Resources

Jess’s “quick tips” for building a relationship with your students:

1. Learn their names, and use them often
2. Be the audience: ask intentional, open-ended questions and receive student’s answers with enthusiasm 
3. Caring but not carrying: don’t take it personally! Be generous with your students’ behaviors and remember they have a lot out going on outside of your class

Credits

AHA Pedagogy is produced by Forrest Pelsue. Our theme music was composed and performed by Aaron Edgcomb, who is also the editor. Special thanks to Marisa Orozco for her insight on podcasting, and to Luke Waltzer for supervising this project as part of the Interactive Technology and Pedagogy certificate program at the CUNY Graduate Center.

Transcript

[Intro music plays]

Hi! It’s me, your host, Forrest Pelsue, back with another episode about the challenges of teaching art history to undergraduates at a public university in the 21st century. 

That public university is the City University of New York, or as we call it, CUNY. Many CUNY grad students also teach, myself included, and being in front of a room of undergrads every week, most of whom have never had any exposure to art history, has raised a lot of questions for me about the nature of art history itself, and about what the discipline can do for intro-level learners taking the course as a general education requirement.

Here to help me work through some of these questions for this episode is Jessica Bal, a fellow CUNY PhD student and graduate teaching fellow. Jess has worked as a photojournalist and photo educator and her research focuses on documentary ethics, histories of photographic illusion, and emerging imaging technologies. Jess is wise beyond her years of teaching at CUNY thanks to her background in arts education ranging from middle school to graduate school classes. I was thrilled to talk to her about how to connect with students, the place of fun and games in the classroom, and how to balance “caring but not carrying.”

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Forrest Pelsue: Hi, Jess. 

Jessica Bal: Hi. 

FP: Hello. Thanks for agreeing to do this. 

JB: Yeah, of course. 

FP: I know we talked, the two of us, a lot, extensively, about teaching, but I’m excited to get you on tape. 

JB: Catch me on tape. Yeah. 

FP: No, I’m excited to have a little bit of a structured conversation and to share some of the insights that you have because they’re always so helpful for me.

But the starting question, what I always start with here, since we’re on the AHA Pedagogy podcast, is to ask what was an AHA moment that you had while teaching or in regard to teaching? 

JB: Yeah. Yeah, when you asked that, I was thinking not actually art history, but earlier, because you know that’s when my teaching experience comes before teaching here and teaching in a few different contexts, but especially teaching photography. And I think when I think of a very important moment that sort of influenced how I taught after, it’s when I first taught a middle school class. And I was teaching them photography after school. It was like a really fun program. But I remember just feeling like I did not know how to like handle a class of middle schoolers. You know, I was like, I don’t know what to do with their energy. The first class was messy, to say the least. Like, I, you know, came in with my stuff all planned. I was super prepared. And then it was like, kind of chaotic. And in particular, there was this group of boys at one of the little clusters of desks that were like, totally interrupting everything.

And I just had no idea how to respond. Like, I was like, I don’t know what to do with this and how to make this better. And so I remember going home and just being like, it’s gonna be a long semester. Like, I don’t know what I’m doing. This is so, like, scary to be in front of these middle schoolers and not know how to like, yeah, make this space work.

And so then, yeah, but I think my big moment was like, over time, I got to know each of the individual boys who were in that little desk area. And as I got to know them as individuals, I feel like then I sort of understood, like, first of all, this collective energy can be separated into different individual things that are going on, right? Like, it exists as a kind of disruptive energy. But in fact, each of these students are kind of expressing a different sort of need that they have. And like, one of them, for example, that I always think back to is this one kid who was totally the class clown and like, wanted to entertain everybody. And I remember just being like, I need to give him opportunities to shine and to feel funny. And he is funny. And I think once I got to this place where I could understand, like, what each of these boys kind of wanted to feel and how they needed to be seen, then actually, we had a lot of fun together.

You know, like, I remember as I started to design things that, like, made room for their personalities, it was like, oh, now we’re doing cool things. And that same student who was, like, so disruptive in the beginning, I remember at the end of the semester, I had a friend come in, he was a photojournalist, and he came and presented to the class. And this kid wore a New York Times t-shirt, which I didn’t even know he had, and asked so many questions. And I was like, look at how far this has come, right? Like, here I was thinking, I will never be able to work with this class and make us do the things we need to do. And then it was like, no, actually, you needed to tap into, like, who each of these students are and what would help them feel seen and understood.

