Making Meaningful Connections with Jean Ryoo
In this interview with Jean Ryoo, we discuss equity as an evolving idea, what an ideal CS class looks like, collaborating and learning through research-practitioner partnerships (RPPs), the importance of examining our own biases, the importance of community, working through burnout/depression/anxiety, helping students through depression and suicidal ideation, the problems with whitewashing in education, and so much more.
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Welcome back to another episode of the
CSK8 podcast
my name is jared o'leary each episode of
this podcast alternates between an
episode where i
unpack some scholarship in relation to
computer science education
and episodes where i interview a guest
or multiple guests
in this particular episode i am
interviewing jean rue we discuss equity
as an evolving idea
what an ideal computer science class
looks like collaborating and learning
through research practitioner
partnerships also known as rpps
the importance of examining our own
biases the importance of community
working through burnout depression and
anxiety and on that topic we also
discuss
how to help students through depression
and suicidal ideation
which by the way i know are very
difficult topics to discuss and i really
appreciate gene's
vulnerability in these conversations and
hope they are helpful for you
and these students that you work with
then our conversation actually moves
into a discussion on some of the
problems with whitewashing that goes on
in education
and so many more topics this was a
wonderful interview with gene and i
really hope you enjoy it if you do
i hope that you consider sharing with
somebody else who might be able to
benefit from the wonderful conversation
that i had with jean
which by the way we do mention many
different resources and podcasts and
things like that so if you go to the
show notes which you can find in the app
that you're listening to this on
clicking the link in the description or
simply going to geritolia.com
you'll find a lot of resources in the
show notes as well as on the website
but with all that being said i hope you
enjoyed this interview and it will now
begin with an introduction by jean
hi everyone so excited to be here with
you today my name is jean rue
and i'm the director of research of the
ucla computer science equity project
you tell me the story of how you became
interested in researching computer
science education
the reason why i got into computer
science education in particular
is not because i have a background in
computer science but
just the reality that computer science
education is a window into the way
inequality
exists and is reproduced in public
education
so for me that was sort of like the
initial hook right because prior to
my work in computer science education
research i was
a middle and high school teacher in
social studies in english
what originally drew me towards that was
sort of that
opportunity to think critically about
the world around us
and to do that in collaboration with
students right that
it wasn't like here i'm going to teach
you a bunch of dates to memorize
and like what happened on those dates
and i'm going to quiz you but rather
like
hey let's think about history let's
think about like sociology like why is
it that
our world is structured the way it is
and how is it that power
ends up being distributed and how is it
that we have these specific values and
ideas about who should be doing what
and so i feel like those same things
bubble up
in computer science education when we
really look deeply at
why is it that only a certain small
percentage of students
have access to quality computer science
education
why is it that when we look at the field
of computing it continues to be male
dominated and dominated by
specifically white men and certain asian
men
not all asian types of asian which of
course asian is such a huge
and very diverse community of people but
i think that that was sort of originally
what got me interested
so i was like wow look at this field and
i was particularly inspired by jane
margolista's book
stuck in the shallow end because it so
clearly
outlined the ways that institutional
racism and sexism
and class oppression were getting you
know
built into computer science education
on the pathway towards computing careers
but on top of that as i began to learn
more
i was also really drawn to the
opportunity that computer science
creates
for us to rethink and totally reform
education
because since computer science is such
this like new world
in the world of education right it's a
new subject matter even though computer
science has existed for many decades
it's still such a new and budding and
fresh thing
in public schools and the world of tech
is
still considered this like the space for
innovation
the space for thinking about the world
in a different way the space to like i
kind of hate this term but disrupt right
disrupt what we've come to think is
normal
and so in that same regard even though
computer science education
has been reproducing the same
inequalities that we've been seeing
in other fields like math or science at
the same time
it's this world where we believe
there's room for completely new ways of
thinking
and it's in that area of hope that i
really
um i'm excited to work because i think
it gives us an opportunity to say
hey you don't have to shape curricula or
pedagogical practice
in the traditional ways that we've been
taught
we can actually think outside the box
with this completely
new and innovative field so let's do
that
and make our schools better places and
not just in this world of computer
science but if we try it out in this
world of computer science
maybe that can filter into the ways that
we teach math or these the ways that we
teach other subjects
that aren't particularly humanizing or
liberating
for our youth yeah that really resonates
one of the reasons why i wanted to have
you on the show is because like in our
prior conversation they're just like
okay this is wonderful it's very much in
alignment with
my own thinking and whatnot but i'm
curious when you first began working in
education
what was something that you believe that
you no longer believe that has now
since changed something that i used to
believe
is that equity was a place that we could
get to
like you know like utopia and that'll be
that i no longer believe that
not because i've become a total like
cynic or pessimist
because i do think that we can work
towards it but rather
i think that equity is an ever evolving
and changing
concept and idea because we as humans
are always
constantly evolving and changing and
growing so the things that
i personally saw as like a goal for what
i think
teaching and learning should move
towards 10 years ago
same
now my idea and definition of equity is
different and i think that that's a good
thing
and that the more that we really
examine how we're thinking about justice
and how we're thinking about
how we do right by our students and our
communities
the more we'll see that there's always
something else that we can improve on
and keep changing
which means kind of these incremental
shifts
