that's more something that people can buy into.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the student was on his phone and that's a problem and it is a problem with phones.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: But also it could have been anything.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: It could have been his computer.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it could have been something that he needed to do for the class.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like to me,
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: it's like,
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: like it's day two of a college class and your instructor is sitting next to you,
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: looking at you, talking directly to you and you're not listening.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then you say, oh, OK, go ahead.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, my God.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think my question was actually going to be if it was less about the sort
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_03: of whatever he was using to distract himself from you or the fact
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_03: that he seemed completely unfazed by your presence,
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_03: that he was supposed to be doing something,
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_03: that you were any kind of authority figure who had things to tell him.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, if he had been like fiddling in his backpack and was just not listening and
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_03: then was like, yeah, go ahead.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_03: So is it that sort of shift in the moment?
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like, if you've been fiddling in his backpack,
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: I might be more willing to be like, oh, this kid's kind of funny or cute.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like, look at him getting lost in his backpack, doesn't even realize his teeth.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I might have a different response if it was his backpack.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_03: Or doing another professor's work in your class.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_03: It's a good point.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_03: But like, if it's like, I need to finish this chapter.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, go ahead.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think the yeah,
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: go ahead in and of itself is something that
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: on some level would probably catch my attention,
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: but I might have a different response if it weren't like a frantic phone thing,
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: because we all know that type of distraction.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, if he'd been doing something else, I might have a different reaction, yeah.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Oh boy.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Often the data gathering phase is easy because it does what you expect.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: It adds detail that fleshes out the story and clarifies the issue beautifully.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: But that's not happening here for me.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm getting more confused.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: I've learned, though, that digging deeper can eventually yield surprising answers.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: I need to understand this better because what you're saying is it's not
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: that he was ignoring you.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like if he were digging around his backpack and could not concentrate on you and
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: then was like, OK, go ahead.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: That would have been more acceptable than the fact that he was on a phone.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like the phone actually is a character in the story in a way
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: because there's some significance to that.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: There was something that made you feel like, oh,
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: you lost that competition for a minute until he invited you back
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: into his consciousness.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because I was thinking it was that he gave you permission suddenly to impinge on him.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Which would mean that it wouldn't matter what he was doing that was more important
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: to him than you were.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: But you're implying that it doesn't matter what he's doing.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: What mattered was that he was doing it on a phone.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: Is that right?
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: Not squarely.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'm just picturing, like, the other side of the spectrum.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what if he had some colored markers out and he was drawing little dinosaurs in a notebook?
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: But the phone is so neutral and so ubiquitous that I can't give him the benefit of the doubt.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe he deserves it.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like maybe he deserves the benefit of the doubt because there might be some kind
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: of neurodivergence or some kind of,
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think it was like a pretty extreme stress for him.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: He should have left the room.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: But depending on what the activity was, the activity might have given me more insight.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Ah, I still don't get it.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: If any other distracting behavior would have been fine,
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: especially given Andrew's legitimate need, then what is it about the phone?
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, okay, I just want to make sure I understand.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: So because the phone is kind of just a wall, you have no idea what the phone is being used for.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: It could be used for just about anything.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Is it that you were projecting onto the phone or that you just couldn't know
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: and you assume,
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: and then the projection, yes, was, dude is actually being irresponsible.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: He's being rude.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: Rude.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know about irresponsible.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I think he might have been being very responsible trying to get his schedule sorted.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: But in the moment,
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: he made a call that didn't make any sense to me about ignoring the interaction
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: that was happening.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: He wasn't able to prioritize what was the most pressing thing in that moment.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: And he came off pretty rude because of it.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: I felt like his mom.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like, okay, mom, one sec.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm talking to Jimmy over here.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: One sec.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, go ahead, mom.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, go ahead.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm like, no.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: Which also would piss me off as a mom, too.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, are you kidding me?
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your mother.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like being blown off in any role.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: But that's just me.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: In the TSG, I seek confirmation from other humans.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very, very interested in this fine distinction.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because what you're saying is,
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: because you had no idea what he was trying to accomplish with the device,
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: he was being rude.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly how I read it.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you guys, Sasha and Rachel.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: Would that have pissed you off?
