Episode 571: Anyone? Anyone?

Adams?

Here.

Adam Lee?

Here.

Adamowski? Adamson?

Here.

Adler?

Here.

Anderson? Anderson?

Here.

Bueller? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

Um, he's sick. My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious.

Thank you, Simone.

You are listening to WREK Atlanta, and this is Lost in the Stacks, the research library rock and roll radio show. I'm Charlie Bennett in the studio with Fred Rascoe and Marlee Givens, also known as Marla.

[LAUGHS]

Each week on Lost in the Stacks we pick a theme, and then use it to create a mix of music and library talk. Whichever you're here for, we hope you dig it.

Today's show is called "Anyone? Anyone?" CHARLIE BENNETT: Quoting an iconic line from a high school movie released in 1986 is a perfect Gen X reference.

And you know, higher ed social media says that we need to stop making those kinds of references. Yeah, since college students today are two or three generations away from our middle age Generation Xer mindset. Lucky for me, I don't read higher ed social media, or any social media. How Gen X is that?

Yeah. Well, I am ashamed to admit how many times Ben Stein's words pop into my head when I'm teaching. Unlike when the movie first came out, I am now on his side of that classroom and attempting to engage with my own students.

So in a way, it's a fitting reference for today's show, which is about us, the three of us here in the studio-- we're all proud Gen Xers-- and how we feel about teaching the current generation of students.

And our songs today are about building confidence, learning environments, and keeping things fresh and new because that's what we're hopefully aiming for in library instruction, and with all things professionally, to get better. So let's start with "Getting Better" by The Beatles. Hey, the Boomer generation right here on Lost in the Stacks.

(SINGING) It's getting better all the time.

That was "Getting Better" by The Beatles, which I probably heard for the first time in my parents' basement, listening to their records.

Mm-hmm. CHARLIE BENNETT: Speaking of generations, this is Lost in the Stacks, and today's show is called "Anyone? Anyone?" We're talking to each other about instruction. And in this first round, Fred and I will be interviewing Marlee about teaching. So Marlee, you are Marla now, our guest. Oh, OK. CHARLIE BENNETT: You are not a host. [LAUGHS] Right. CHARLIE BENNETT: So we're doing this because school just started.

Whoa.

Yeah.

OK. This is different than I expected.

We did a-- yeah. We did kind of a round of-- I had a small calculus class, and so we did sort of a round where we each taught the rest of the class something.

This wasn't like the teacher had to leave and knew that you were responsible and said, Marlee, you're in charge.

[LAUGHS] No, that would have gone so poorly.

That's shockingly contemporary because I know that my daughter is in elementary school. She's been talking about how we do an exercise where we teach the class. And it's very surprising and sort of-- I wouldn't say cutting edge, but it's a new technique.

I mean, it's a classic active learning technique is you have each one teach one.

Yeah.

Yeah. So then the-- and again, this is not the example you're looking for. My first for-credit teaching was when I was a graduate teaching assistant, and I taught French for two years. And I was 22 years old, so I was not far removed from the students in the class, and so I feel like in a way, that doesn't count. I mean, I didn't know what I was doing, but I-- and part of what I didn't know what I was doing was how to set a boundary.

Yeah.

So here in the library-- so fast forward almost 30 years-- well, 20 years here in the library-- I think I taught my first sort of library guest lecture kind of thing in 2016, 2017 with-- and that was really my first experience with undergraduate students. And then the rest just sort of came very rapidly after that, so it's hard for me to actually remember what that very first-- I don't remember exactly what class it was.

Yeah. But when you're saying you don't remember, you also-- you raised your eyebrows and kind of leaned back a little bit. Like, do you remember sort of as a holistic thing what teaching for the first time in college was like?

Yeah, it was intimidating in a way that I wasn't-- maybe wasn't expecting. Maybe I was expecting. I don't know.

When you said you felt like you weren't that far removed from your students when you were 22, do you think that feeling went the other way?

Because I remember having TAs that I look back on it now, and I think, like, oh, that person was only three years older than me. But in my mind, so far beyond where I was.

Yeah. Like, if you weren't in-- [LAUGHS] at University of Tennessee, you might have run into them at the bar.

Right. Yeah. Exactly.

CHARLIE BENNETT: This is like when you figure out that your high school civics teacher was 32. And you're like, what?

Or younger.

Far too young.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So yes, intimidating. And then I'm no longer intimidated, but I still-- like, I walk in and I'm just like, ugh. How am I going to connect with this group of kids?

Is that what the intimidation feels like? Is that, I have to connect now with these people and I'm not sure how to do it?

Yeah.

Do you think that they are resisting the connection also?

Well, I mean, that's how it feels, but I don't think that they are. I think that I'm just not providing the right opportunity to connect. I think I haven't really figured out what my hook is to get them to connect. I usually manage to connect--

Do you still feel that now, or--

Yeah, I do. I usually manage to connect with one person. Like, there's one person who will actually-- like, I stand up there and I feel like I'm going, anyone? Anyone? And someone will sort of jump in and answer my question usually.

