Reading Rainbow

The other night Leo was watching a movie called The Bad Guys for about the fifth time while Jairo and I were reading the news and not really paying attention to the TV. I happened to look up to catch a scene where the shark bad guy (who is pretending to be a fancy pregnant lady shark) throws a drink on the floor, tosses a table and yells, “I’m having a baby!!!” in the middle of a party to create a distraction. I laughed at the fact that the drink was thrown to make it look like the shark’s water had broken. That led to a discussion that will forever be burned into my brain (#corememory).

Leo: Wait, what water broke?

Me: Explains that this usually happens before labor and that it’s a sign the baby is coming.

Leo: But where is the water? How does it get out?

Me: The same way a baby does. Through the vagina.

Leo: WHAT????? (starts crying). I am so glad that I am not a girl because that is disgusting.

Me: It’s not disgusting, it's just how it works.

Leo: (through sobs) Are you being serious with me? Is that really how a baby gets out? That happened to me? 

Me: Correct (through tears of my own)

Leo continued to cry for several minutes after this revelation. Nothing we said made him feel better and the fact that I absolutely could not stop laughing didn’t help. We have talked about babies before. I know he has heard the phrase “babies come out of vaginas” on several occasions but CLEARLY he was either not listening or simply did not comprehend the situation. This made me wonder what else was going over his head without me realizing. Does this happen at school?! I started to panic but then I remembered that we get (many) worksheets sent home that chronicle his math and writing. We practice reading in English and in Spanish and we can see and hear the improvements he is making. Please know that when I say “we” that is mostly not true. It’s 85% my husband. You would think that as an educator I am the homework parent. I am not. He is a far better person than I am.

So I didn’t have to worry about Leo but then I remembered a podcast I stumbled upon the other day. It’s called Sold a Story. I started listening to it and couldn’t believe these statistics: Sixty-five percent of fourth graders in this country are not proficient readers and scores have been terrible for decades. This is according to country-wide standardized tests. Yes, these tests have a variety of issues but they offer some data. If you pull out specific groups of students, the numbers are more concerning. Eighty-two percent of Black fourth graders are not proficient readers. How has this been a persistent problem for decades? From what I read it’s a combination of a lot of things. It can be linked to underfunded schools, teacher shortages, and more recently, Covid. But, according to Sold a Story, it is also linked to the way some kids were being taught to read. Schools were targeting underperforming readers in first grade with a program called Reading Recovery created by an educator named Marie Clay. This approach is about looking for “clues” in the pictures to figure out the words. Rather than attempting to phonetically sound out the word (char·la·tan) kids use what’s called the “triple check” to see if they have the right word. Does it make sense? Does it sound right? Does it look right? I am by no means an early childhood educator but this seems more like guessing than learning how to put together the sounds and what they mean. Reading Recovery disagrees with me on this and calls it “active problem solving.” They swear by their approach but many, many, many, educational organizations and teachers disagree. Some even say the program has a negative long-term impact. Growing up I was taught to sound out the words phonetically and that is what my son is being taught in first grade. These debates about reading got me thinking about how much reading we assign in our college classes. Are our students actually understanding what they are reading? Are we helping them learn or wasting their time? There is a lot of research about pedagogy (teaching methods/practices) and I think it’s really cool (because I am a dork).

Here’s a fun fact: I was never really taught how to teach. In my doctoral program we had a class that met for 3 hours on a Friday for one quarter. The following quarter we had a class of our own to teach. Not to TA for a professor but to teach 35 undergraduates. By ourselves. Terrifying. That’s about 30 hours of instruction and the extent of my education on how to do half of my job. Bonkers when you think about it. 

Because I have very little training about how to educate people I had to learn how to “be” in the classroom. How to deliver content in a way students remember and that does not bore them to tears* I also had to figure out what to assign them outside of class and the answer was obviously reading! That’s what you do in college! You read! Why wouldn't I just assign some chapters and expect everyone to read them and be ready to discuss?  Here’s why:

Less than one third of students read assignments before class  

15% of college students completed their reading assignments after the material had been covered in class 

Reading tends to spike just before exams (No shit, Sheryl!)

