Episode 5

Connected Teaching: The Importance of Relationships with Harriet Schwartz

STEVEN ROBINOW: Welcome to Teaching for Student Success. This is Steven  Robinow. Before we get to today's episode with Harriet Schwartz to talk about connected teaching, I'd like to give a little update on our listeners. I'm excited to report that we have listeners on six continents. I'll have to work on getting some listeners in Antarctica, but thank you for all your listeners out there.

And please send me an email through our website at teachingforstudentsuccess.org. We'd love to hear from you. Thank you.

Now let's get to Harriet Schwartz. Today, my guest is Dr. Harriet Schwartz, professor of Relational Practice and Higher Education in the Graduate School of Leadership and Change at Antioch University. Dr. Schwartz will discuss the importance of relational cultural theory as applied to teaching in higher education.

Dr. Schwartz recently published a book on this topic, Connected Teaching: Relationship, Power, and Mattering in Higher Education. This interview promises to be a fascinating discussion about our relationship as faculty to our students, the relationship as seen from the perspective of the faculty, as seen perhaps from the perspective of the student, and the underlying need for attention to these relationships and how these relationships, independent of content, impact students and their success in our classrooms.

In addition to her professorship at Antioch University, Dr. Schwartz serves as the lead scholar for Education as Relational Practice with the International Center for Growth in Connection, an organization that promotes relational cultural theory, which honors human connection as the anchor of all personal and social change, with the vision that true progress lies in the power of our connections to one another and to our environment. Welcome, Harriet, thank you so much for joining us on Teaching for Student Success.

HARRIET SCHWARTZ: Thanks so much, Steve. I'm really excited to be here and talking with you today.

STEVEN ROBINOW: First, congratulations on your book. As I read it, I found that I related to your book, Connected Teaching, in so many ways, but mostly as an instructor. As I read, I was reminded of teaching situations that I experienced, many similar to those you describe throughout your book. Some I handled well at the time, and some probably not so well.

Had I read your book prior to those situations, I can imagine that many of them would have, or at least could have gone better than they actually did. Sorry, your book was now earlier for my students. Before we dive in, perhaps you could spend time describing relational cultural theory.

HARRIET SCHWARTZ: Sure. Well, thanks for your words about the book. Really, as I wrote it, I was hoping it would be a book that would both resonate for people and also help them think differently about their teaching.

Relational Cultural Theory is a theory of human growth and development that centers relationship as essential for our well-being. So it was in part a response to other human development theories that tend to privilege working towards autonomy and independence as markers of maturity and adulthood.

Jean Baker Miller started working on the ideas that would become RCT in the '70s and initially published a book called Toward a New Psychology of Women. Part of what she was talking about was that Western culture really prizes this narrative of independent achievement—right, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. What Jean believed was that narrative, first of all, is false, that anyone who succeeds, that all of us as we go through life's journey we get help from other people. We get support. That support and help might look different depending on people's circumstances, but nobody really makes it on their own, and that that narrative is damaging because, first of all, it makes people believe they should be able to make it on their own, and also that narrative of autonomy and independence was particularly harmful to women because it related to the field of psychology pathologizing women in the way that women are more aware of their need for relationship. I wouldn't say that they need relationships more, but I think women are allowed through socialization to be more clear about their need and their desire for meaningful relationships.

So Jean started that work in the '70s, and then was joined by Irene Stiver, Judy Jordan, and Jan Surrey. And through the '80s, they continued to work on these ideas. Jean from the very beginning in some of her earliest writings talked about how these ideas are relevant not just in therapy but in education and organizations and communities and all of life. So the foundation was there for us to then take this work into education.

Jump ahead in the '90s, Jean Baker Miller and Irene Stiver published their next book, The Healing Connection. And this really took RCT out into the world. They had been going to conferences and that kind of thing, but this really took it out into the broader world.

For quite a while though, the work tended to be situated in the clinical context. There were some people writing about RCT and organizations and leadership, and a few people here and there applying it in education. And then more recently I and some others have really just believed profoundly in the relevance of this theory in education. So I work primarily in the higher ed domain, some others working in K12, but many of us really feel like there's such application of teaching and learning in student development, student affairs work, and so on.

STEVEN ROBINOW: Thank you very much. Relational cultural theory, the way you apply it in Connected Teaching, you have layered this onto the educational framework. So can you spend a little bit of time talking about that connection, about how you define connected teaching and how RCT interfaces with the educational system?