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: I mean...
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_02: Even if he had said, oh, I'm sorry, I'm listening.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I feel it's also the wording of the go-ahead that seems like an order.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, what?
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: So I feel that would have pissed me off.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm sure in the same situation,
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_02: if he had been like, I'm sorry, that would have changed things.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: Great way to put it.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: It was as if Andrew was giving his professor an order.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: Sasha shares an angle that helps to crack this baby open.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_03: I was also wondering about what was the sort of guilt afterwards,
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_03: but I think if I'm reading it with the resolution,
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_03: what it now seems like to me is that,
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_03: and students do this,
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_03: I've had students do this to me,
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_03: like your class becomes a kind of placeholder in the schedule until they can sort
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_03: of get into the things that they want.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_03: But they know that they have to show up to the first sessions
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_03: in case what they want actually isn't available.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_03: So they come to you, but they don't do any of the early assignments because it's a placeholder.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_03: And then they get noticed that they can be in the class that they want to be and
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_03: then they drop it.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_03: And so I feel like in that sequence of events, I feel like I've had students do similar things.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_03: I think what hasn't happened to me is the fact that they're trying to do all of that
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_03: in class time.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_03: And like on the phone, like, oh, can I get into this other class?
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_03: I'm trying to sort of fix my schedule.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_03: That feels like a kind of step of audacity that I haven't had students do.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_03: But I think given what happened and the student deciding to drop the class,
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_03: it sounds like, I mean,
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_03: from not doing the stuff on Canvas to kind of phoning it in the classroom to kind
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_03: of showing up late, it really was like.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_03: I'm trying to get my schedule to look a different type of way.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_03: And right now your class is a placeholder to see if I can get those other things.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if that changes the level of rudeness or disrespect to me.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_03: It still feels like, what are you doing?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I actually hadn't thought about the placeholder thing.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's not super common in the course that I teach because our courses are usually waitlisted.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not usually one that students...
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: Of course,
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: which still,
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: even though I don't think that's a placeholder because it's the same work,
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: like he should be paying attention because it's going to be the same work across
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: the sections.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: In his mind, he might have perceived it as he was just short term in the class.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: And that does make sense to me.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's also interesting because this relates to what Rachel said, because I looked at his phone.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: I said, you're distracted.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: You need to go outside if you need to do something right now.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: He said, I'm sorry, I'm just trying to change my Spanish class.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I think he was trying to change into another section, which might be neither here nor there.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: But it's interesting because the thing that was on his phone was a text message.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know who he was texting with.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if he was talking with his mom or a friend to see what section
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: the friend was in, but he wasn't actually doing something official on his phone.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: Or if he was, he was going back and forth and multitasking.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: Just want to say, asking questions in a TSG can be so fruitful.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: And listening to back-and-forth banter is crucial because given enough time,
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: what people know in their bodies unconsciously generally comes out organically.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're paying attention, things start to make sense.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: I love this about TSGs.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: I love it about teaching, too.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: Hey listeners,
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: if you want to support this show,
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: if this episode or another episode gave you the inspiration
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: to keep going this semester,
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: if this show makes you feel seen,
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: then please leave us a rating on the app you're listening from.
• 20:08
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• 20:08
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• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: And bonus, if you leave us an honest review, you might hear it in one of our upcoming episodes.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: We'll read it out.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: We love hearing your miracle and horror stories alike,
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: your thoughts on what we chat about,
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: because it reminds us we're not just speaking into the void.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: And when you leave a rating or review,
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: it lets other people who find it know this show is worth listening to.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you so much.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: And now, let's get back to the episode.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: Back to Claire's story.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Sasha's use of the word placeholder got me thinking.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it wasn't the phone after all.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it was how Andrew was using not just Claire's class as a placeholder,
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: but how he was using Claire as One thing that occurs to me,
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: following up on Sasha's thinking,
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: is that if your class was a placeholder, then he was actually not fully present.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, he was on his phone.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: But in terms of you and your irritation, the way I read it is...
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Regardless of the explanation,
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: because he has a good explanation and knowing it and thinking
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: about Sasha's experience of having the same kind of thing where kids are just like,
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: I don't really want to be here.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: I have another plan, but I have to be here.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm in limbo.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just in suspended animation right now.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm doing things that...