Student compliance with reading assignments has steadily decreased over the last few decades 

Instructors complain that noncompliance with reading assignments has an adverse impact on students’ mastery of subject matter and on their ability to comprehend, analyze, and critique dense texts (It’s true, we do!)

Learning all of this drove me crazy. To me, reading just made sense as a way to teach students what they need to know but there are different kinds of reading depending on what you want students to actually do with the information. Because I was interested in understanding what would work best, I wrote a lovely (and never published) paper with my friend and colleague Dr. Geoff Desa. We specifically looked at academic reading (stuff assigned to go along with a course and focused on a specific discipline) and we learned that if you want students to understand academic reading they have to know the vocabulary specific to the discipline and they have to have a reading strategy. Ok so, make sure you cover the important words ahead of time. In my case it is philosophical stuff like eudaimonia, consequentialism, formalism. Easy. I can do that. But what the hell is a reading strategy?! My reading strategy has always been: start at the beginning, skim the middle while highlighting things that seem important, closely read the discussion/conclusion. This was how I survived grad school.  Apparently reading strategies are things now covered way before college but not all students were taught them so when they get to college things get tricky. Research shows that without these strategies student’s comprehension and ability to construct knowledge is impacted. This all seems bad! But sometimes bad is good because if we know what they aren’t doing and why maybe we can help! Helping does not mean eliminating reading from my course! They still have to read. But now I am trying to offer alternate ways to learn the material and reading strategies they can use. Sometimes I assign articles that come with a transcript or podcast version. This way my students who like reading can read and my students who don’t can listen. I assign TED talks or send them to speakers on campus. I want them to get the information they need to succeed in my class and put everything together and however they do that is fine with me. 

Of course I would love it if all of my students enjoyed reading. I try to convince them how useful it is. I tell them about all the smart and successful people who are/were voracious readers.** How it boosts creativity and problem solving and makes you look interesting in public. I even assign literature for class to explain some concepts. Does it work? Not always but I think it helps and I will take a small win. In hopes of getting Leo to become a kid who loves reading I’ve started reading way more at home. Not on a kindle or my ipad but an actual book made out of paper and borrowed from a library. I want him to see me engrossed in a good book and to realize the fun they can be. Before we get to that point though we need him to become a proficient reader. For now, we are sounding out words in English and in Spanish (much easier in Spanish) and moving on to more complicated works and books with more complex stories. Maybe the next book we try should be on childbirth…? 

*I have never had tears in class but I once had a guy fall very soundly asleep. Snoring once but that was during team presentations so I will take no credit for that!

**Is it that smart people simply like reading or that more reading makes you smart? Chicken or egg kind of thing but I’m a book pusher ;)

Burgled

A while ago I took a fabulous woman trip (not a girls trip) to the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo. My friend Kym and I were doing 2 nights in this kitschy wonderland and staying in the Paris Violets room. It was everything we wanted. Ridiculous decor, no kids, a pool, libations, and good food. The trip started off magnificently. We had a lovely dinner on Friday. Saturday morning I checked off an item that has been on my bucket list for a long time: GOAT YOGA. I downward dogged while tiny baby goats ran under me. Dreams do come true. Then we laid by the pool drinking grown-ass lady drinks and fell asleep as grown-ass ladies do. We got up and got ready for dinner because we had early reservations for Alex Madonna’s Gold Rush Steak House. It’s so amazing I needed to actually use the picture here so you don’t miss out. I was afraid you might not click the link.

Take it all in. Especially the carpet. They make a robe out of the same pattern. I bought one. Worth every penny.