FP: That’s amazing. I think this is something that’s come up when I’ve talked to you before, too, but just that instinct not to shut things down completely and not to just kind of distance yourself and become kind of disciplinary, kind of, you know, put structures in place to kind of, yeah, kind of tamp down on this stuff, but instead kind of getting closer to the students and always, like, your curiosity and your interest in your students, I think, comes across so strongly, and I’m sure that they feel it so strongly, you know.

JB: Hopefully.

FP: I’m sure that it makes such a difference in their learning, too. But I am curious about, because it’s a balance, right? Like, we can’t just kind of accept the students as they are and kind of let them run free. I mean, maybe we could – maybe we could? But I think there does have to be, there have to be boundaries. And that’s something I really struggled with in teaching is the kind of more disciplinary side of things, because I don’t want to be punitive, but you have to have some kind of boundaries.

And so I’m curious how you feel about either in that situation with the middle schoolers or in other situations in the classroom, how you kind of set up those boundaries that allow you to both get close with the students but also kind of maintain some order in the classroom.

JB: Yeah, and I think it’s, like, weird because it feels counterintuitive sometimes to be like, oh, I should be imposing these specific…like, it’s not that there are no rules in my classroom. There are totally rules in my classroom. There are definitely guidelines. There are definitely sort of, I would say, like, norms and ways that we act toward each other in the classroom that are kind of agreed upon. But I got to a place where eventually I started to decide that together with students doing community agreements and things like that. But also I find that, like, yeah, in a way that maybe feels counterintuitive but I think does work, when students feel seen and respected by you, I feel like they sort of give that back.

And it doesn’t mean that you won’t ever have a problem, but I just find that, like, when that is the tone, often I’m getting that same kind of energy back from students. And so it does allow me to set expectations and say: hey, this is when things are going to be due, this is how we are going to do this thing. I can give them instructions for an activity we’re about to do and they’re going to jump in and be here for it, right? Or I can kind of level with them when something goes wrong and be like, hey, you knew this thing was going to happen, then you did this. What was that about? Right? Like, we can, like, talk to each other about it. 

And I think I find that when that tone is set, that students are able to come to you in a way that’s, like, they, it’s almost like I don’t have to impose it because they already kind of know, like, ah, yeah, I sort of, like, didn’t do the thing we were supposed to do. Or, you know, I broke these guidelines or these things that we do together as a class or between me and you as a teacher, right? So instead of having to kind of, like, force it onto them, I feel like we’re kind of meeting somewhere and talking about how that, maybe that relationship was damaged in some way, if that makes sense. And so whether it’s to the class overall or whether it’s to me as their teacher or facilitator, but yeah, I don’t, it’s hard to explain because it doesn’t mean there’s no rules in the class. But I think that I find that, like, the way I approach classroom environments now, which is not how I used to, is that I kind of view it as, like, I’m trying to slowly gain the trust of students over time.

And then as I do, I find that it does, like, if I gain their trust, then I have their respect. And it’s a respect that feels deeper than, like, an authoritative respect. It feels like a much more mutual respect. And I feel like when we have that together, we do better things together in the classroom, you know?

FP: Absolutely, yeah. And it’s, it’s really a different kind of teaching that it really becomes… And I feel like for me, the thing I’m most interested in sometimes is not the material we’re covering, but it’s the student’s reaction to the material. And yeah, and just really kind of centering them, which, you know, ostensibly is what happens in every classroom. But I think sometimes it’s easy to get caught up in the structure and in the content and kind of lose the learners a little bit.

And it also just, it takes a lot of effort. It takes a lot of energy to commit to students in that way and to building those relationships and gaining that trust. Do you feel like, because we all know about, like, lesson planning or how to put together a lecture, I’m doing my PowerPoint the night before and I’ve got to add all the captions, you know, like, but what do you, are there things that you feel like you do to prepare to go into the classroom and build those relationships? Or how do you kind of navigate and balance, like, your own investment and time because you’re also a student and you also have other jobs, you know? 