towards a more humanizing and better
world
i really do believe that we can continue
to get better and better
but i never want to become complacent
and think that we've
reached the best possible i guess is
what's changed in my perspective
yeah that makes a lot of sense i like
the idea of equity just continually
evolving and changing in context and the
times and whatnot
let's say there was like the ideal cs
classroom
if you were to walk into that what would
you see hear or experience
i think for sure the educator wouldn't
just be at the front of the room
lecturing
i think that that's kind of a given no
no like banking education approach
i think that students and educator
would be seated in a way that doesn't
feel like
just strict rose but there's space for
movement and kind of like getting up and
talking to another person across the
room about an idea
sharing like most likely i guess that
means we're not on desktops but
we're probably on like laptops or
sometimes no computer at all but like
really
being able to move around and show like
this is what i'm working on what do you
think oh that's cool i would suggest you
try this
but what do you think of my thing and
you give me input really that sort of
interactivity and support of creativity
in a way that also like builds community
i think that people would be really
engaged maybe there'd even be like
music playing maybe you know i think the
space would also be beautiful
it wouldn't be you know fluorescent
lights and
white boards i think for example my
teacher partners classroom
miss alicia morris who teaches in los
angeles unified school district
and she has all of these different
corners of her room where there are
these
beautiful old machines like
early apples early like pcs
the interior parts and not only
computers she's all she also teaches
fashion so there's also like an old
sewing machine
and she has this wall of these like
anything from like
wired magazine to like vogue to like
and just that also represent different
people
and cultures and communities you know
it's not like just white faces right
and it's not just about computer science
it kind of
computer science and its overlap and
everything in the world and
there's plants and there's like there's
lamps
that have warm light it's not just the
usual fluorescent lights on the ceiling
it's
the center table is like this heavy
large wood table that has chairs around
it
that her fashion students embroidered
like or reupholstered rather i should
say
you know there's a beautiful rug and the
other tables where students are sitting
are also
organized in groups and students don't
just have their one seat all the time
like maybe the beginning of the school
year but
it's something that also shifts and
evolves as
you know students figure out who they
want to work with and who they work well
with and they're productive
i think also the way it would sound is a
lot of conversation and
not just the teacher's voice again but
also conversation
not only about like programming language
but actual discussion and question
and sharing of personal beliefs
and having open debate about
real issues of ethics social
responsibility
questions of how is this computing tool
that we're thinking about or creating
impacting our communities and our
families or us
i think that should be baked into almost
every creative
computer science lesson where students
are creating an artifact
or analyzing an artifact that's been
created where the questions
raised are not just how do we make this
work more efficiently and how does we
make this
app more beautiful but also what is the
experience of
someone who's visually disabled with
this app
what can you do to make it accessible
what is the experience
how the experience of you know your
abuela
who's like in her 70s and doesn't speak
english well
what is her experience going to be with
this app compared to
like a 17 year old asian boy
you know and why does that matter and
what are the challenges that
arise and what does it mean for us to
have the power to be the creators
making these decisions what
responsibility do we have to others to
be thinking about our power as we make
these creations with computer science
yeah if i were to kind of like
rephrase what you just said into one
word for me
it sounds like connection is a big part
of
your ideal computer science-based
connection with each other in terms of
kids communicating working with each
other in dialogue connection with
actual artifacts that have an impact on
the world
in the moment and in the past whether
it's like a new or an older device and
being able to connect with that but then
also connection with the community
outside of the walls of the classroom
or the space in which kids are learning
within that i'm curious
like how would you encourage
teachers to make those connections so
it's not just this abstract thing that
you're learning that's only relevant
within that confined
space but is applicable and meaningful
and has some kind of an impact in the
communities in which kids live
i think that's a beautiful question and
we should be designing more curriculum
professional development
towards that exact thing first of all
to have any connection at all requires
educators
and students to really get to know one
another in a two-way street right
so i think that's something we need more
professional development on
you know like what are the social skills
what are like the you know the practices
necessary
and how do we make sure to really
memorize all of our students names
because i know there are lots of
teachers who they don't end up
remembering all their students names
even halfway through the school year
right
why do we make that a priority and that
first step
is necessary because without that you
don't really
get to understand your students their
interests their passions their needs and
then how to connect to those
nor do you really understand their
communities and the community around the
school
unless you really get to know students
and end up spending time with
you know going to their sports games or
going to their music performances you
know
and really getting to see how they are
outside of your classroom
i think that also means getting to know
what are the outside community
organizations they're involved with
so for example i'm thinking like in one
of my partner schools in la
there is a program called the las fotos
project
where you know one of the students i
worked with she was really active
in that community and so you know i'm
just a researcher in space right i'm not
an educator
but i just think about like how much i
got to learn about her when she invited
me to her
final like las photos presentation and i
got to see
like what she made her project on and
what the other students here in the
program made projects on
and why they were drawn to working in
photography for a purpose
elevating voices in the community you
know like if all of her teachers saw the
sight of her
how would they rethink the way that they
teach english or social studies
spanish science computer science
that would build on the connection and
then perhaps even build like
collaborations with that non-profit
organization you know so it's kind of
that domino effect