This place was amazing! There was an actual band playing music that people (octogenarians) were dancing to on an actual wooden dance floor and we were seated at a lovely table for two right next to it. We were so relaxed, had just opened a bottle of Chardonnay and had not even taken a sip when I got a text. It was a text from my bank asking if I was trying to use my credit card to make a large purchase at a Target in San Luis Obispo. I was not. It took a second to register and then I grabbed for my purse on the back of my chair and it was there. Whew! But then I opened it. My (brand new) wallet was gone along with my driver’s license, $200 in cash (which I NEVER carry), and all of my credit cards. If you have had this happen you know it is an utterly shitty feeling. Once I canceled all my cards and let my bank know I sat back down with Kym and had my first sip of wine. We told the waiter what happened and he called over the manager who very kindly went through security footage. A few minutes later he came back and told us, “Yeah we saw him.” Saw who?! Turns out that while we were happily chatting, a man sat in a chair at the table next to ours, sidled up to the back of my chair with a jacket over his arm so my purse was out of view, and grabbed my wallet.

A few things here. The purse had a very strong snap that closed it so I don’t know how he got it open without me realizing. Kym and I were totally sober. If it were late in the evening and we had a few martinis in our systems I could have understood not noticing but that wasn’t the case.

The cameras caught him burgling me, tracked him to his car, and less than ten minutes later he made a $400 purchase at Target and tried to buy several hundred dollars worth of gift cards at another store. The employees told us he was clearly a professional but that didn’t make us feel better. Kym and I spent the rest of dinner feeling absolutely insane for not noticing. How did we not see him? Are we idiots?* How did I not clock someone that close to me? Even the waiter was perplexed because he didn’t see him either. I just kept thinking, if a man can be inches away from me and take something, what else can happen?! Turns out that is a fairly normal reaction.

Psychologists have looked into the emotional, behavioral, and psychological impacts of being robbed. The most common reactions are shock, disbelief, fear, anxiety, guilt, and unease. Unease was definitely a great description of how I felt and it just sort of stuck around for a while. I was fortunate that it eventually went away, but for some people the experience of being robbed is so traumatic that they suffer from PTSD. Most women operate with a low-level of unease at all times because it’s scary out there. Those of us with anxiety crank that unease up a few levels as our baseline. We worry about our physical safety, if someone is following us, if our drink is safe. In fact, there is a famous list of all the things women do to stay safe while out in public. It’s long. I usually opt for the keys through my fingers like Wolverine when walking to my car alone but it tuns out that won’t actually help me. Interestingly, when men were asked what they do to stay safe the overwhelming response was: Nothing, I don’t think about it. Sounds delightful. 

For me this unease coupled with feeling creeped out, violated, and generally pissed off morphed into some good old-fashioned self doubt. Self doubt is all about not feeling sure of yourself. Self doubt tries to convince you that you are incompetent. Self doubt caused me to take a situation that had absolutely nothing to do with my intelligence or abilities and turned it into something that. Self doubt is a real jackass and it underlies imposter syndrome; something many women face at work. 

In graduate school my friends and I used to joke about the “smoke and mirrors” we were using to succeed. The idea was that we had accidentally been admitted to the doctoral program due to some sort of computer glitch and that we were succeeding due to insane amounts of luck (not the endless cycle of reading, writing, over preparing, and crying). This luck then allowed us to continue to trick everyone around us into thinking that we knew what we were doing but one day we would be found out. Just like the Wizard of Oz, the curtain would be pulled back and we would be revealed for what we truly were: idiots. That’s imposter syndrome in a nutshell. 

Imposter syndrome makes us think we are a fraud and every smart, accomplished, poised, confident woman I know has felt it at one time or another. I used to feel like a complete charlatan teaching Business Ethics classes even though I have a PhD in Business Ethics! It doesn’t have to make sense to make an impact. Initially called Imposter Phenomenon, the first paper written about it was by two female psychologists. That’s no coincidence. They studied high-achieving women and found that certain types of family dynamics combined with societal stereotypes about women contribute to an, “internal experience of intellectual phoniness.” This propensity to underestimate our abilities happens so frequently we may not even realize we do it. We are prone to perfectionist tendencies, experience greater levels of self-doubt, and tend to have lower self-esteem. You don’t say…This lack of confidence in our abilities has consequences as we move through life. Women are less likely to apply for jobs unless they have 100% of the listed qualifications compared to their male counterparts. When things go wrong we take the blame (because it must have been our fault!) and when things go well we credit everyone else (because how could silly little me have accomplished this?!). Unfortunately, since the initial study on imposter syndrome took place in what we can call less enlightened times (1979), the women studied weren’t a diverse group as highlighted by Ruchika Tulshyan and Jodi-Ann Burey in their awesome Harvard Business Review article:

The impact of systemic racism, classism, xenophobia, and other biases was categorically absent when the concept of imposter syndrome was developed.

The complete picture of what drives our feelings of imposter syndrome weren’t fully explored but now we are starting to get it. It’s not us, it’s the frameworks in which we have to operate so we need to stop talking about fixing women at work and start thinking about fixing the places where women work.

You know what we also need to fix? The purse situation at restaurants!** Since that clearly has not been addressed I ended my trip with no credit cards, no I.D., and no money (but Kym spotted me some $$ because she's the best). I flew to San Luis Obispo. On a plane. Which requires I.D. to board. I had to make several calls to the local police department who told me to call TSA at the airport who told me they would “try” to help. Very comforting. I arrived at the airport three hours early and the TSA guy was ready for me. He said he would have to call a “central clearing house” run by Homeland Security and that they would ask me several questions. If I answered them correctly I was good to go and if not (insert actual shoulder shrug by TSA agent here). Luckily I aced the questions and made it home without further incident. I still think you should go to the Madonna Inn and drink out of one of their goblets. It’s not their fault some people do bad things. I also think you should be kind to yourself. We are all working in and against systems that are problematic and make us doubt ourselves every once in a while. It’s normal but it sucks. Just like having your wallet stolen. 

*We are not.  

**When we go to Oaxaca we get a cute little stand for all of our stuff and it is in full view right next to the table. Genius. Can we make that happen here please?

Middle Ages

Every once in a while I read a story that gets me FIRED UP. This happened recently when the fantastic Dr. Kristine Ehrich texted me this: Stereotypes of middle-aged women as less ‘nice’ can hold them back at work. This article is based on research by UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business professor, Dr. Jennifer Chatman. Like a lot of great research, this project was inspired by something Jennifer was experiencing in her own life. Since hitting her 40s, she saw a decline in her teaching evaluations (and so have I). This seemed weird to her because her knowledge of the field, comfort in front of a class, and all the other things (theoretically) necessary for great evaluations were better than they had ever been. What the hell? Turns out that the problem was that she was a woman over 40 who wasn’t matching up to her students’ expectations of how she “should” behave towards them. You see, there are descriptive and prescriptive stereotypes regarding gender. The descriptives are about what men/women “typically” do while the prescriptives are about what we SHOULD do; this is where issues arise in the classroom and at work. The prescriptives are not based on how women ACTUALLY act and that disconnect is where women get dinged in their teaching evaluations, performance reviews, and ability to advance in their careers. The general expectation (stereotype) is that we should be warm (definition = enthusiastic, affectionate, kind) and caring so when we do not act in accordance with that, people don’t like it and we are punished. When women enter their 40’s we start getting hit with gendered ageism; the super cool combination of being discriminated against for being both “old” and a woman. In society we disappear from TV (yes, there are exceptions but they are few and far between), movies show us as the grandmothers, and advertisers ignore us. Once you hit your 40s the world has very few acceptable options of what you can do with your life because, OMG you guys, that is so old!! Since being 45 makes me an expert in this topic I have made you a list of your options ladies:

Settle in under a pile of cozy blankets you knitted, never show your (wrinkled) face in public, and wait for the sweet relief of death. 

Sweetly and earnestly encourage the hopes and dreams of everyone around you (because yours are dead you hag!) and then use all the time you have no longer trying to achieve anything to bake cookies for everyone around you. You are now basically Mrs. Claus but without that weird bonnet. Unless you are into bonnets-those are actually ok if you are over 40 because no one is looking at you. 