JB: Yeah. Well, and also a thing you just said that I thought was really interesting was, it’s almost, I hadn’t thought of it this way, but it’s almost like, I think students can feel when, you know, you want to be invested in the material and the students, but I think students can feel if you are more invested in the material than them, if that makes sense. And so I’m always trying to make sure students know that I’m invested in them. And like, yes, of course I like the material. Of course I’m teaching it for a reason, right? But I feel like that’s the part I have to kind of convince them of is that I’m invested in them. Um, yeah, I don’t know. I’m a really meticulous, like, lesson planner.

Um, and I like backwards designing activities as well. So I think, but I think in terms of, like, prepping for relationships, I feel like that’s the part that I can’t prepare for, which is actually why I like it so much. I think to me, teaching is always, like, a space of growth for me because it requires you to be, like, at its, I think when I’m at my best as a teacher, I’m like incredibly prepared, like obsessively prepared, you know, like doing the slideshows, prepping all these different designs for how this activity is going to work and what kinds of questions and prompts we’re going to use, right. Thinking through everything and then getting into the space and being like, I always have to improv. I always have to respond to what students are giving me, which means that might throw off my meticulous organization a little bit, but like having to do that, I think is really healthy in general. I feel like it has made me like a better human as well, because we don’t get to control everything all the time, right. You have to be willing to be prepared and then move with what’s going on. 

So yeah, weirdly don’t, I guess the real answer is I don’t always know how to prepare.I think the best preparation for that is just experiencing many students over time and like learning. I can then now think back and say, okay, well, I’ve kind of come across something like this before with this other student. Maybe it’s something like this, right. Or, you know, I tried this with a student in the past, so maybe I can try that here. But I think it is just a culmination of experiences over time rather than something I can try to actively prepared for in a lot of ways..

FP: Do you, um, do you like, take notes or like a journal, like post-teaching on how things are going? It’s something I’ve tried to do and kind of, um, not been able to keep up with, but I’m, I’m interested in this idea of like kind of post, like we spent so much time before the class and then afterward, you know, it’s brought up so many things I’ve like, Oh, this happened.

That was interesting. Or I had to deal with this student and I did this and it worked or it didn’t work. But then is, do you just kind of have a catalog yourself in a way? 

JB: I’m curious, like, what do you write? Do you write things that are like an experience with a student or is it like people’s reaction to a specific artwork or? Because I haven’t done that. 

FP: When I’ve done it so far, it’s mostly like, it’s, it’s often around activities and I’ll say like, this took too much time or, um, students like lost interest here. Um, or just even notes for myself of like, make sure that you put a map or like, you know, these kinds of things. Um, and I try to, I try to note them while they’re still really fresh, but then I’m not always so consistent with it. But I’m just wondering when you’re kind of, you know, reflecting on these past, drawing on these past experiences is coming like from within you, do you have like a, uh, an archive?

JB: That’s interesting. Um, no, I haven’t like journaled after classes. I think maybe what I do is I always print out, at least for this art history course, right? Like I’ll print out, uh, the lesson plan, which includes all the notes of, you know, what we’re talking about in terms of the slides too. Um, and then sometimes I’ll write, I like frantically write in pen as I’m going along. And so that’s, and it’s usually notes that are like, it’s me figuring out the time, like, “Oh, that took 20 minutes instead of 30,”or whatever. But sometimes I’ll write notes that are like, Oh, add in this thing later. Like, and then I’ll come back to them. So I think I try to like note things that are just like, Oh, I could shift this about the lesson pretty immediately. And then I might even do it like at home when I get back and just be like, okay, switch those slides around or whatever. Because I know that then when I come back to it the next semester, I won’t remember.

I think the like social emotional stuff with students is more a brain catalog. Yeah. I don’t know that I’ve taken notes on it. I do think I verbally have conversations about it with people. Like, I think there are people, um, my sister actually being one of them, she’s four years younger, but she teaches high schoolers and has taught for longer than me and much more extensively than me. And so it’s more like the form of that is: me hopping on a call with her and being like, “Hey, I’m experiencing this thing with a student and I’m wondering about this, or, you know, um, I did this activity and I feel like it could be better, and I like, can’t quite figure out what the thing is.” I remember calling her about something sometime earlier this semester in preparation for something I was going to run that I’m doing this week. And I was like, I have a specific problem. And I was like, I feel like you’re going to solve this in five minutes. And she totally did. She was like, here are three options for how you could resolve this issue. Right. And then it was very much like you choose the one that makes sense for you though. So I think the social emotional stuff is often something I’m doing in conversation with people, but not so much writing down.