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: I have to do because I don't really believe I count right now.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not really here.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: But what I'm thinking is from your perspective,
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: he was there and you were there and you were expecting him to be a present student.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: And when he actually gave you permission to speak to him as his instructor,
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: again, it pisses me off still.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's like he had turned you into some sort of an object that wasn't real.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because his schedule wasn't real and he didn't believe he was going to stay in this class.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's just interesting to consider,
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: as Sasha is suggesting,
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: his relationship with the class was kind of unreal, kind of surreal.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm not really here because I'm not going to stay here.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: Then his behavior improved.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: That he transferred that surreality or unreality onto you, that you weren't quite real either.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel when I hear that story,
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: I think I feel enraged for you because to be turned into an object,
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: I consider it to be an object.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: That really resonates with me.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, it might be justifiable ego, but I recognize that it's ego.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like,
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: You have my one-on-one attention right now.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: I am in charge of this whole course.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: There are 400 students taking this course.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I have parents on my wait list for high school
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: and middle school private tutoring who can't get in.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: You are the one who has my attention right now.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: There are people clamoring for it who don't get it.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: And you're just on your phone.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean...
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: I just arrived to that after all of this discussion.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: That wasn't all swirling in my head before,
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: but I'm kind of like, dude, I can help you right now.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like, people ask me all day long for help.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want help?
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is a fascinating moment.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: I reframed Claire's experience as an example of objectification,
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: where Andrew,
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: in his limbo state and his self-absorbed focus on switching classes,
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: treated Claire as an object,
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: like a mouth or something, just a background noisemaker.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: Pow!
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Claire resonated with this frame, but took it someplace I did not expect.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: She made it about her ego, which is a red flag for me.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like the word ego.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, you guys.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like it's completely overused and it has this negative connotation.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I personally don't use it.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like to be self-righteous or self-absorbed or narcissistic.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: But to have an ego, to have a sense of self is different from having an inflated sense of self.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: In your case,
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: tell me if you think I'm wrong,
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: to be upset about objectification is not an ego problem,
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: except insofar as we all have every right to expect to be seen.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: When we're present and if we're not seen or if we're turned
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: into something we're not,
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: if we're objectified,
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: if we're turned into a servant or a,
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: you know, just a mouth that's just talking, yeah, yeah.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: If we're turned into someone who is useful to the person who's objectifying
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: but has nothing to do with who we are,
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's appropriate to be upset about that.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like that's what was happening with you with this kid.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's not your ego speaking when we all agree you're the instructor of the course.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: He's there paying money so that you can teach him something.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: And he's actually giving you the hand and then saying, oh, okay, go ahead.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm ready.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now you can speak to me.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: It is, I think, remarkably insulting.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the insult is because of the objectification,
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: that he didn't even acknowledge that you were a human,
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: that you were just somebody he could switch off and then on.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: What do you guys think?
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like that sounds right to me.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like what you said, Betsy,
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_03: about kind of turning off and on,
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_03: I think, I mean,
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_03: there's all of those assumptions about like Gen Z growing up on screens
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_03: that there is a kind of inability to not see people as a screen that turns on
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_03: and off.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_03: And that it comes up in like not being able to as fully recognize facial expressions.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, what do they call it?
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_03: Like the Gen Z stare where like you're talking to them and it's like a flat affect,
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_03: but it's the face that you would make if you were watching a screen
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_03: that was just talking to you.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_03: So I think what you said about this idea that you had just been made into a thing.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_03: You're the podcast that's being paused or like the TikTok video that you just queue back up.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like that
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_03: would be cool.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: That is fascinating.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think that sounds right.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: Claire, you're nodding and smiling.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that sounds right.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: I hadn't heard about the Gen Z stare,
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: but that just the idea that most of the kind of human input that these kids get
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: a lot of times is possible.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's not actually interactional.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm kind of stunned.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think this is a really good interpretation.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: You were turned off and then you were turned on and the kid...