Retire, move to someplace warm that isn’t Florida with your besties, wear caftans, have afternoon cocktails on the lanai, do puzzles, die.*

Spend the majority of your time ensuring that everyone around you is comfortable. This is most easily done by taking care of all the pesky things no one actually wants to do. You can clean up after everyone, make tasty/healthy meals, run errands, maybe mow the lawn. Definitely make sure that nothing you do brings you any joy or fulfillment. You are too old for that, you selfish monster. 

Start a coven. Cast spells. Wreak havoc. 

Become invisible and literally just disappear because your thoughts, feelings, and ideas no longer matter. 

Men and women are seen as more effective and capable as they get older. Makes sense. But only women are seen to be less warm as they age. So, when talking about teaching evaluations the perceived lack of warmth translates into complaints about their female professor’s personality which turns into lower teaching evaluations. This is something because I have met some male faculty with truly terrible personalities who maintain great teaching evaluations. Put simply: it’s not fair. Women are judged more harshly than their male counterparts based on these stereotypes. According to the research, the peak (or rock bottom) of our lack of warmth/inability in the classroom comes at age 47. Can’t wait!

Student evaluations are flawed in so many ways. They are biased against women and minority faculty and when you add in pregnancy it gets worse. Additionally, the people evaluating our teaching (students) don’t actually know the subject matter so evaluating our ability to teach it to them seems problematic. What this means is that teaching evaluations are often more of a likability measure. Research has shown that the most important characteristics of a professor include getting to know students, being seen as a life-long learner, and being a role model. Additionally, most students prefer the teachers who are not strict with their classroom rules and who are pretty generous when scoring student work. Cool so the “measure” of whether I am good at teaching has absolutely nothing to do with my teaching and is more about learning their names and being an easy grader. A logical response would be to either try and fix them or get rid of them all together but this is academia so neither is going to happen! The big issue here (aside from the overt discrimination) is that these evaluations are used to evaluate faculty performance. Every year our teaching evaluation scores, research productivity, and service activities are taken into consideration as the basis for our pay increases.** 

I have a theory of why all of this is happening. It’s because, by the time we reach our 40s we, as women in academia and beyond, are simply sick of your shit.

Truly. Fed up. Over it. No longer willing to entertain it. This feeling of not engaging with ridiculousness is what started the idea of tightroping in the first place. We don’t want to change the behavior that (finally!) feels right to us. Personally, I started feeling my “warmth” fade after I had Leo and went back to work. There I was (age 38) trying desperately to be all the things to all the people. I was juggling my career and being a Mom and not dropping any balls ever yet I had students (very earnestly) telling me that they couldn’t get their assignments done on time because they had a formal to attend. I’m managing all of my responsibilities and keeping a human alive and you would like an extension on an assignment that has been on the syllabus for months? No. My willingness to excuse unprofessional behavior and engage in general nonsense had simply vanished by that point and this is where I believe the concept of warmth gets twisted and used against us. To students, warmth is doing whatever they need in the name of “caring.” Warmth is moving deadlines, spoon feeding, hand-holding, and generally bending over backwards. To me, warmth is caring about them and their ability to succeed. Letting them blow off deadlines because they didn’t manage their time properly isn’t helping them and it’s certainly not setting them up for success. Unfortunately, as soon as our versions of warmth don’t match up and we stop conforming to sexist standards things get dicey for women in and out of the classroom.

None of this is ok. Everyone’s work should be evaluated by performance, not their ability to conform to stereotypes. Though I don’t have a surefire solution to these issues, I do think that women refusing to tightrope can help us start making a shift. We don’t have to be “warm” to be good at our jobs. We don’t have to smile. We don’t even really have to be nice (how many male jerks have you worked with?). What we have to be is competent, prepared, and ready to execute the tasks our job requires. Nothing more. Nothing less. Now that I think about it, maybe pay equity and gender parity might help warm up our our old, cold lady hearts!

*My preferred scenario

**Tee hee. What is a pay increase?