FP: Yeah, definitely. And I, I feel like we, we do that amongst ourselves too. Oftentimes people reaching out, Hey, has anyone had issues with AI? Yeah. Has anyone had issues with, you know, this kind of thing or the other? And yeah, always helpful to hear. Cause it is, like you said, it is, it gets to a point where, and I talked about this a little with Jenn because we have a pedagogy class and we can, you know, do so much to prepare, but then it gets to a point where it is really just the experience and being in the classroom and interacting with students. There’s really no other way to learn that. 

So on the topic of your experience, and your long, many years of experience that you actually brought into the program, because a lot of, at least for me, I didn’t have a lot of teaching, barely any teaching experience coming in. And I think many [PhD] students don’t. But for you, you actually have this background as an educator. You’ve worked with middle school students. 

JB: Who are so fun. 

FP: Yikes. 

JB: They’re so funny. 

FP: I can’t imagine. 

JB: They just have a lot going on. It’s middle school, you know? 

FP: Yeah. I try not to think about it too much. And then you also have done a lot of work with high school students, in particular, and leading a class for high schoolers on photography. And I’m curious how you think that’s shaped your approach to teaching undergraduates, but maybe also, because I’m sure it has, but maybe also how undergraduates are different, or how the differences that you see between these past experiences and the kind of CUNY undergraduate classroom experience.

JB: Yeah, totally. And my teaching experience, it’s like, I don’t want to misrepresent it, is both probably a little more than maybe the average [PhD] student coming in and teaching here for the first time. But it’s also kind of scattered. I think a thing that’s really still pretty common in New York City, and I’m sure in other places, is teaching artists who are bringing programs into schools and doing that. And so my first encounter with that was my first job here in New York City was at, it doesn’t exist anymore, but the Metropolitan Opera Guild, which is the nonprofit arm of the Met. And we did this opera-based learning programming in schools. And so I ended up, I was mostly documenting it and supporting this research, but I just was in conversation and watching lots of public school teachers, teaching artists who were teaching workshops, and teaching in schools. I was working with staff members there who were incredibly smart about pedagogy, so I just absorbed a bunch, even though I wasn’t teaching myself. 

And then when I got out and went to journalism school, then eventually, I kind of, because I knew of this teaching artist world a little bit, I started doing teaching artist work, and supporting other programs as well. But yeah, I am very grateful, actually, to have worked with middle schoolers and high schoolers first, and most extensively with high schoolers. Even when I was teaching high schoolers and working with younger students, I was also, somewhere in there, started teaching at the journalism school again. So I was teaching graduate students photojournalism as well. And it was interesting to have them both happening in tandem, because for me, in certain ways, actually, I felt like teaching teenagers made me better at teaching adults. And I also felt like they were not as different as people might think. 

In that, I think one of the big differences is with teenagers, I feel, and I love this about teaching teenagers, you get immediate feedback. It is so clear when you’ve lost the room. It is so clear if something is not hitting. It’s also really obvious when it is, and when you have actually gotten them really engaged in something. Because it’s just kind of like, yeah, they don’t hide it. Maybe they don’t even know how to hide it, right? Whereas I think when you work with adults, sometimes they’re being polite. We’ve probably been in that circumstance before where you’re pretending to be engaged or focused when maybe you’re really distracted, right? And we’re better at kind of masking that and just being polite. 

FP: And also holding back more, not being as expressive. Like you said, on the other side of things, oh, I’m so engaged. I’m so interested. It’s so hard. The room of kind of blank faces can be really challenging. 

JB: Yeah, yeah. And sometimes maybe on the negative side, maybe less expressive sometimes, right? There is, I think with adults, a little bit more of a worry about saying the wrong thing or getting it right. And I think with young people, what’s actually really fun is sometimes there’s less of a filter. And I kind of love that about them. And it means that we can just really jump in and engage a lot of the time. Once you get them kind of comfortable and warmed up, you do kind of get their raw reactions to things, which is really cool. 