but i guess not sure if i fully answered
your question but i could see that like
building those connections it's really
hard work
and i think all of us could use some
professional development in it but
i could see how that would be really
powerful if there were those connections
made between classroom
and students real lives and communities
yeah and to have that agency to
share one's identity and to learn more
about others
like with the lost photos and you're
mentioning of like
paulo freddy like it it sounds like
decolonization
in terms of yeah you're getting to know
students that's great that's wonderful
but it's also decolonization in that you
are not trying to police the
ways of being and valuing that students
have
and encouraging them to actually bring
that within the space
and just be themselves and i think that
really important and that really
resonates with me
yeah 100 agree that's actually one of
the things in the back of my mind i was
thinking about when you said what would
it
like a really strong happy i don't
remember your exact phrase but the
computer science classroom like the
ideal computer science classroom what
would look like
because i think that students are open
and talking and engaged
when they feel that their entire selves
are being welcomed in the space in a way
that's like
yes i see how your perspective your
experiences are
assets to learning and i want you
to feel fully comfortable here and
that's when it's like okay
so i feel comfortable here so i feel
comfortable speaking my mind
and getting into debate and discussing
things that are challenging
and being willing to persist through
things that are challenging
so yeah totally how has that kind of
changed over time like your
understanding of that ideal what you're
looking for within the class
how has that changed over time because i
feel like that is that that ideal is
something
that i've always felt i'd want to see in
a classroom
from when i was a teacher to now working
with teachers and
observing teachers amazing work in their
classrooms
i myself and never reached that
ideal i think there's you know in my
early years of teaching it was like
i did the best i could and i had amazing
relationships with students
that i'm still in touch with some of
them today and
i think that i've always thought that
that idea was important because i think
that's what
drew me to education to begin with are
the relationships it's what draws me to
research actually
my favorite part about being a
researcher is
the time that i get to spend with
teachers and students and collaborate
with them in their space on their ground
on their terms
and develop kind of like a shared world
together
and to me that's like the best part
of my job is really those connections
what's something that has surprised you
about your
cs education equity work it's not
something that i planned
for but it's something that like looking
back
i'm like well obviously this makes so
much sense
it's just like the lifelong friendship
that
has developed with my partner teacher
in my research practice partnership in
la i guess
like sort of the unexpected when we
started working together
in this very professional relationship
of let's
elevate students voices and i'll be in
your classroom at least once
a week for two class periods and a lunch
period every week
or a full school year and we started to
spend a lot of time together
and like and also time after school
together talking about
observations and field notes and
interviews with data
over like a glass of wine and just like
also getting to know each other
and now she's family to me and i know
we're gonna be friends
till our like last breaths on this earth
and i think that's sort of like a
beautiful sort of
bonus to getting to be a researcher and
getting to do the work i get to do
i'm curious so i'm on a couple of rpps
right now so i'm
familiar with it and really enjoy it and
value the approach
but if there's an educator who's like
okay
why would i want to be in an rpp and
what is it but then
what would you also say to like a
researcher who
hasn't tried an rpp before like what are
the benefits for both like a
practitioner and for a scholar
well in my experiences in research
practice partnerships
um and i've worked in several over the
past
i guess since like 2014 the way
i approach research practice
partnerships is not the only way
so take what i say with a grain of salt
but i would
say that it requires a sense of
vulnerability and openness to trying
something totally different
and also humility and a willingness to
hear other people out
and try to see things from their
perspective and
not always feel like you have to be the
one with the answers in the room
because i think that is sort of the
thing that's similar to both researchers
and educators is that
we've been taught we have to be right
all the time and we have to have the
answers and we have to be ready to
answer everyone's questions
and we have to like be sure that what
we're doing is you know
but we all make mistakes and we all are
capable of learning
new things but we often don't want to
show that side of ourselves
to others in my belief working in
research practice partnerships it's one
of like the challenging things about it
is being open to changing your approach
to how you teach or how you conduct
research
and make room for other people in your
space
and in your mind and in your brain
while that can be challenging at first
it's also
i think the part that's the most
beautiful about it is something
better and richer really authentically
can come from that
because of the different perspectives
that are swirling around each other
and this like beautiful kind of like
music making together right is these
like voices coming together to sing
together
about what we're seeing together in a
classroom
what we're trying to make better
together and then to be able to
translate that
to an audience that's not just our usual
typical audiences right so like a
researcher's academic audience or an
educators like school-based audience
store students
like how do we make what we learn
together
helpful to others and to do something
that can be put into immediate practice
like
that part i think is also so awesome
about research practice partnerships
that focus
on like let's make sure this work that
we're doing together these research
questions
or the data we collect or what we can
make of the data
can feed back to the educational spaces
we
are working in for like this constant
improvement on both ends and i
definitely have felt that with like
again alicia morris who i work very
closely with where
you know i shared all my field notes
with her which i know some researchers
don't like to do that because it's again
vulnerability right
i've described everything that i've seen
in your classroom here
i've including my observer comments
where i'm like having my own like
internal reflections because of
something i experienced in your
classroom
i'm just putting myself out there for
you and she took it with
open arms and she would like write
feedback she would edit things
she would ask questions and not always
like within the 24 hours i gave it to
her but
she didn't ever leave one missing and i