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think it was more like he said the words, I'm sorry.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: In an appropriate moment.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't a genuine.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, my goodness.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: I lost myself in that.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm stressed out.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so sorry, Professor.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, sorry.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: No, I had I had a thing to do.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: It was an appropriate use of it, but the apology wasn't actually there.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: The apology wasn't actually there, right?
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: There's a difference between a genuine apology and a pro forma,
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: performative, superficial, going through the motions apology.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: We sense authenticity and we know when sorry is just a throw away.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: Might we be in for this kind of sorry more often than not with Gen Z?
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: Can we expect people who are so externalized,
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: living their lives on and through screens,
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: to be in their bodies and able to be sincere
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: when they're feeling uncomfortable emotions?
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe even more to the point for teachers,
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: do members of Gen Z need to be taught how to be in their bodies moment to moment?
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: So if that sounds right, what's the plan?
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: All of you guys presumably are going to be dealing with something like this,
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: with this generation,
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: with students who interact with human beings as if they are two-dimensional screens
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: that can be turned off and on, at least to some degree.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: What are some ways of managing that reality, which is not really blameworthy?
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: In an interaction with a human being like Andrew,
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's fair to say, excuse me, Andrew, let's just have a little conversation.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: Androkae.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: Would be unfair.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: You'd be leaping ahead instead of just staying with him and pointing out,
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: describing to him, this is what just happened.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the impact it had on me.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: I doubt you want to have that impact, Andrew.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: So in the future, maybe try this, right?
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a corrective moment.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: You could offer him corrective action or any one of you could offer
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: a student who's doing this to you, this kind of corrective action.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's not going to happen with Andrew because he's out of your class now, Claire.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm just saying this is a moment where you guys might be encountering students
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: who are losing what I would consider to be a form of humanity,
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: which is an ability to interact with living people and to be flexible and not have
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: a replay button, you know, that this is now and this moment has passed.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: And to be alive and collaborative and resilient is something
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: that you instructors might be needing to teach as you go forward with these people.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the replay button is an interesting thing because that's what he wanted, right?
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly, go ahead.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like he wasn't consciously feeling entitled,
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: but on some kind of subconscious level,
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: there was some kind of entitlement that, yeah, I can do that.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I have this conflicting feeling because I don't think I smoothed out their ways
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: that I could have interacted with him later that day or if he had considered coming
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: to class that would have like Corrected it, even tacitly, right?
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm very happy with myself that he said, okay, go ahead.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, no.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: Because there was a moment in my career that I probably would have accommodated that
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: or been a little slow to realize I need to say that in that moment.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I am glad that I didn't allow the replay.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, this is nice.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: Claire is on it.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: With Andrew,
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: she had the presence of mind and the self-respect to rear up and put a halt
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: to his inappropriate behavior.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: I live to hear about this kind of healthy change in a person.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to know more.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: Can I ask what happened?
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: What happened inside you that you were like, no?
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: Immediately you were like, no, instead of having to process it for however long.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was such an unexpected response because I was like, oh, he's distracted.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then if he had said something like, oh, my goodness, sorry, I have so much going on.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm scattered.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like, no wonder I'm behind.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I didn't even hear what you said.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: But the fact that it was, okay,
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_01: go ahead,
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: it really made me notice it because it wasn't how students usually talk to me.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like it's not typical classroom discourse, right?
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: Students don't say to their teachers, OK, go ahead.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's what teachers say to students.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: Not to say that that's necessarily good either.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like that might need to be deconstructed and reconsidered.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: But he flipped it as though he were the one in charge of the whole deal.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I really noticed the flip where I was like, oh, you're not running this show.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: Nope.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: Can I just say that in that case, your ego, your sense of self served you very well.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because that was what was outraged.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's what was noticing.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: No, we're in the upside down world now where you think you're in charge.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: So thank God for your ego because it stopped you and allowed you to say, no, go.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, we circled back to the ego,
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: the sense of self that isn't inflated but is rather self-respecting,
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: aware of personal boundaries,
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: willing to stop someone else's unwelcome use and objectification.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: There is nothing wrong with this ego, point made.