And so I found that a lot of things I would kind of test in a space with teenagers, like specific activities or games or whatever. And then I could see how it worked. And I could kind of make sure it was functioning and engaging. And then when I would bring it to adults, it would work just as well. I would obviously scale it to make sense for adults. But I found that they also loved those activities. I was like, yeah, this works with teens and it works with adults. Because sometimes, even as adults, we just want to be engaged, right? We want to feel like we’re doing something interactive and we get to insert our own interpretation of something or discover something rather than be told about something.

So actually, I feel like the techniques felt really similar, surprisingly similar. And then adults would be surprised that we were doing these kinds of things. Because again, sometimes I think we sequester these kinds of ways of teaching just to young people as if only young people want to have fun. And I’m like, no, adults also want to have fun when they’re learning. 

Yeah, but I think one of the big differences is definitely, yeah, that I used to say this of teaching photography to teens versus adults, that I felt like with adults, there was almost this process, and this kind of speaks to the idea of being more quiet and reserved, like I had to kind of help adults unlearn some things before we could kind of get to what is it that you’re actually trying to do with this project or with this assignment or this photograph, right? What are you really trying to show? And what is your vision? It was kind of harder to get them there because there were these preconceived ideas of what is good and what is not good, and what I might be looking for as the teacher. Versus I think with young people and teenagers, I would find that a lot of times you just are there to “yes and” them. They have great ideas, they are already there. Maybe less people have told them no at this point in their life, and that’s kind of a good thing, right? And so that ended up just being a space where I could kind of boost the really cool ideas that they already had, and there was less unlearning that had to happen before we could do that. So for me, that’s a big difference between the two.

FP: I think it’s so interesting too that so much, that we can learn so much from like elementary education, even in a college setting. Because I think, in my experience so far is there’s a big emphasis on content. As I’ve said before, there’s big emphasis on these like learning goals for the students, which I don’t know how it is where you’re teaching, but for us, we have kind of set general education, learning goals that need to be in every syllabus for these classes that meet these requirements. And yeah, and I think that, I mean, I know, not to say that elementary schools don’t have these kinds of standards and curriculums that they’re working toward, but there’s something like a little freer, I think that you’re identifying in these other spaces, a little more open in the approach. And especially your comment about having fun, which I know is really big for you, also for me. This idea of game-based learning is something that we’ve worked a bit on and I’ll add a link to our major game-based learning project but maybe just to talk a little about, just like build a little bit more on that idea of fun and its role in the classroom, in the undergraduate classroom, the space where maybe we think, oh, it’s serious, time to get serious about our education. It’s time to like learn this content and how you’re kind of interested in flipping that a little or maybe some of your strategies. Beyond just a game, doing a game, what are some kind of strategies that you have in the classroom for making it more playful?

JB: Yeah, yeah, and also just because sometimes you’re making points that I really love. I think also just like wanna note that part of why, and this is why I also contact my sister when I need advice, right? I think like we should really value the expertise of elementary and high school teachers who genuinely do so much more teacher training than we have to do, right?I think I just have an enormous amount of respect having worked with a lot of those teachers in the past, like they know so much about pedagogy and they have to know so much about pedagogy. And so like there are so many times where I actually wish we were more in conversation with people who teach younger grades because sure, you have to scale it developmentally but a lot of the sort of core teaching principles still hold and make a lot of sense. So yeah, I don’t know, in the future it’d be lovely to see more dialogue between those. 

But yeah, in terms of fun, I think that’s like one of the core things I care about in the classroom. I think it sets, I’m a big believer that like it sets the tone for us to be able to do more with the content and like for me, tone allows us to get places. So yeah, I think sometimes it’s a full game. Sometimes you can’t do that. I think on a regular day, we’re not playing a whole game or doing something really extensive but I think I like having activities be inserted whenever possible. Sometimes I’ll do mini games. I’ve done things like that in the past where it’s like, it doesn’t take the whole class but we’re breaking out and doing something a little bit game-like. I think also I just often want there to be times in the classroom where people are having like less structured conversations with each other. So it’s not always that they have to talk directly to me at the front of the class or in front of the entire room full of people because not every student feels super comfortable with that which I think is okay. And so, yeah, I find that’s often where fun happens too because this is like a more casual space where people can have a conversation. Maybe they’re talking about an artwork but I can also like walk around and I hear them say really funny things to each other about this stuff that like maybe they wouldn’t say out loud in front of everybody but then I get to like stand there and talk with them and be like, that’s really fun. And I think like getting to see their personalities emerge in these more casual spaces is really important. 