HARRIET SCHWARTZ: I haven't yet thought much about imposing it on the educational system. So what I would say is I tend to think about it more in terms of trying to integrate these ideas with our understanding of teaching and advising and student affairs work. So for me, I tend to think about it more on the faculty and staff development levels—faculty and staff, collaboration, book groups, professional development.

The idea of relationship in teaching and learning is sometimes seen as an add-on, like it's a bonus if a teacher connects with their students. Or sometimes it's seen with caution, like if a teacher develops a close working relationship with students. Like, is that problematic? Can they evaluate the student's work? Can they hold their boundaries, all of those sorts of things?

So what I would maintain, and I think this is the essence of connected teaching, is that relationship is inherent in teaching and learning. It's there. We are human beings engaged in a human endeavor. So it's happening in a relational context.

So that means all sorts of things. It means that we experience varying levels of connection and disconnection. It means that there are power dynamics present in our relationships with students. RCT also says that cultural context is essential to understanding interactions and relationships.

And this is something else that differentiates it from other human development theories, most of which don't talk about cultural context. RCT says that we are always in cultural context.

As you and I meet today, we come to this having lived lives—me as a woman, as someone perceived as white, I'm gay, I'm Jewish, I mean, and that these things inform a lifetime of experience.

And then you have also all of that context that you bring with you. And the same is, of course, true for us and our students. So that cultural context is another piece.

So for me, it's really about saying, this is happening in relationship. I guess the only time this might not be true would be asynchronous courses where the assessment is done mechanically or in some automated system. But even if students and teacher are meeting asynchronously, if the teacher is assessing student work and is commenting on student work, I see that as a relational interaction.

So for me, relationship is there. And it's more about, do we talk about it. Do we make it explicit? And then what kind of intentions do we bring to that, given that reality?

STEVEN ROBINOW: And even in an asynchronous event, the talk, the language the instructor uses in the content that's delivered, or the choice of content that's delivered, even that conveys our biases and our backgrounds and our context of what we choose to convey. So even in an asynchronous context, there's a relationship that's going on. It's just it may be a little more hidden, but it's there, right.

HARRIET SCHWARTZ: Yeah, I agree. I was trying to think of any situation where I think teaching doesn't involve, but you're right. I was thinking about assessment being the essential piece, but the choices that we make about how we create a learning space and if we're recording videos, the choices we make about assignments, I mean, whose work are students reading? All of those things, that's about power, it's about relationship, and so on.

STEVEN ROBINOW: Right. One of the issues that might potentially concern a faculty member is the time involved in relationships with students. Can you please talk about meaningful interactions and the research that suggests that meaningful interactions are relevant and powerful in students' lives?

HARRIET SCHWARTZ: It's a really important question, and I'm really grateful because a colleague of mine years ago, before I wrote the book, a colleague stopped me, a senior colleague, and she said, I find your work really exciting, but I have a huge advising load and I can't take an hour with every student, so I'm just not sure how this would work.

And that question really opened me up to explore this from that perspective, which I think has been vitally important. We don't have to just think about relationship in terms of long-term high-duration interactions. I came out of student affairs. Before I got into teaching, I worked in student affairs. And in that context, my interactions with students who are often like 45 or 50 minute appointments.

And then when I started teaching adult students, I realized that there were these moments after class, or these moments on the phone, or even via email, when I felt some of that same energy. And I was trying to understand this energy, which is what drove my research agenda from the start. Like, what's going on between us when—I think you know what I'm talking about—when it just feels good. You're talking with a student, you're both engaged, you're building something together, you're helping them with something, they're feeding off each other, and we can talk more about that in a moment, but essentially trying to understand that moment is part of what's driven all of this. And so what I realized when I started teaching adult students who don't hang out on campus all day was that that same good stuff can happen in brief interactions.

As I got more into relational cultural theory, there's a concept that comes out of RCT, that concept of mentoring episodes which was developed by Fletcher and Ragins. So they were building on the idea of the five good things. And the five good things is this essential concept of RCT which talks about the five things that RCT would say are happening in the moment of a meaningful interaction or relationship and that are also outcomes of a meaningful interaction or relationship.

So the five good things are zest or energy. So through these meaningful conversations we energize each other.

A second piece is worth. So as we talk with a student who—so let's say student comes in and is frustrated because they keep starting a paper and they just can't get it going, they just can't figure out their topic. So a student comes in. And let's say I meet that student with interest and with energy and with a smile and with open-mindedness to their struggle. I'm not judging them, I'm not dismissing them.