• 32:04
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• 32:09
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• 32:10
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• 32:13
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• 32:15
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• 32:19
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• 32:23
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• 32:25
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• 32:27
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• 32:30
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• 32:35
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• 32:38
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• 32:42
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• 32:45
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• 32:47
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• 32:51
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• 32:53
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• 33:03
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• 33:10
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• 33:13
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• 33:16
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• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: to all this and support the show, which is fantastic for you to do.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, back to the episode.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: We've done some good work,
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: but before we move on to a resolution, there's a detail that's still niggling.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: There was another question I was going to ask earlier,
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: and I want to ask it now because you mentioned it again.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: What is this urge to smooth it over?
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, is that something that's specific to Andrew or is it an urge
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: that you have whenever anything goes awry in your classroom relationships
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: or relationships?
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: Is this something that's going to bother you that you weren't smooth?
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like,
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: it might just be knowing that I do have the skill set to smooth it over and that
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: a lot of times students don't realize that once they feel like they're
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: on their instructor's bad side,
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: That they're not forever on the instructor's bad side.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's nice for students to realize that.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: To realize like, oh, I actually turned out having a good connection with her.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: And like, I know that there was the potential for that.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like that's more representative of who I am and who I'd like to be as an educator.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: And since I couldn't follow that through and kind of finalize that part of what
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: the story could have been, I'm like, oh, I got cut short.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: Is the fact that he switched out of your class part of that?
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: Is there any regret that maybe he chose someone else over you
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: for some substantive reason because you were mean to him or whatever?
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: No, I feel like that was already in motion.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like, that's why he was so distracted and probably had a foot out the door.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: So probably it was just a coincidence.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: And if not, like,
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: all right,
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: good luck,
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: good riddance if you're leaving because you couldn't act normal in the class
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: and your professor called you out on it.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: But assuming it was just a coincidence,
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: it might have been a nice thing for that to be smoothed over.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: Got it.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: So you didn't take him personally,
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: but there's like a level in you that you really want him to know that
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: that interaction, that error on his part, you're calling him out.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that moment has nothing to do with the long-term potential for your relationship.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: You saw his behavior as unacceptable in the moment.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: And there's an instinct in you where you want to make sure
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: the relationship is Stays healthy, basically.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's how I would see it.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_03: I also was wondering if there was a best case scenario in your head.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_03: You said like, I'm happy with how I handled it, but I still have a little bit of guilt.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_03: Like boundary hangover or something.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_03: It's like you set a boundary and then you like have that sense of like, oh, maybe I should.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_03: But it's really just you asserting what needed to be
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_03: a boundary versus do you think there's truly a sort of better,
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_03: more optimal way that you could have...
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_03: Or is it just that kind of residual?
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_03: Like I had to tell somebody something that maybe was hard for them to hear.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I like the boundary hangover thing.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: I needed a few more classes with him.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: I needed to be able to sit next to him and see how he had done on his homework
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: to say, oh, I noticed you really understood this.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: Or, hey, do you know where my office is if you need me?
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: I just needed a few more interactions with him to establish that
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: that one interaction probably didn't feel great to him.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: Or maybe he didn't care.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even know.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: But that one interaction wasn't going to be the way they all were.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so it's more like the opportunities went away and I'm like, oh, well.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: I too love the concept of boundary hangover.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: I've never heard the term before,
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: even though I talk to teachers about the phenomenon all the time.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: When they do the right thing and set a boundary with their students,
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: their colleagues, family members, anyone, they report feeling guilty.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I get it.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: The fears and anxieties that taught us way back when to accommodate to everyone,
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: to sacrifice our own needs,
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: to take care of others' needs,
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: to either deny our personal boundaries altogether or to allow other people
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: to ignore them and plow into what I call our gardens, our personal space.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: Those fears and anxieties were real back then.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: And they feel real now.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: Even if we're in charge, as Claire is here.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: So that hangover,
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: that terrible feeling after having indulged our right to exist,
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: to say no,
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: to call someone out on a misstep or insult,
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: can keep us from celebrating our newfound courage and self-respect.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: Don't let it.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: If you feel that hangover,
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: first, be really glad it's not because you drank too much last night.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: And second, be proud of yourself for being a healthy adult and celebrate your strength.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: You rock.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: More specifically, in Claire's case, Claire rocks.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: now in my early 40s,
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like,
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: oh, I finally have arrived at the moment in my adulthood where I call people out.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: Usually
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: in
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: TSGs we end with a plan of action that puts into motion
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: the understanding we've achieved through our data-based guessing.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: But Andrew is already gone.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: There's really no plan of action that you can do with Andrew unless you want
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: to call him into your office, you know, just get in touch with him.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: But plans of action can be anticipatory.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: They can anticipate another instance like this one and capture what you want
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: to do differently next time.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: Or plans of action can reinforce a skill you've already demonstrated
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: that you know you'll need later.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: What's your takeaway and what plan of action are you thinking about going forward?