think that
process really brought us closer but
also helped us
see like you know week-to-week
shifts in terms of what i should be
focusing on in my observation or
questions i might ask
students in the moment while they're
working on a project
and shifts she might make in the way
that she works with
specific students whose personal stories
she didn't necessarily hear because they
told me but they didn't tell her
and vice versa as a researcher how i
might maybe work with one student whose
backstory i didn't hear about but that
she knows about and so that changes the
way that i behave
to make sure that that student is
comfortable and that i can be like
another supportive adult not just like a
weird fly on the wall or a person who
creates more barriers for that student
right but yeah my research practice
partnerships in this like student voice
research that
i'm currently working on is has been
very intimate
i know that a lot of research practice
partnerships tend to be large scale
right
which i don't really do right now but i
support a larger scale research practice
partnership that's being led by julie
flapp and roxanna haddad
on our team and that's been amazing and
i love like the events we're working
with administrators across the state of
california
but that looks very different than this
like intensive research practice
partnership with
one teacher in la that i've really
gotten to know you know
and i hope to build that kind of
relationship and closeness with my
partners in mississippi
as well but i guess going back to your
question yeah what would i tell a
teacher and what would i tell a
researcher i think
those things like the importance of
being vulnerable and open
and being willing to try to do something
different
and together like to try to find that
shared space on equal footing to build
that
yeah if i were to add on to that i would
also say that
there's a tendency in cs education in
particular where
the k-12 teachers in general don't have
a strong background in computer science
they do have a strong
background in pedagogy and how to teach
and then it's the opposite for
higher education faculty generally
speaking that cs education
tends to be a strong background in
content knowledge but not necessarily
a strong background or a set of
experiences with teaching and so having
that partnership to kind of exchange
those ideas
and to like fill in the strengths and
weaknesses of
the other person like i think is
extremely valuable and i
personally have really enjoyed going to
like sixty
which is typically mainly for academics
and they'll have
in the rpp sessions teacher voices
actually there so it's not just
scholars talking to scholars and then
when you go to something like csta
then it's the opposite of that so
typically csda is more for practitioners
but they'll have
higher education faculty coming in and
talking about scholarship and whatnot so
like
getting it so that both this is a false
binary but
practitioners and scholars are
communicating and collaborating with
each other i think is extremely valuable
i totally agree it's been amazing
experiences i've got to have
now in computer science and previously
when i was working at the exploratorium
the tinkering studio
just these like and i love the people
that i met through that work
and i was still friends with too it's
just that like that close work together
you begin to see the world differently
in a way that's really beautiful
if you were to like be able to just like
hat up the magic wand and you can wave
it and make
any kind of change to help teachers
understand something
or make some kind of a change
policy-wise around
your interests in researching like
student voice what would you hope
to change if you were to be able to wave
that magic wand
that's a hard one because there's so
many not to say that like
educators are the problem at all but
that there's so many
interconnected things that i would want
to have prioritized in our work i guess
one thing is the magic wand
of like how do we make it so everybody
examines their biases if we all have
this starting point of
really looking at ourselves and
our stereotypes about others and
students other teachers our work
then maybe we would begin to see
why it's so important this is why i'm
like having difficulty with this
question because like i feel like that
goes hand in hand with also
if there was like magic wand on policy
curriculum pedagogy where it's like yes
computer science
education should not be taught divorced
from student identity our socio-cultural
context
our historical and political contexts
that's
i guess the other side of and i call it
a dodecahedron
yeah there's so many parts right but
yeah it's not just a two-sided coin
there's like all these different facets
but yeah like if we were able to expand
our biases and then if we were also able
to then
in the same breath recognize how
computer science education needs to be
taught really contextualized
in the lives of our communities and our
students
i think that we would see some really
powerful ways that computer science
could be more innovative more open
where the field would become more
diverse and as a result we'd have like
some really incredible innovations and
also some really important stops on
certain innovations
that are hurtful right and the other
thing too is i don't think that all
children who
study computer science in k-12 should
then become computer scientists
or computer science majors not at all i
think that everyone just
needs to learn computer science to
understand how these tools work
and shape our world and what are the
decisions that go into
the technology that we engage with and
what are our rights and the questions we
should be asking
as we engage with our very computer
centric world so that's why i feel like
again going back to that magic wand
thing like
computer science is really taught in a
way that acknowledged and welcomed
student identity and place in the world
that would be a big thing
and then there's a third thing i'm also
thinking about the magic wand of like
student agency right
like if computer science was taught in a
way that was like yes the end result is
that students should take lead and they
should like
feel engaged and like actually want to
like yes
learn but learn because they feel like
they can do something with that learning
and that it means something to them it's
not just a grade or it's not just a
class
i think that would be cool too i am
curious
when it comes to examining biases how do
you
examine your own biases yeah i think
that's a great question
i don't ever think that i'm any way
perfect
i know that i've been brought up in a
racist world and so
i have internalized racism and
that's going to impact the way that i do
things and think about things
at the same time i actively trying to
work on that
and i keep a journal i write down the
things that
i experience i think for me also
i've had also like experiences thinking
about power
too that were really important for me to
grow
and like think you know how i wish i
could have done things differently
if i were to redo it and what would
those things be
in terms of like you know my role
as like a pi or co-pi and what does that