So as we start talking and they explain to me what they're thinking about, and then I sort of latch on to some part of that idea that I can see is the nut of what they could write about, they get a sense that I'm paying attention, that I'm committed. And so that gives them a little boost of energy. The fact that they came to see me and see me as valuable in their circle probably gives me a little bit of boost of energy. And then from that we both also probably get a little bit of a boost in worth.

So again, the student is met with someone who's not judging them. I'm being sought out by a student. I'm in teaching because I love working with students. So that helps me reinforce why I do what I do.

Another piece is that the student will start to get some clarity ideally through this conversation. We help students clarify their ideas. I might get clarity on something that wasn't clear in the assignment as I made it. Or I might start to think about something I want to tweak as I teach this next time or whatever it might be.

And then the other thing is movement, and this isn't really a linear process, but you can see it unfolding. As we get this clarity, as we get this boost in energy, that student starts to get some movement. So ideally they leave the session with a little more clarity, a sense of next steps for the paper.

And then the fifth good thing is a desire for more connection. And so because we've had this positive encounter, I'm reinforced in the work that I do. So ideally I'm eager to meet the next student. And it may be a student who reaches out to faculty a lot, so it's nothing new for them, but it may be a student who's really been hesitant to reach out to faculty. And maybe this one meeting that seemed insignificant to me helps them think that it can be useful to reach out to faculty, that I won't be judged and I'll actually be helped.

So when we look at the five good things, Fletcher and Ragins, in their work on mentoring episodes, talked about that these five good things don't just happen in long-term high-duration meeting and relationships. It doesn't have to be an hour a week over many weeks or months or years, but that even a single interaction, these five good things can have these qualities.

And so Elizabeth Holloway and I—she was my advisor, my dissertation chair, and then became a research partner and very close friend—she and I did a study using a critical incident technique and looked at meaningful interactions between students and master students and faculty and really found evidence of—these were students who are reporting single interactions that may or may not have been part of a longer term relationship, but they were brief, like in the hallway, after-class kinds of interactions that really had held import for these students. So I think that study is one that supports this concept.

So all of that is to say that clearly if you have a high advising load, if you have large classes, you're not going to spend an hour a week with every one of your students. But part of it is I think about being really intentional about those brief interactions which may be much more important to students than we realize. And so if we can try to bring the best that we can on a given day, which I think varies depending on life, but if we can bring the best that we can on a given day, that we can achieve this good relational practice, this good connected teaching, even through a brief, maybe a one-off interaction.

STEVEN ROBINOW: That's very interesting and anticipated my next question, which was about how do you have relationships. How do you build relationships with students in small classes or large classes? Small classes, it seems, is pretty straightforward. Large classes—I used to teach classes of 250-plus, and I know there are people out there who are teaching much larger courses.

But what you're proposing or what you've demonstrated is that brief, casual, potentially unexpected interactions, moments, can themselves be very impactful. And I'm sure many of us can think of examples where that's happened where you've been walking down the hallway and a student stops you. And so what you're talking about is giving them your full attention, helping them feel heard, listened to, and then actually in fact helping them with whatever concern they have. Even a single moment like that can be all you need to start building a relationship of trust and connectedness.

HARRIET SCHWARTZ: And I want to be clear. Like, so I've never taught courses of 100 or 150, 200 students. And I do suspect that that's a much different situation in which to try to practice this way. But, I mean, I think of a couple of things. One is that in some ways my guess is that if you're teaching a class of 200 students and a student does stop you in the hall and you give that student some good focused attention for five or 10 minutes, it might actually have an even bigger impact because the student doesn't expect it because they're one of so many students in that class.

I also suspect that not all 200 students want a chunk of your time every week. So it probably depends on the course and the teacher. In some cases, it may just be attending to those students who actually do seek you out. In other courses, it may be trying to help your graduate teaching assistants develop a similar approach so that your whole course has a culture of this connected teaching approach.

Because part of it is about building students’ confidence, that reaching out to faculty is a positive thing, even if they're struggling, right, even if they're having difficulty. That's often when it's hardest for students. They're embarrassed or they feel awkward or they think we might dismiss them or they might feel judged or something. And so if they can reach out to us when they are struggling and have a positive experience, I just think that lays an important foundation for the rest of the course and the rest of their time in the program.

STEVEN ROBINOW: Another impact that occurred to me as you were saying that is that not only have I potentially made a connection with a single student, but that student's going to talk to his friends in the class. And so there's some collateral discussion that could happen that could also promote an improved relationship. Even though you haven't spoken to this person's friends, but they'll have a positive attitude towards you because you've taken the time to talk to their friend. And they will have been surprised by that, potentially.