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_01: Plan of action is to continue trusting myself.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: It feels like a real...
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of privilege of being 20 years older than my students to be able
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: to feel like I have maybe some of the authority built into my head
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: that some men might have much earlier by default.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: so like the plan is just like, yeah,
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: you've arrived at this moment where you can really trust the facts
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: that you don't have as big a filter as you might have before.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: Again, this is thrilling.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: Claire is aware of how she's matured and loves her ability to show up for herself in
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: the heat of the moment.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah!
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: Go, Claire!
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: The ejectification thing...
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_01: Really resonates with me too and I think it's a really refreshing reminder
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_01: that we talk about objectification to do with like sexualizing people's bodies
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: but just taking like sucking my humanity or the interactional potential out of
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: that moment as though you could pause me or unpause me or replay me like you do
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: a phone fits to me and it explains it really well and it fits with
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_01: the generation he's in.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: So my big takeaway is the objectification can mean a lot of things.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: OMG, this is a great takeaway.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: Objectification happens all the time.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: It is not just sexual.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: When we idealize someone, we turn them into a statue on a pedestal.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: When we talk someone's ear off, we, well,
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: kind of pull their ear off their head,
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: discard the body, and hold their ear in front of our mouths until we're done.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: When we project our expectations onto someone, we turn them into a screen.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: When we hold our hand up to our teacher until we're ready for the replay,
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: we turn them into a phone.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: And the antidote to objectification is what I call resubjectifying,
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: reanimating yourself, showing up.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: As Claire says,
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: removing the filter that used to keep you silent in the face of insult
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: and instead speaking up honestly and directly, which can be really hard.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: But I tell the group, You don't have to be mean.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be aggressive.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: You just remind someone, I exist here.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in charge of my existence.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: You are not.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm in charge of the situation because I'm the teacher, right?
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: So the flip side of objectifying is resubjectifying.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the antidote to that kind of psychological force.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it's our job.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we can do for ourselves.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: So that's our axiom for this TTE episode.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: Respect your right to exist, right?
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: You exist.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_00: And thank God you do.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: You are awesome.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: You are doing incredibly important work.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: We need you to show up to students who behave inappropriately.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so how do you respect your right to exist?
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: In part, you notice when you're being objectified.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: One good clue?