mean when i'm working with graduate
students for example who have less power
and you know the traditions that i've
been taught about like
oh well pis always have to be the first
authors and always have control of the
work
and blah blah blah and when are the
times in the spaces when
we really need to push back against that
and be like well
whoever really owns ideas anyway you
know
i think the complexities of that also in
academic spaces so i think those are
sorts of
experiences that i've had in more recent
years that i also had as a graduate
student right there were times when i
was like wow
look at how i'm being exploited to like
teach this class sort of do this work to
be paid nothing for these hours yeah so
i think those are things that
i've been learning about and continue to
learn about
as i grow up right in this like
now with a phd now in this like early
career phase
and i haven't followed a traditional
pathway right like most phd
students become professors and i've
chosen to become a researcher
instead of a professor and i'll teach
classes here and there but i'm not doing
like the 10-year track route
and part of that was because of again
like thinking about
power relations like i didn't want to
get pulled into that but of course there
are power relations is everything we do
so i think i've learned great lessons
around that and then
also being a woman of color
working in academia i think too
in that space and in that context and
he's like thinking about the
intersectionality of my identities
i feel like also these issues around
like
from my positionality and my identity
within this context of academia
that has histories in white supremacy
right and the white supremacy like roots
of the country
and like the way that institutions have
been built right there
they're definitely that like sort of
imposter syndrome that i think
everyone in the world experiences at
different points in their lives
is a thing that i've definitely
experienced all the time
but recognizing that has also been sort
of like
again like thinking about the biases
that i come here with
like has also helped me kind of like
when i flip that coin and think about
the imposter syndrome that others who
seem so confident might feel
like it creates a space of vulnerability
but also
a space of like empathy and love
towards others who might be experiencing
difficult moments
you know and for me i think what's
really important is that when we do
this work focused on issues of equity
and justice
that we don't go so far down the route
of
there's only this one way to make the
world better
and like if you don't get it you're not
equity enough you're not justice enough
and that closes out a lot of people to
feeling like that they can change or
like do things differently to me it's
also really important to like
examine my biases against people who
don't agree with me
about like these issues of for example
talking about race in the classroom
talking about identity in the classroom
you know talking about politics in the
classroom
i have a friend in rpp
that i'm working in who doesn't think
politics should be
talked about in the classroom and that
his politics should not be visible
when he's teaching and it's really
important to me that
we can talk about that openly together
and not shut each other down
but that requires me to examine my
personal biases about
you know if i think he's wrong well
where is that coming from and how do we
create a space where we can
be supportive of each other and openly
debate it
and still be friends at the end of the
day because i definitely have
other friends in the far left who would
not call him a friend they'd be like why
are you friends with that person and i
just think that
if we have that attitude we're not going
to actually make this world a better
place or change anything
but i'm by no means perfect and there's
so much that i'm working on
that i need a therapist if you have a
good recommendation let me know
i do but he's in arizona what have you
been thinking about for yourself
first before i answer that i want to
just say thank you
for being vulnerable with that i know
that is a
hard question to answer and just to be
open about especially in the age of
cancer culture where people
on one hand they say hey you need to
analyze your biases but on the other
hand as soon as we find a bias we're
going to cancel you and make sure you
don't speak again
like you can't have both that being said
i
too have a lot of unconscious or
internalized isms
that arise in moments that i never
really realized
and the way that i try and understand
and work through those and eliminate
those is through like you mentioned
journaling i do reflections like each
morning and each evening
i also meditate in many different types
of meditation but one
in particular is just like sitting with
a feeling or a thought or an emotion and
really trying to understand
what are the potential roots of that
thought or emotion whatever it may be
also one of the things that i really
like to do is to
sit with asking what is not being
asked or discussed or considered on a
particular topic
coming from myself or from others as i
mentioned
in some like other interviews i really
like a multi-perspectivalist approach i
like to look at things from many
different ways
and so i can argue with myself on a
number of topics
trying to look at it from different
lenses and whatnot and then i guess like
another thing that i try and frequently
sit through is examining my own
privileges and whatnot because there
have been
a lot of things in my life that i
haven't had to work as hard as some
other people who would have had things
that would have been
disadvantages for them whereas i had
some advantages in those particular
contexts and whatnot
not saying i haven't worked hard but i'm
just saying like there have been many
instances where i have not had to work
as hard as
other individuals like nikki
washington's paper when twice as good as
not enough
like that is something that's like it
really resonates okay i haven't had to
work
twice as hard as other individuals in
other scenarios and whatnot
thanks so much for sharing all of those
approaches to working through these
things
too because yeah i actually recently
started taking up a meditation practice
and
it's really hard yeah it's so hard not
to have like
constant streams of thoughts that are
connected to each other and go deeper
and deeper into this like
rabbit hole of thinking yeah that
doesn't lead to anything
just creates anxiety or like creates
emotion
which i know that in itself is a thought
and i love that too like
examining our privileges perhaps that
should be the magic wand thing right
is that part of examining our biases is
examining our privileges
and our assumptions of the world because
of those privileges yeah that's really
great so building off of that idea of
like examining things
for what purpose ideally to improve in
an area
how do you iterate on your abilities in
any of those areas that we mentioned or
just even as a researcher how do i grow
is i talk about things with my
sisterhood
of fellow like researchers and educators
it's really important to have my
community
of chosen family to like when something