HARRIET SCHWARTZ: Exactly. I think that helps you establish a reputation as someone who can be approached and, again, reinforces the idea that faculty are approachable and that that's a part of your learning strategy.

STEVEN ROBINOW: What we're talking about gets to this concept of asymmetric primacy, about the interaction of the relationship between a faculty and a student. This is a very important issue for faculty to keep in mind while interacting with students. And I was surprised how much this section of your book, talking about asymmetric primacy, impacted me. The concept didn't surprise me, it's very straightforward, and you will describe it, yet I'm surprised at how it impacted me.

I've been thinking about that issue for days. And I've talked now already to a number of people about it. So could you please discuss asymmetric primacy and why it's so important?

HARRIET SCHWARTZ: Sure, I'd love to. And then I'd love to hear more about your sense of why it's impacted you so much. Asymmetrical primacy is this idea that I developed when I was working on my dissertation. So my dissertation was a grounded theory study, and I interviewed matched pairs of recent masters alumni and faculty members where both people in the pair identified as having had a meaningful academic relationship when the alum was a student.

And one of the things that I noticed as I went through the study was that in the pairs—and I interviewed them separately, maybe all of the interviews were done in person and they were all done separately—but the alums and the faculty tended to talk about the relationship in the same kind of way. They tended to sometimes recall similar incidents as being important. I wasn't hearing these divergent stories or anything like that.

But the way they talked about the relationship was different. So the students talked about this faculty member in a very singular way. So she was my advisor, he was my most important teacher in my whole master's program. They inspired me in a way. They mentored me in a way that I had never experienced before. They would recall a lot of detail about the relationship. And there was this singular nature to it.

And then when faculty would talk about the same relationship, they had clear memories of the student and they would recall specifics, but they often talked about it in the context of their relationship with students more broadly. So they'd say something like, she was a really gifted student. And in fact, I invited her to collaborate with me on a research project and we presented a conference together, which is something I have done with other exceptional students. So they talk about the student and they talk about how this is similar to other maybe a handful of exceptional students along the way.

I kept hearing this over and over again and I saw this just as a theme. So I started thinking about it. What it made me think of is that—so first of all, I named it asymmetrical primacy. And it was very funny because my chair at the time, Elizabeth, who has a huge vocabulary, she thought that that name was just way too, I don't know, something. I just remember her saying, what are you using this complicated language for, which, again, was hysterical given her vocabulary.

But I really thought it captured the idea that both of these people are primary to each other. This alum did stand out when they were a student. This student meant something to this faculty member. And the faculty member clearly meant something to the student. But the way they experienced and remembered those relationships was different.

It reminded me of when I go to the doctor, like I don't really think much about the fact that the doctor has all these other patients. Of course I know that they do. But the 15 minutes I'm in the room with the doctor, I want them to focus on me and I want to feel like I'm the most important person that day. And again, when I step back from that, of course, they're seeing other people. And I hope they treat everybody as important.

But it made me think about how when students meet with us, whether they're stopping after class, whether they make an hour-long appointment online or in the office, for us that might be one of several advising appointments that day or one of several class-related appointments that day, one of several dissertation meetings a day. But for the student, it's probably their only advising appointment of the day.

We may be the only teacher they're really meeting with actively that semester. And so that appointment may have a singular weight and meaning for the student that we can lose track of, because for me maybe it's one of four advising sessions that day, so reminding myself of the potential primacy for students.

And it's of course not always true for all students. Some students blow into an appointment, get what they need, and leave and probably don't even notice if we're paying attention or not. But I think for many, if we come with a presence that says this time with you is important to me, your learning is important to me, that sets a foundation for whatever else we're going to do in that session.

And so that idea of asymmetrical primacy helps me remember that for a student, this one appointment could be pivotal. It could be the time they figure out they really are going to take that risk and apply for a doctoral program. Or it could be that time they finally break through and are able to start writing that paper they've been stuck on. Or it could be the appointment where they decide not to quit school.

Sometimes it's a moment that won't be memorable years later. It's just that they realize they can drop a class or something like that. Again, there's moments for us over a career that might not feel important but that might have been the one moment that really helped a student stay in school or help the student start to see herself as someone with potential who just ended up in the wrong major, et cetera, et cetera.

STEVEN ROBINOW: As you say that, I'm remembering a student that was premed, as many of the students I taught were. This student was a biology major. And the student came and talked to me and was unhappy, was not happy with the choice.

And I said, well, what would you like to be doing. And this student said, I'd really like to be a history major. And I said, well, you should go do that. And this student did.