And yeah, also I think in general, like I try, I don’t know how to explain this exactly but I feel like I try to bring an air of like, I don’t know that I’m the kind of teacher who wants to be, I’m not like trying to be the standup comedian in class. You know what I mean? Like I think there are people who have like this charisma that they bring to their teaching where they’re like incredibly funny. And I think I make jokes and I’m silly about stuff but like a friend of mine told me this once and I think it is true. She was like, “I feel like you’re a really good audience.” And I was like, I kind of know what she means. And I think that when it comes to teaching, what that looks like is I sort of, I like to reflect and mirror back to students what they’re giving me which is often about amplifying what they say that’s entertaining and fun. And like, yeah, like I am sometimes the, I don’t know, the straight man to their funny, you know? Like I’m just kind of like responding to that. I do that a lot with teens but I even do that with the undergrads where it’s like, I want you to see how interesting and fun that comment is that you made. And like, if you see that reflected in me, it’s amplifying it for the room, right? So yeah, weirdly I think that is my technique is being a good audience. Even if I’m at the front of the room, I’m trying to almost take that position of being the audience to them in some ways.

FP: I love that. That’s so amazing, just that shift. It’s so easy, yeah, to stand at the lectern and see the students as, you know, that it’s very one directional. But to just rotate that 180 degrees and place yourself as the audience, that’s great, that’s so great. And then also, yeah, I guess just to talk just a little bit about, you know, fun, you know, creating space, letting the students be themselves. But, you know, it’s, I think games and fun, playfulness can be easily dismissed as non-serious, as, as non-academic. And so I’m wondering, because I know you’ve also thought a lot about this, thinking critically and thinking pedagogically about fun, how do you, I don’t want to say justify it in the classroom, but there’s a reason, right? There’s a reason. It’s not just because you’re a fun person. Like you said, you’re not the stand-up comedian. What is your reasoning behind creating that kind of, or bringing that kind of fun and play in?

JB: Yeah, totally. And it is a misconception that it’s like, if you’re having fun, it’s not rigorous is kind of the thing I think people sometimes feel. I think for me, like fun and trust go hand in hand in that both of those elements, I guess at baseline are about opening up the space to take more risk, which means if we’re having fun, people, if we’re having fun and if students trust me and each other, then they’re able to be more honest. They’re able to say things that maybe they would be nervous to say if this felt like a really kind of sterile space, right? Or if they felt like everything was being really harshly judged, or if they felt like we couldn’t laugh together, right? And so I think it is about kind of like, it weirdly feels like it’s about lowering the stakes to actually make us be able to do more. 

I find that like the most exciting moments for me in the classroom and the most rewarding stuff for me in the classroom is when I feel, and it’s never like the first day, right? It’s further along in the process when we’ve established some trust, when we’ve set this tone of we have fun together, there’s camaraderie in some way. Like then I see students do something outside of their comfort zone that maybe they wouldn’t do if they didn’t feel that that was there. And I, those are transformative moments, right? Like they don’t have to be big transformations, but I know that they happen because students feel they have a comfort level. And if that comfort level isn’t there, they can’t take that risk. They can’t do that thing that’s like a little bit uncomfortable for them. 

And so, yeah, it’s not a waste of time. It is like exactly the thing that enables you to do higher level things together. I think it is normal and human to not want to take risks when you feel like the stakes are really high and that like you’re being set up maybe for total failure. But when you feel kind of safe in a space to do stuff, then you’re like, okay, yeah, I could try that thing or I could try out this idea, right? And so I think it is very much about setting the tone that we can do things. As we move forward, we can do things that are harder and scarier and talk about more difficult things and, you know, and we know that we can do that together.