comes up or something is challenging
to think things through and also to
push me to celebrate things because
that's another
side of the coin is like being afraid to
celebrate
when something is good because we've
been taught that modesty is important
especially for women so like yeah having
my
community of sisters to like really talk
through these ideas through
and i think also i appreciate the people
who push back against me
and like help me grow and learn because
i
am not good at lying i'm very open about
how i feel and how i think
and i'm not very quiet and
i get like easily like excited
and like passionate about something but
then i also like
easily like and let go and move on but
then other people are like whoa you just
riled me up
you know i really appreciate the people
who've also like taught me
better ways to communicate and better
ways to like
express myself and and also to think
about
like you were saying like reflect on my
privilege or reflect on my power
how can we really be equitable in our
daily practices not just what we think
about what we write and what we
are doing research about and definitely
also
like collaboration is key for me i love
working with people
and love working with lots of different
people
from different places different
perspectives and i think that always
pushes me to
grow because you know hearing a
different way of thinking about
something
or thinking about the same thing in the
same way but from totally
different life experiences is really
just an important thing for like
iterating on my practice like
growing in my practice as a researcher
and as a partner
to educators i think i also make it
sound like these are also things that
i'm
currently working on to do better right
right like it's not like i've like i'm
in any way perfect
so it's just but these are the things
that are part of my process now
so what's in your process that also
helps you prevent the burnout that can
come with that self-examination like
being a researcher in general is
difficult but then so it's just being in
education but then also being a
researcher in education who's examining
one biases and like being very critical
of oneself like that can also
lead to some burnout of just like
throwing your arms in the air and saying
all right i'm just
gonna stop yeah it's funny because i
think
you're assuming i'm not burned out
no but i mean that's partially a joke
partially not i think this
entire time of pandemic has really
burned everyone out
specifically in education everyone's
working
so so hard so i feel really fried i
think all of us have been saying yes to
more than we have the capacity to say
yes to
and at the same time it's expected of us
to say yes and at the same time we want
to say yes because we see
all that like could be we don't want to
stop
because we want to make things better
and
currently i feel really fried i don't
feel like a vacation
would even fully heal me right and at
the risk of sounding cheesy though i
think that like
yeah i think meditation practice helps i
think that yoga practice helps
i think that swimming helps i think that
going for a walk helps
like i think laughter helps with like
people who don't work at all in your
field
who are like thinking about different
things really is important
and i'm so appreciative of like my
community of friends and family who
work in different spheres and are
thinking about different things
that we can come together and share and
like wow you know
that helps give me perspective and gives
like breathes new life into what i'm
thinking about
we're working on but yeah i think that
the self-care thing is so huge
and it's like i totally am not doing it
very well
but i'm trying how do you not burn out
it's an ongoing and ever-changing
process kind of like what you're saying
with equity like
depending on the context depending on so
many different factors
like it shifts and somebody who
is chronic depression like the tool bag
of
tricks that i have that helps me not
feel
depressed and when it was really bad not
feel suicidal
each tool has a different use
for a different time or context or
purpose
and they don't always all work so
like you mentioned with meditation and
yoga yeah those have been fantastic
for most of the time but sometimes they
haven't worked well for me so
muay thai works really well going and
hitting my tie back downstairs like that
something i enjoy doing or playing video
games or
playing with my dogs or creating
something whether it's like artwork or
music or whatever like
there are many different things that i
try and do
to assist with that and so i've gone
like as far as like
creating a spreadsheet that would
measure
each like 10-minute interval of the day
and i would like write down what i was
doing and then
write down how i felt so i could really
try and analyze what exactly is it that
makes me feel good and what does not
you don't have to go that deep into that
it worked well and i don't do that
anymore
but basically just each day now going
and reflecting on
what is something that made me feel good
or
like lit my fire and just made me really
excited about something
and just keeping that in basically a
journal or a spreadsheet so when i'm
feeling down or
feeling off i can go to that and say
okay here's 100 ideas that have worked
for me in the past
one of them is bound to work for me in
this moment so let me just do a quick
review of it okay i'm gonna go try that
thing and then i go and do that thing
that's really cool wow that spreadsheet
sounds amazing
talk about like mindfulness
you know
yeah and they have apps for it i just
ended up creating my own
my therapist recommended an app but i
didn't have enough of like the range of
emotions that i wanted to be able to
express and like the kind of activities
that i was engaging in so i wanted to be
more granular
and being ocd so i went in and just kind
of basically created my own
like drop down menu for each one of the
cells so
pro tip that's amazing and thank you
also for being so open about
like a struggle with depression because
it's like i think that we need to be
more open and discussing like these
realities i feel like
i've been struggling with anxiety
especially during the pandemic and as i
get older that anxiety increases and so
it's kind of like
finding these ways to i don't think it
ever
fully goes away right like it's not like
depression is suddenly healed one day i
don't think anxiety is suddenly healed
one day but it's like the
how do we come to see it acknowledge it
and then
like find ways to work through it
because i also think about like the
unhealthy practices
that i have as a human being and
that like add flame to my anxieties
how i'm imprinting those things on my
son
like i'm so like that's a huge fear of
mine which creates more anxiety by the
way
but like you know just like how do i not
create that like
same kind of patterning my parents are
amazing i love them dearly but for sure
there are probably things that they did
that you know impact the way that
i also think and behave and so i know
that there are things that i'm doing
that he will definitely need therapy for
as well when he's an adult
and so it's just that like yeah it's