And years later, I heard from the student who said I got back into history, I loved learning again, I loved everything, I remembered why I wanted to be a doctor, and now I'm going to medical school. It was a great story.

HARRIET SCHWARTZ: Yeah, yeah. And so because you received that student in that moment, you weren't judging. You were open to that student and what he—I think he—wanted—

STEVEN ROBINOW: It was a she, but—

HARRIET SCHWARTZ: She, OK—what that student wanted. And you were encouraging and you received them with regard. They were able to stop fighting this idea and continue on a path that ended up getting them where they wanted to go anyway, right.

STEVEN ROBINOW: This discussion of asymmetrical primacy then leads to the importance or the potential importance of small moments. And we already hit on this. But you discuss, you actually have a section in your book about making small moments bigger, which really is about trying to ensure that the student feels that she or he has the faculty's full attention, even for the smallest of interactions. Did I interpret that correctly?

HARRIET SCHWARTZ: I actually hadn't put this together with asymmetrical primacy quite in the way that you are, so this is really helpful to me. But I think because these moments may mean more or just be more important for a student than we can possibly know or keep track of, unless they happen to tell us at some point. It's a reminder for me to try to up my game, to try to get a few minutes to clear my head before an appointment and try to remind myself, like, even though it's at the end of my day, it's my last appointment, I'm tired, I want to show up with the best that I can.

Because for this student, again, it might be really subtle. I mean, it may be a very routine interaction with nothing that we can see that was life-changing or significant, but it could be that that student has had a lifetime of teachers conveying you're not going to make it, you're not very bright, you're not going to succeed. And if we meet that student with enthusiasm and with regard and with a belief in their potential, that might be just enough to put a dent in their doubts and help them start to see themselves as having potential.

So it might be really subtle like that. Or again, it might be a conversation that really helps someone figure out their direction or something like that, but we can't know that, and so I think trying to show up with the best that we can.

Now the other thing I want to say in all of this is that we are also human beings coming to these interactions. And so I think I had said earlier something about our best on a given day, because I also want to make room for the fact that I'm not always at my very best. Some days I'm tired, some days I'm stressed, some days I'm agitated or whatever.

And so part of I think what I've been exploring in the connected teaching work started with thinking about teaching as relational practice. And that really expanded it into thinking about the emotion of teaching. There hasn't been a lot of work on the emotion of teaching in higher ed. There's been a lot more on the emotion of learning in higher ed.

I really want to acknowledge that we are human beings living life in a complex time. And I can't say that I give every student 100%. I wish I could, but I don't and I can't. So what is the best I can give on a given day?

And then the other thing is trying to develop that self-awareness, that if I realize I am, say, agitated before I'm headed into a meeting with a student, I need to take a pause and regroup for a minute. I need to set myself in a place where I can meet with that student and bring the best that I can on that day. So we can talk more about any of that, but that's some of what I'm thinking.

STEVEN ROBINOW: OK, so let's talk a little bit more about some of that. So your formula, or the requirements for making small moments bigger, are to be present, express care, and convey enthusiasm. Can you discuss or maybe give a few examples of that?

HARRIET SCHWARTZ: Sure. So I would prefer to think of these as intentions. And they again come from that critical incident technique study that Elizabeth and I did. And so we were looking at these single, meaningful interactions between faculty and students. These were really the themes that emerged that students would report something like, I felt like she was really focused on my work. She really saw my work as important and she knew that this paper would be a really important learning opportunity for me. Or he came in early that day to meet with me and that really seemed important to me.

So students talked about what we identified as presents. There's all kinds of ways that I think care helps to create and foster a space that will hold potential for learning. And care is also complicated because we have some students who might want more from us then we can give. Students are dealing with such complex challenges, and we're faculty and we're not therapists.

I remember years ago I had a conversation with someone who was a guest speaker. She was talking about whether it was important that students like her. And she felt it was important that students like her. And I have to say that I want students to like me. I think that's a pretty human response.

But what I came to think was that what's really important is that students believe that I care about their learning and their well-being. And ideally that's all connected to feeling liked and whatever, but I think for teachers to focus on liking is a little problematic.

Sometimes we have students who are difficult for us, right. We have students who there's a little personality clash. Or there's a student who is pressing us more than we like to be pressed in some way, or a student who drops in and out of sight, and of course, I mean, students who don't take feedback but continue to come back in for help. I mean, there are all kinds of ways in which certain students can be a challenge.