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: A feeling of outrage and offense.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it means committing to resubjectifying.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: Showing up and representing your reality calmly, firmly, and unapologetically.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_00: Not like a bulldozer,
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: but with presence and flexibility and the same respect for the objectifier's reality
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: as you have for your own.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to like their reality, but you do have to acknowledge that it exists.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: Making good guesses about why it exists the way it does helps a lot, too.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we did in this TSG.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: We made a guess about why Andrew treated Claire like an object, like a phone.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_00: Our guess was that he couldn't help it.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: He's Gen Z.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: Under certain conditions, everything is a two-dimensional screen for him.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_00: But he can be corrected, which Claire did.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: One last thing.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: Our guess about Andrew might be wrong.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: Our generalization about Gen Z might be way off.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't really matter.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: What matters is that our guess,
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: right or wrong,
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: helps us forge some sense of understanding of our experience and importantly,
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: activates our compassion for ourselves and other humans.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_00: If we accomplish nothing else, that is a big win.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: So Claire has the last word or words.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thank you guys.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: That was really fun for me to dig into that.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: And a few more words about a month after this meeting when I followed up with Claire
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: about this episode and her takeaways.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, Claire, I'd love to hear what you're thinking or how you've experienced the past same month.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's like a month ago, month and change since I had this interaction.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_01: I really like that in the moment I was able to see it and react
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: because those moments are fleeting.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: They happen quickly.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: I recognized the moment and I acted.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I like that.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't feel guilt.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_01: The feeling I get after that is making sure I have a long-term plan.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like there's a trajectory to this.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: This isn't an isolated incident.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: At one point, I'm going to make sure that the student and I reconnect.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_01: And there's some kind of like attunement in some other regard so
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_01: that this isn't our only point of connection.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_00: Love it.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what was bothering you is that you couldn't have that longer trajectory,
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: which is the way you like to do it.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think whenever I have a student who has some kind of negative experience
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_01: in my class or in relation to me or my course material or if I have to call them in
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_01: for academic dishonesty,
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's a lot of value for them interpersonally in realizing
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: that there's more to that.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like our relationship is based on more than that.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_01: That I can have neutrality in the overarching sense and I can care for you in
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: the overarching sense and still call you out if I don't like something I see.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think this student,
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_01: there was such an abbreviated exposure between us that there's no process to us kind
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: of negotiating what the positives of our relationship could look like.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_01: And that's his loss.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: It is what it is for me.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_01: To me, I'm like, oh, he could have learned that.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of students come in not realizing that if they get on a shit list for
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: a second, they're not on it the whole semester.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: I would say that that's a real holding environment perspective,
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_00: that you recognize that your classroom is a developmental space that's safe
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: and healthy,
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_00: and that your role there is as a primary partner in the relationship,
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: and you recognize that it's not just It's not just,
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: are you going to do your assignments in this class?
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's,
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: are you going to grow and realize that this relationship is reliable and consistent
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: and useful?
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I think developmental partners and holding environments do and recognize.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the relational commitment, the relationship commitment, which I love.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: I love.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: And you're right, it's his loss.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_00: The hope is that he didn't take anything negative away from that.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: But we don't know because,
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_00: you know, our hypothesis was that Gen Z kind of objectifies everybody anyway.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_01: Fair.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_01: And there is more of that.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: I do think there is more of the forgetting that you're watching a real life person
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_01: and not like a real that happens.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: There has to be more of that because it wasn't even on the table as a thing.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: But I really do find my students in Gen Z to be quite self-aware about that type of thing.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_01: To me, it's not a pervasive problem with the generation.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think there are probably peers.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_01: There were two other boys in this group who were also Gen Z,
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: and neither of them acted like that.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact, I think they were kind of like, whoa, I can't believe you just did that.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, wow.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_01: He wasn't acting within the norms of the classroom, even based on what his peers were doing.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was circulating around every group, but it only happened to me once.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I've been working with this generation for semesters.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the most extreme case of it.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: Good to hear.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_01: I can blame it on the generation,
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_01: the environment he grew up around, like technology, blah, blah, blah.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_01: But I can't necessarily say it's all of it.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone is that way.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it's possible that in a generation,
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: a generation that spends a lot of time on screens,
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_00: that anyone is capable of turning anyone else into a screen when needed or
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_00: when it feels right for them.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: In this case, no one else in your class felt the need to turn you into a phone, into a screen.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: What about the realization about objectification?