it's
i don't know it's interesting but thank
you for sharing that
i just really appreciate you being open
yeah the podcast that i released for the
national suicide prevention month like
that
was probably the hardest podcast that
i've ever recorded
it's a paper that i did that talks about
depression and suicidality and education
and so
i basically redid it in podcast form for
cs educators
and it's one of those topics that i just
wish more people
took the time to sit with as
uncomfortable and as
emotional as it can be it's one of the
things that we really need to talk about
as a field so
i am open about having chronic
depression because i want more people to
know
they're not alone and you can get help
and
things can get better like i haven't
been on depressants in
over a decade antidepressants but i
still identify as having chronic
depression i'm just
not depressed right now it could go the
other direction
if i stop doing the things that i know
work for me and have shown
consistent results so it's a constant
struggle
and you can never really escape it if
you're not
actively monitoring it that's so awesome
jared this
the way that you're educating and
helping others and us
and me i'd love to talk to you more
about that
because there are different students
that i've been in touch with over this
pandemic who
you know the resources that i was able
to share
was just like whatever i could find just
google searching
things like for resources for hotlines
to call when particularly frustrated and
depressed just because i knew that i was
one person that they could turn to but
i'm not
necessarily the best person and
sometimes it's better to talk to another
teenager or it's better to talk to
somebody who's also like
trained to you know understand like the
experience and offer resources so anyway
i will listen to that podcast
particularly
the research on that is that most
teachers are going to
deal with suicidality in particular
within their tenure and most
pretty much every teacher is going to
deal with students who have chronic
depression and are going to show
symptoms of it
and so learning how to deal with that
how to manage that and support
students like that especially if you're
doing the things that you mentioned of
focusing on agency and identity and
getting to know the student as a
one-on-one
and being a human being to them and them
being a human being to you
that is going to lead to being able to
identify those emotions and that
for me like there were over a dozen
students that i personally mentored and
like worked with
in collaboration with the school
counselors and whatnot to help them
through their depression
and even suicidality for some of them
and
it's because of that personal connection
but
going to what you were just saying
there's a certain point where it's like
i don't know what to do in a b or c
scenario and that's why i always did
this in collaboration
with counselors therapists like music
therapists creative arts therapists etc
like
they are all very capable and they're
able to provide that therapeutic support
but sometimes somebody just needs
somebody to vent to
and so students have kind of like
literally put me on the like call list
if it's like i'm having like suicidal
thoughts
these are the three people i'm supposed
to call in order
and so receiving those phone calls it's
always scary
but it's usually just needs somebody to
speak with and to be human with and to
be heard with so that's basically what i
can recommend for anyone
is you can be there to lend an ear but
always like
guide to support of somebody who has
experience with that like a counselor or
therapist
and work in collaboration with them
that's a great idea thank you for that
advice
i need to find those collaborators yeah
it's hard
but the nice thing like about working in
k-12 or higher
education institutions is there's
usually somebody assigned to be able to
work on that kind of a thing
it's just a matter of knowing about it
but most teachers don't know about it
yeah so shifting directions i am curious
what do you wish there was more research
on that could inform your
own practices yeah i would love more
research on like
youth participatory action research
there's a lot of great wipar stuff out
there
but i want to read more like sort of how
to
organize and design research studies
with youth for youth
you know i would love to read more about
like also
building partnerships between schools
and community organizations that like
do joint work together i'm
loving the work out there that's focused
on issues of like ethics and social
responsibility
and we're working on a piece with miss
morris
as well around that but i also want to
read more on that
like what does it look like how do you
do it i think
also i would love to see more
professional developments out there and
studies about them on these topics we
discussed earlier about like
building connections how do you support
educators
in building connections with students
and community
and connect that to what they're
teaching and doing in schools
if you have recommendations of readings
let me know
yeah some kind of like a manual would be
nice like here's a
how to do this thing yeah totally it's
like the culturally responsive thing
like
how do you do it right and i've seen
great examples of what that looks like
but also that
magic thing of like but it's also unique
to the individual
educator and their specific style and
way of connecting
everyone's different and should be you
know that like the connection to one's
identity
is a key part to making i think
culturally responsive
pedagogy come to life right do you have
any questions for myself
or for the field what has been the most
surprising thing to you in your work in
research practice partnerships in
computer science education
so for context one of the ones that i've
been working on
is working with the wind waver
reservation
in wyoming working with teachers and
creating curricula that is
to be used to connect not only the new
wyoming computer science standards
but also to connect them with the new
social
studies standards and ela standards so
like connecting those three things
around
the northern arapaho and eastern
shoshone tribes and their histories and
cultures
and then the other rpp that i'm working
on is
developing professional learning
communities for
rural schools and basically creating
hubs
in the rural communities in arizona so
like
arizona phoenix is massive and when you
go outside of that
there it is much more rural all
throughout the state
and a lot of the districts are like
single school districts like k-12 and so
they
don't necessarily know where to get
started with cs education and so we're
partnering up with researchers
practitioners etc from other communities
to help with that with that context
being said
again going back to what i was
previously saying
i really enjoy like the
multi-perspectivalist approach
so considering perspectives that i
hadn't considered
and in particular having lived in
phoenix my entire life
and not being a native or indigenous or
first culture
individual there's many different
arguments on which one is more or less
appropriate at any given moment
i'll just use multiple listening to