And so I think one of the things to hold on to is that even a student who seems like they're not giving it all of their effort or doesn't care or who's dismissive, if I can stay connected to the idea that I care about the student's learning, I care about their well-being, and that's one of the things I'm going to hold on to, that can help me stay centered.

I just was having this whole other thought in my head about when I'm talking about when students are dismissive of us, that could send me on a whole other track about the fact that I sit here as a white woman who I've generally taught in situations that are women-centered or there are often a majority of women students. And so that's easier for me to say.

I'm just aware that faculty of color and other minoritized faculty can be facing challenges to their very credibility that makes that whole thing I said very different. So I think that's very particular to impart my white identity, that I can say if a student's difficult for me or a student is pushing back on me, like I just need to hold on to my care for them. That's a little easier for me to say maybe than some other people whose very credibility is questioned by students. So anyway, that was an aside, but I think it's important.

STEVEN ROBINOW: Very.

HARRIET SCHWARTZ: I can remember certain moments when teachers came into a classroom when I was a student and just had such enthusiasm for a topic that I thought I wasn't going to care about. That made me question, like, maybe there's something here. And again, you were talking about how we can all probably think back on important moments we've had with faculty when we were students. And I think many of those moments probably there was an element of that—faculty member was enthusiastic about our work and our potential, because learning is this journey, it's this endeavor. So when someone conveys enthusiasm for our potential future, I just think that carries tremendous weight and can again make a brief interaction quite impactful, because this person believes in me.

STEVEN ROBINOW: Belief in this context is a very powerful motivator. I want to come back to being on for your students. And this question really comes from Elly Vandegrift. I was talking to her this morning and telling her I was going to talk to you. And she's like, well, I'd like to know how she responds to this.

And here's her question. If each meeting with students has the potential to be significant for the student, how do we ensure that we're always on for the students all the time in the hallway, in the office, or even at the grocery stores or at the movies? Some of us live in small towns and we run into people all the time.

And so, as you said, you can't be on all the time, but you certainly don't want to have an interaction where you interact negatively with a student. You want to avoid those, even when you're feeling not good. So how do you react to Elly's question?

HARRIET SCHWARTZ: Thanks, Elly, for the question. It's a really good one. And as you describe it, it was making me tired already about being on before class and after class and at the grocery store. And so I get that.

And what I would say is, I think it's a mix. Certainly when I'm in the teaching space, so whether that's teaching online, on a one-on-one Zoom appointment, or an online class, or when I'm in the classroom, before I step into that moment, I think I do often try to take a moment of intention to just gear myself up, trying to be intentional about bringing the energy.

When I was teaching master's students, we would have class at 4:30 or 6 o'clock, and almost always remind myself before class that most of them had been working all day. And 4:30 is like not my sweet spot of energy, frankly, in the flow of my day, but I would remind myself, like, they've been working all day, so I'm going to do everything I can to keep this class moving, to keep them engaged. And there's only so much I can do, but to be intentional about that I think was important for me.

So I think that's one piece is bringing attention to the learning space, and also being gentle with ourselves. If I am dealing with a life crisis, I'm not going to bring the same energy as I would in some other situation. And so that brings me to maybe thinking about what we think of as boundaries or what I talk about often as role clarity and relational clarity. And so part of it might be, if I have a meeting scheduled with a student and I'm in a horrible place for some reason, I might try to reschedule that meeting. I mean, if I'm really in a lousy place, having a self-awareness and then the boundary to—now obviously if the student's on a critical deadline, maybe I can't. But if I could, not that I'm rescheduling all the time, but occasionally that might be the answer is to take that pause.

I think a piece of it is about self-care. For people who are teaching online all the time, taking five minutes outside your front or back door if you can, trying to do 45-minute or 50-minute meetings instead of hour back to back to back to back, really taking some time off on a weekend or whatever if you can. And of course this depends also on people's financial resources and family responsibilities and all of that.

I think if I ran into students out at the grocery store, as you said, or out at the movie theater or something like that, maybe there's some balance of, I'm going to be friendly and try to be warm. But if they try to get me into a conversation about their thesis, I might also say, I can't wait to talk about your thesis, but tonight's not a good time. So can we schedule some time for next week? So sort of a soft redirection, because what I'm not saying is that we should be available 24/7. That's not what I'm saying.

STEVEN ROBINOW: We haven't talked about self-awareness, which really is the second half of your book. And that's such an important section that we're really not going to get to today. All right, so at this point let's come back to a question that you asked me. You asked me why did this issue of asymmetrical primacy impact me so much.