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_00: This was an interesting object that he turned you into, the kind of pausable device.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's interesting.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: I also am thinking about myself like I'm a mother now.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_01: And pausing a human,
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_01: like a tiny human,
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_01: when you're on the phone call with the insurance agency and the pasta is boiling
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_01: over and you're trying to pause the TV because you don't even know why it's on.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like sometimes pre-screens,
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: pre-Gen Z, you have to say something like really like I got you to hold on.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that human dynamic isn't new.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: But the power dynamic and the way he did it in the class was new.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_01: The thing that actually got me more was when he resumed me.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's one thing,
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_01: if he's scattered and he doesn't do it quite right,
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: but it's when he tried to hit resume,
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_01: when theoretically his mind was a little bit more clear,
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_01: when he was ready to listen to me, that it was, okay, go ahead.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_01: That was the thing that I was like, oh, no.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like, no, no, no.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_01: I was trying.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_01: Now I'm talking to someone else.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_01: You missed your chance, buddy.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_01: You missed your chance, yeah.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't here on hold for you.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like, his assumption was that he could put me on pause and therefore resume.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_01: If he had just put me on pause and then I moved on and that was that,
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_01: I might not have noticed it in the same way.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_00: You have now developed a reflex reaction,
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_00: which is what I call, or what some call, reflection in action.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_00: Reflecting in action right here and now, being able to reflect, being able to note.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is just happening right now.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I'm going to do.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually it becomes a reflex you don't have to think about.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, good on you.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_00: You did it.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_00: So let's recap what you can take away from this episode in your own classroom.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_00: Even if your students' bodies are in your room, that does not mean they are present.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's obvious.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_00: Still, it's worth considering the many,
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_00: many distractions that are available to students and the fact
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: that these distractions have undoubtedly changed the ways our students are able
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_00: to experience reality.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: Look for evidence of the student's reality and offer corrective experience
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_00: to help them get into the classroom reality.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_00: They might need some explicit help to do this.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_00: Your ego can be a big help to you.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_00: Not to aggrandize your importance or value.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_00: Self-aggrandizement is what I call grandiosity or self-inflation.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_00: Not good.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_00: What your ego does is ground you in your sense of self and alert you to insults
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_00: or invasions of your garden, your psychic space, your rights and responsibilities.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_00: Your ego can trigger the moves you need to make to assert your boundaries
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_00: and reestablish interpersonal equilibrium.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_00: You're there and I'm here.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_00: We're distinct, but connected.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_00: In order for our connection to be healthy and generative,
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_00: you need to get back in your effing garden and respect mine.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_00: Objectification,
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_00: turning a human into a useful object,
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_00: is something every human being does a whole lot of the time.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_00: There's an entire school of psychoanalysis called object relations.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_00: It happens to be my favorite school of psychoanalytic thought.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_00: So using someone as an object is not necessarily insulting or violent, but it can be.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_00: Noticing moments of intolerable objectification,
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_00: even anticipating them and preparing yourself to resubjectify,
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_00: to show up as a human being is a great practice.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not clear on how this applies to you or your classroom, contact me.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_00: Leave a voice message, 413-239-4158.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'll get back to you and we'll have a lovely conversation.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, listeners,
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_00: leave a comment on Substack or review the podcast on the app you're listening
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_00: through and let me know what you think of this episode.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_00: Good, bad, ugly, helpful?
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_00: I really want to know.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_00: Of course,
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_00: positive reviews can help teachers and others find TTE and maybe benefit from it,
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_00: too.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: Until next week,
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_00: when we hear from these same college professors about getting back in their bodies
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_00: to manage their beginning of the school year nerves, which can really jangle.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you to the teacher who shared their story and to the group for participating.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_00: If this story hit close to home,
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_00: you can get in touch with me to learn more about TSGs and even request one
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_00: for your school, college, or university.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_00: You can email me at betsy at teachingthroughemotions.com.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_00: If you found a takeaway,
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_00: a question,
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_00: or an idea useful,
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_00: subscribe to Teaching through Emotions wherever you get your podcasts.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_00: And please drop us a review.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_00: It will let other teachers know that this podcast brings real support.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_00: For more tools and resources to support your teaching,
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_00: head to my substack, teachingthroughemotions.com, also linked in the show notes.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_00: There, you can get all the resources to fix your school year before anything hits the fan.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_00: You can also find out what type of teacher you are.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_00: Are you an empath, a chaos warrior, or maybe the nice guy?
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_00: Head to teachingthroughemotions.com to take the quiz and send it to a fellow teacher.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_00: Compare notes.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_00: Teaching through Emotions is a Podvision production.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_00: Executive producer is Julian Androkae.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_00: Editing is done by Jasper Chua.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_00: Audience development by Andrea Koskay.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_00: Theme music by Tom Burris of Jabbering Trout.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_00: Interstitial music by Grammy award-winning Brad Wells.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_00: Teaching through Emotions is a reader-supported publication.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_00: To receive weekly support and relief,
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_00: consider becoming a free or paid subscriber at teachingthroughemotions.com.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_02: It's all
• 52:14
  [music]