those different perspectives
has been very helpful in causing me to
think about things that i just didn't
know about
or understand or wasn't aware of because
it's just not
in my circles of influence like i was
recently
in a conversation with some other cs
education researchers who identify as
native
and they were mentioning things that i
didn't know about
historically speaking and then also just
happened
like the day before we were all
conversing and when they mentioned those
things like going and googling it i was
just like
oh wow i had no idea about this stuff
so and extremely problematic history and
extremely problematic things going on in
north america right now
related to native cultures and so it's
just been
very beneficial for me to have those
conversations
and to hear those different perspectives
that makes sense
totally makes sense actually i have the
honor
of running this student panel for the
closing keynote for csta conference this
year brian tuareg
reached out to me to like help create
this
student panel and so i got to interview
six or seven different students and then
we're
editing together parts of the interviews
from these like zoom recordings
into like a 20-minute piece for the
keynote so yeah like people have been
like
teen you're the keynote i'm like no
you're so lucky you don't have to hear
from me you're going to hear
the students directly but um
i say that while being recorded on your
podcast
i apologize anyway but i got to speak to
this
amazing young woman who went
to high school on the wind river
reservation
and do you know faith her name's faith
daniels her teacher is mr winn
do you know mr winn yeah he did a
session at the
csta equity in action summit cool yeah
because he's a csta equity fellow
i believe exactly that point you made
where
she talked about her experience
she previously had lived on the navajo
reservation
she has navajo roots as well as arapaho
roots
and just her experience how different it
was
like living on reservation and going to
a non-reservation high school
and then moving up to wyoming and
now like she lives off reservation but
goes to the reservation school
and just like the racism
and mistreatment and disrespect that she
experienced in public education it was
just mind-blowing and
you know i read about those things i
hear about those
things but just to listen
to her voice and hear it directly from
her
put a whole new perspective
on that experience for me that i took
very
personally like i was very personally
offended by
like her being mistreated which doesn't
make sense
it really made me upset that such a
brilliant young woman and
anyone would have to experience that and
lose their trust in public school
so it was just really powerful
experience to get to speak to her yeah
i don't think we think about the
indigenous experience enough yeah i
totally agree
it was pretty much whitewashed out of my
history classes
and social studies classes like it was
just not
discussed and that's very problematic
totally yeah i mean when i when i was
teaching
in hawaii you know i had got to teach a
little like
when i was doing my student teaching a
little bit of like hawaiian history
and of course there i think it's ninth
grade it's the full year
where you get a full year of hawaiian
history which
in my experience growing up in
california hawaiian history was a
paragraph
in my social studies book you know you
learn about
queen liliukulani and like that's it
and it's always presented it's like yeah
and hawaii
gave up their sovereignty and great
you know like it's just really it's
totally colonized
imperialist america you know at it again
taking over the hawaiian islands in a
really brutal forceful way
again like it was whitewashed out of our
history
books so the last question that i have
is where might people go to connect with
you and the organizations that you work
with
so i'll share with you our project
website
and my email that's the best way i'm not
on any social media
i'm on linkedin but i don't check it
so yeah i'm kind of anti-social media
but yeah i'm
always welcome somebody throwing me a
line not
email yeah always love meeting new
people so
if anyone wants to reach out and then we
can arrange like a chat
that'd be great and with that that
concludes this week's episode of the
cska podcast
i really hope you enjoyed this interview
with gene i know i certainly did i
again really appreciate gene's
vulnerability if you're interested in
learning more about the topics that we
discussed i do include many links in the
show notes which you can find
in the app that you're listening to this
on or by going to jaredaleri.com
which has hundreds if not thousands of
other resources for cs educators
including a link to bootuppd.org which
is the non-profit that i work for
where i create free elementary coding
curricula
that you could use in your classroom by
the way if you are a researcher who is
listening to this podcast please feel
free to reach out to me i'm always
interested in collaborating on research
projects
and i'm able to spend more time on that
now with my responsibilities at boot up
so feel free to press the contact me
button on my website if you'd like to
collaborate or if you are somebody who
would like to be a guest on the show
stay tuned next week for another
unpacking scholarship episode and two
weeks from now for another interview
hope you're all staying safe and are
having a wonderful week
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In this interview with Joyce McCall, we unpack and problematize some of the issues around race and racism in relation to education. In particular, we discuss the importance of allies not only showing up to support marginalized or oppressed groups, but staying when conversations get uncomfortable; the Shire from the Lord of the Rings as a metaphor for hegemony and systemic racism; as well as a variety of theories such as critical race theory, double consciousness, cultural capital; and much more.
Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy
In this episode I unpack Ladson-Billings’ (1995) seminal publication titled “Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy,” which influenced much of the discourse around culturally relevant pedagogy in computer science education.
In this episode I unpack Coppola’s (2021) publication titled “What if Freire had Facebook? A critical interrogation of social media woke culture among privileged voices in music education discourse,” which summarizes Paulo Freire’s works and hypothesizes how Freire may have responded to some forms of woke culture.
When Twice as Good Isn't Enough: The Case for Cultural Competence in Computing
In this episode I unpack Washington's (2020) paper titled "When twice as good isn't enough: The case for cultural competence in computing," which explores the five elements and six stages of cultural competence in relation to undergraduate computing programs.
Read “Stuck in the Shallow End: Education, Race, and Computing” by Jane Margolis
Learn more about the conferences I mentioned
Listen/watch the podcast episode on depression, suicide, and computer science education
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