It made me think back on lots of interactions I've had with students, but then interactions I have with people, not students. So I think a lot about this, about how it impacts me outside of academia. It's just a reminder that my perspective is mine and that the person sitting across from me, their perspective is not mine. It's theirs.

We're in the same meeting at the same time and we're going to walk away and tell two different stories about it. They might be similar, they might be very different, but they're not the same in my relationship with my kids, my wife. I mean, pick anybody you want to pick. And it was just an interesting reminder to me. It made me think about that, just to stop and spend some brain time with it. I just found it so interesting.

And when you talked about personality clashes, I also thought about one of my most challenging interactions that I had as an instructor. This book made me rethink that entire interaction. Yes, this was a student that I found more aggressive than most of my students. And it's a student that if I believe if you look on Rate My Professor, I believe this student says that this student wants to hit me in the face. No, I mean, we had a very difficult interaction.

And I think that if I were aware of relational cultural theory, I could have handled that situation much differently. And there was no reason for us, he and me, to get into such a contentious situation. I think I handled it poorly. I think he handled it poorly. We both handled it poorly.

But I'm the powerful one in the situation and it's my responsibility to have handled it better, to control it better, to de-escalate it. And I did not do that effectively. And your book made me think about that. It would have given me new tools with which to do that. It was a very reflective moment for me.

HARRIET SCHWARTZ: I appreciate you sharing that. I think, as you know, I wrote a whole chapter on failure. I think that when we share stories like the one you just shared, and I'm not labeling that a failure, but when I think we share the stories of those difficult moments, those difficult relationships, we then open it up for other people to explore their own struggles in conversation, which I think then can help us unpack them in a way so that ideally next time we approach them differently. And we also understand ourselves better and we can get past it. I mean, if the student wrote that they wanted to hit you in the face, then clearly there was a lot of intense energy there.

STEVEN ROBINOW: Yeah, it was a very interesting interaction. All right, so let me get to some other questions. We'll come back to difficult times. And I think that interaction with that student for me was a failure. I'm fine with that. I have no problem with the notion that I fail, I fail, we fail. That's OK. We get up, brush ourselves off, and try to do better.

HARRIET SCHWARTZ: I mean, that's part of, again, we are human beings in a very human interaction. I'm in my first year teaching doctoral students and I am learning a ton. There are things I'm already seeing that I'll do differently. And I think that's part of the endeavor and it's part of recognizing our humanity in the work.

So for me the fact that years later you're thinking back to that student, you're thinking about how you would have done it differently, you care enough to do that reflection, that's part of a connected teaching approach, that relationships matter that much to you. And then like you said, that impacts us beyond that teaching realm, but it helps us think about our other relationships and power dynamics and other relationships and perceptions and all of those things.

STEVEN ROBINOW: So let me ask you that question. How has your work in connected teaching, the application of relational cultural theory as applied to higher education, impacted how you view and interact with the world outside of academia?

HARRIET SCHWARTZ: I think it's helped me be more intentional in my relationships. I'm not sure what's the chicken and what's the egg here, right. So I was drawn to relational cultural theory and drawn to this work because I care a lot about relationships. And I think I've always been somewhat intentional about them. And I try to be explicit in my care for other people and my love for other people. So I think in some ways that's always been there, but I think this work has helped me with that.

I also think that there's an interaction between my commitment to developing as an antiracist teacher and a teacher who is aware of and ideally takes on other systemic forms of injustice and marginalization. And so I would say that RCT has helped deepen my awareness and commitment in that area and has pushed me to continue to really try to learn on my own through reading and through documentaries and professional development programs. And that feeds back into my teaching. So I think all of that interrelates as well. So that also impacts me in the world and has motivated me to try to do some public scholarship around some of these issues, so to make an impact outside of higher ed, and so on.

STEVEN ROBINOW: Nice. So a few final questions. Speaking about failure, what has been your greatest classroom failure or your most disappointing classroom moment, if you don't want to talk about failure?

HARRIET SCHWARTZ: No, I'm happy. I wrote a chapter on failure, and I actually really wrestled. I had several readers of each chapter in draft form. A number of people encouraged me not to use the word failure. And at the end of the day, I just felt like it's OK. It captures a moment.

It doesn't mean I'm a failure. It certainly doesn't mean the students were failures, but the moment failed. Like, the teaching failed.

I talk a little bit about it in the book. I had a particular class where there was a lot of tension, there was a lot of disconnection. I can look back on it now and I can see where there were some things going on for me, there's some things going on for the students. There were some things probably going on in the larger arena at that point. That all contributed to just sort of this downward spiral. And it was a very difficult semester.