FP: Yeah. And I think there’s something too, maybe, about either that sometimes the stakes feel too high and so students don’t want to engage or they’re not invested and they’re not interested. They’re not engaged. So why would they engage? And I think engaging them in this other way, it’s like a kind of sneaky approach. You’re like, okay, if you’re not going to let me in the front door, I’m going to like come around the back, kind of sneak the learning in, in this way that maybe you weren’t expecting, which is very fun. 

JB: Well, and if they feel like you care about them, I think immediately people care more about what you’re doing together, you know, like I just think people, I really do think all people, but definitely young people really want to be seen and like genuinely seen and understood and like so often they’re not.

And so if you can create a little feeling of them actually being seen and be like, oh, you respect me. You actually think I’m interesting or cool or whatever. Like lots of things can happen from that point, I find. 

FP: If we were to, if you have like maybe three like quick and dirty tips for like “how to get your students to trust you.” I mean, obviously it’s like you said, it takes a long time, multiple classes, but I’ll, I’ll throw out one that seems obvious and important to me. It’s like learn their names. 

JB: Yes.

FP: I think it’s a big one that it’s not always given and it’s hard when classes are really big, but knowing someone’s name, I think it makes a difference for me to be able to like identify them as individuals and I’m sure it helps them feel recognized. Do you have other like kind of…. 

JB: I think learning their name and using their names often, like making it really clear to them early on that you know who they are, you recognize them in class. What other things do I feel like happen that we do? I think… it’s like interesting to try to break down what is, I don’t know, a process that feels very, you know, like social, but yeah, I think…

FP: Obviously these are part of like a bigger project, but if there’s a few little things like what you can do in the classroom tomorrow to like start this process. 

JB: Yeah. I think making room for, again, more casual conversation, not having to always be controlling the conversation, which I think like group work is a space that just makes that really easy. It like, yeah, I think there’s this way in which if every conversation feels like you’re watching over it, then like it’s hard to totally get comfortable. 

And yeah, and I think I’ve heard this from students too, I guess, and I didn’t even realize that this was such a big thing or maybe a factor, but like I think sometimes students, when they answer questions in class, if you’re trying to open up for conversation, being thoughtful about like what questions you’re asking and why, right?I think that sometimes we in a classroom ask questions that are meant to be like, there’s a right answer to this and I’m waiting for someone to give me the right answer. And I will say, I’m sure I don’t always, always do this, but I really try not to ask questions that are like that. Like I really, if I’m going to ask questions to the class or I’m going to open it up, it’s because I actually feel like there’s a lot of nuance there and room for people to say things right. Like I’m not trying to trick somebody into landing on the right answer. That’s not the point of conversation. That’s not the point of questions. And I think when students feel like when they raise their hand, if you start to establish this like atmosphere of talking in class, I’m always going to like hear what you have to say. I’m going to receive it and then pull something from it. You know, even if it’s like, oh, okay, I hear this thing, but I think we can add more complexity to that or whatever. Right. But like not, I think students feel really turned off when they speak up in class and then feel that that thing is rejected completely, right? Because it is not fitting a specific thing that they didn’t know that you were looking for. Right. So maybe it’s about like designing those questions to feel really open and to feel like I’m, if I’m inviting this, it’s because there are lots of right answers. And I think that then that makes students kind of gradually feel like, oh, I can talk in this class. It will be received. It’s not going to be shut down. 

FP: Yeah. That’s great. So it’s like learn their names, use their names. Don’t ask leading questions. Or maybe, ask really open ended questions. Or just be intentional. Yeah. About asking open ended questions. 

JB: And my one that I’ll add, and this might be controversial, but I think we were talking about this. We were talking about sort of like, I think pressures that we have to have certain kinds of late policies or policies around like phones and phone usage and things like that. And I have lots of complex feelings we don’t have to get deep into here. But like where I’m at right now is that I try not to impose policies that feel like as much as I can, I’m trying not to create something that feels like surveilling and something that feels, I don’t know, because I think in a lot of ways I’ve had students reflect back to me that it does feel helpful when they understand that a professor doesn’t assume that if they’re tired in class, that it’s because they don’t like the class, right? Because it’s not always that they don’t like the class. It’s sometimes that they had a really late shift at work and they’re tired and it has nothing to do with you. 