Probably the best thing that came out of it was that I wrote that chapter, which I think has helped people. It's one of the chapters people really respond to because we don't talk a lot about the feelings of failure in teaching, I don't think. So that's one I guess broader example.

The other example that always comes to mind is that I was teaching a class, an activity. Had them get into their breakout groups. And one group raised hands and said they didn't really understand what they were supposed to do. So I repeated it. Then another group raised their hand.

And pretty soon I realized everybody was confused. So I tried to explain it again, and they clearly all got more confused. They were really confused and they were a little agitated, which I quickly, again, thought like they've been working all day. They just want to come to class and have it work.

But I remember, I was fairly early in my career and I remember standing there thinking, this is falling apart. And I can either fall apart or I can try to model how to get out of this moment as a professional learning experience. And I can reassure them. I can continue to hold the learning space and I'll figure this out.

So I did that quick calculation. And so I said to them, I understand this is not working and I get that you're frustrated. We'll figure this out tonight, and at some point I'll write about this for my tenure and promotion portfolio. And that gave them a laugh.

And I said, so let's take a five-minute break. Let me think about what we can do differently. Gave them a break, gave myself time to think, came back. I thought I had figured out what was wrong with the way I constructed the activity.

So I said to them, do you want to try it one more time or do you want me to just lecture you through what I was trying to get you to work on. That question is a tricky one because I hold power in that moment, so they're probably going to say they may say what they think I want to hear.

But anyway, they're willing to try it again. So we tried it again. It worked. I had them do an exit ticket and give anonymous written feedback. Most of them were able to identify the key takeaway. The other question I asked was should I repeat this activity, the adapted activity next year. And almost I think all of them said yes.

And I felt like I did. I mean, I felt like one of the things that was important in that moment was to show how to handle something falling apart in front of your colleagues or in a professional context. And seeing that other level of what was going on I think was helpful to me.

Again, I think that moment was probably easier for me because I don't feel threatened. If I were a woman of color teaching a bunch of white male first-year students who were questioning my competence, that would have been a very different scenario, but that wasn't the dynamic. So I was able to handle it that way. So that's always like a big failure moment that comes to mind.

STEVEN ROBINOW: Interesting. And you write about that particular moment in your book. OK, last question, and for contrast—what's been your sweetest or most poignant moment teaching?

HARRIET SCHWARTZ: I think one of the things I'm starting to experience now, so I am often a methodologist. I've more and more becoming a methodologist on dissertation committees. And so I'm having this experience of students who I've really mentored in learning the method. Then when they get to their dissertation proposal hearing, I can see them talking about the method with some degree of confidence.

I mean, they still have more to learn. They're dissertating students, they're early in the process. But I can see how far they've come. And I think that feels incredibly satisfying.

Another student that comes to mind is a student many years ago, a master's student, who was very fearful of public speaking. And she was going to have to do it in my class and she hated it. And I kept telling her, when you get up there you're really quite good, that you might be feeling it one way internally, but that doesn't show. And in fact, you're actually very good at this.

And so at the end of the year, I invited her to serve on a panel at our graduate colloquium, and she did. And she was so excited after it was over. I don't know that there are many singular moments, but it is that experience of knowing where someone started and trying to be one of the people who helps them build their confidence, build their knowledge base, develop their skills, and so on, and then be able to see them progress on that journey, in some cases do something they didn't really think they could do, whether it's finish a dissertation or speak on a panel or whatever. And so to feel like I've been part of that, I think that's the good stuff.

STEVEN ROBINOW: Those are the great moments. Thank you. Harriet, I'd like to thank you so much for your time you've spent with me today. I look forward to your future work on connected teaching. This has really been a lot of fun. I've really enjoyed it.

HARRIET SCHWARTZ: Thank you so much. I've really enjoyed our conversation.

STEVEN ROBINOW: It's been great. In addition to this podcast, our website will provide a link to Dr. Schwartz's website where you can learn more about Harriet and, if interested, purchase her book.

Let me say that for faculty interested in being more reflective about their interactions with students, I encourage you to read Connected Teaching. It's a concise book, 150 pages, readable in a weekend. I can attest to that.

Thank you for spending time with us today. I hope you found this discussion interesting and helpful. If you have, please share our podcast and website with your friends. Those of us at Teaching for Student Success would love your feedback. Please contact us through our website at teachingforstudentsuccess.org.

Teaching for Student Success is the production of Teaching for Student Success Media. Let's end this podcast with some music by JuliusH. Some of Julius's music can be found on Pixabay.

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