And so I guess like maybe to frame that better, I think my third thing is like I am always working toward this, but I think learning to not take things to be personal most of the time in the classroom often leads me to behaviors toward my students that feel more generous and fair. And so I’m always trying to kind of take a step back and be like, “Okay, am I feeling frustrated about this because this really doesn’t work for our classroom space or am I feeling frustrated because I feel personally offended,” right? And like if I feel personally offended, why? And sometimes if I dig in a little bit on that, I’m like, that’s an ego thing, right? I have to let go of that because maybe this student is just tired for some other reason, right? Like it’s not about me. And I think the more that we can kind of be realistic about what things are about us as teachers and what things are just not really about us, it becomes a lot easier to kind of, yeah, just respond to them in ways that actually make sense to what it is. Because I do find that most of the time it’s not personal. And when it is, I find that it’s actually really easy to know that. Once you stop assuming all those things are that, the ones that are, are very clear and you can set boundaries, right?

FP: So true. Yeah. And yeah, and that student who’s sleeping for the first half of class, you know, comes to and is so engaged for the second half.

JB: They come back!

FP: They come back. 

JB: But like good assumptions, I think, towards students is maybe the method there, yeah. 

FP: And, and for this student, this class, it’s like such a tiny slice of their life, right? Yes. It feels, I spend so much time thinking about this class because it’s my job and I care about it. But they spend very, compared to me, very little time thinking about this class, right?

JB: Totally. 

FP: Just kind of, yeah, I guess it’s kind of like, like you talked about lowering, you know, how to lower the stakes for students through, through play, but maybe it’s also like lowering the stakes for yourself a little in the classroom and, and not caring so much — not carrying, not—still caring, but not carrying so much of like, oh, if they aren’t behaving perfectly it’s because of me. 

JB: Yes. Yeah. And it comes back to like, okay, like maybe they’re not behaving perfectly because they hate being here. And sometimes it’s because one of them is the class clown and just wants people to really laugh at his jokes.

Right? Like it’s oftentimes there’s just, there are other needs that are happening in the classroom that have nothing to do with the class itself. And like recognizing that that’s just a part of the atmosphere is I think good and healthy. I like that idea of like caring, but not carrying. That’s a good, that’s a good way to put it. 

FP: A little motto, yeah. So just to wrap up a little, I want to ask you, this is another thing I like to ask from all of my, my interviewees is about a teaching object, something that you like to use in the classroom, an artwork, a text, maybe an activity, something that you come to time and again.

JB: my object is my really nerdy laminator that I have at home that I bought online very cheap and you can buy little lamination sheets and then you can laminate anything. And I think I started to use this a while back particularly because even when teaching photography, sometimes we’re looking at examples of photographs and now teaching art history, there’s always examples of objects that we want to look at. 

So a thing I do a lot is I print out, like say, you know, there’s an activity where, for example, we look at Carrie Mae Williams’s “Kitchen Table Series.” Right. So I print out, you know, a handful of the images from that series, enough that I think they can look through in, you know, a certain amount of time and then I’ll laminate them so they look a little bit nicer and they’re like more kind of yeah, like objects that we can use again and again.

And I often do that in class where we’ll break out for an activity in groups and they will have a set of laminated objects or just a single image that they’re looking at together. And I kind of like returning to this really tactile learning where it’s not just up on the screen really big, it allows us to do that together separately in groups, but also to like hold something, right, and kind of have this more intimate experience of having to pass it around to each other or gather around and look at it together. And yeah, I think that’s an object I use all the time. I constantly laminate things. I joke about how silly it is how many laminated things I have, but I find it really, really useful. 

FP: Awesome. Maybe I’m going to hit you up to borrow your laminator sometime.

JB: You can always borrow my laminator. I just want it to get the most use possible. 

FP: Laminating session. Well, thank you so much, Jess. It’s been such a pleasure talking with you about this as always. 

JB: Cool. Thank you so much. I’m really excited to listen to this, the whole podcast season.

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This brings us to the end of our third episode, and of our first season of AHA Pedagogy. Find resources like ideas for game-based learning activities and tips for connecting with students on our website: ahapedpod.commons.gc.cuny.edu