I know that you do teach-- you have taught and still teach a couple of classes that will last a whole semester, but a lot of your teaching is just drop in. And so that hook, you know, you're there for an hour, and then they never see you again. That's got to be really difficult.

Yes. Yes. And so I think in a way, I just have to stop worrying about that.

[LAUGHS]

And-- yeah. But yeah--

Just let go and see what happens?

Yeah, exactly. But even the semester-long classes with undergraduates, I'm still like, not-- I mean, you and I, Fred, we taught our last GT 1000 two summers ago now, and I think at the end we were just like, never again. [LAUGHS] I mean, part of me-- part of it for me was just, well, the summer GT 1000 is really intense.

We've got one minute left.

Yeah.

Do you have a philosophy of teaching? And let's think about this sort of connection and engagement, because obviously there's a lot of ways to talk about teaching. But do you have a philosophy about teaching for when you walk into a classroom and you feel like you must connect?

Yeah. I think what I end up doing is just giving them things to do. I mean, I think that the real lasting impression is to give them a hands-on experience with the tool I'm showing or walking through a research process or something like that. Just put them to work as soon as possible, and just resist the urge to stand up and lecture and geek out over the material. CHARLIE BENNETT: Do not teach at. Yeah. CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah, teach with. All right. Get yourself back in host mode. Ready?

Anyone? Anyone?

In what way does the author's use of the prison symbolize the protagonist's struggle? And how does this relate to our discussion of the uses of irony?

I've had some trouble.

"I'm in Comfort" by Happy Trendy. And before that, "You'll Never Be As Good As That" by Butterglory.

What do-- are you making these up?

These-- hey, can I tell you a very relevant story about Butterglory that is timely because it just happened last night?

I'm ready.

And it's Generation X-- so we were talking about Generation X and generational divides. I'm sitting in my living room with my daughter. She's 15. And we're watching music videos on YouTube. She's showing me a K-pop video, and then I'll reciprocate by showing her a video of something. So last night, I bring up Butterglory because I knew we were going to play it on the show, so I brought up a video of Butterglory.

[LAUGHS]

[GASP]

And we-- and I said, yeah, I guess. So anyway, I'm old.

Yeah.

Can we have a bumper for that one, Fred?

After I-- after I find the button to play the bumper, yes, we can have a bumper.

Awesome.

This is Lost in the Stacks, and today's show is called "Anyone? Anyone?" We're talking to each other about instruction, and now it is my turn to join Charlie as we interview Fred--

Me?

--about teaching.

Fred, you are no longer a host.

Oh, no.

Marlee was talking about intimidation in the classroom, how she really brings the hammer down. No, the sort of--

[LAUGHS]

--that feeling of, how am I going to--

She's a strict disciplinarian.

Yeah, right?

Right?

So in the last segment, Marlee talked about trying to connect, and how that's kind of the first obstacle to teaching. And I wonder if you-- in what way--

[LAUGHS]

--did you have that experience when you first started teaching? What was your first classroom experience that you can remember as a sort of foundational memory? And how have you dealt with that intimidating moment of trying to connect?

Yeah, so I don't remember having a moment where-- either in college or in high school where I actually taught a lesson. Now, there were presentations, of course.

Yeah.

And certainly not when I had my first corporate job before I was in an academic library. But the first instructional experience I remember in an academic library was not a for-credit class, but a drop-in session. It was about open access policies or something like that. And I just reserved a room in the library. I got put on the library calendar, online whatever. And I just stayed-- went to the room at the appointed time, and you know, waited for the flood of students.

Drop-ins can be very humbling.

So that was my very first experience. One person came. And I didn't know what to do, so I started giving my presentation. But then I said, um, I'll just come sit down next to you, and we'll just talk. Here's the handout.

I think anyone who does library instruction has had that experience of, oh, let's-- OK, let's make this a conversation. Why are you here? What do you need to know? Let me just tell you the stuff.

It became my very first customized-- like, highly customized instruction experience.

So that's a nice way to short-circuit the intimidating sea of face-- the rows of faces, right? But what's your first memory of delivering content of any kind to a classroom full of college students?

I guess it would be maybe that same year or the year after. We've mentioned in the earlier segment the class GT 1000. A lot of librarians teach that. It's the first-year seminar here at Georgia Tech. And that was my first experience. I taught a section of that with former Lost in the Stacks colleague, Ameet Doshi. Eventually, I started teaching with both of you, but my first one was with Ameet Doshi. And I was extremely nervous even though at the time I was 39, I guess. 38, 39.

Are you trying to say, I was a grown person?

I was grown--

--but I was still nervous in front of these 18-year-olds because I was very inwardly focused. I was not focused on what the students needed to learn. I was focused on, I have to be the person that's up here, that has the knowledge, and is delivering. I was so focused on myself and winding myself up that way that it took a while before I thought about it more, had some more experience of being in front of a class and just thought, oh, it's OK.

Did this inform any changes to how you approached a lesson or a lecture or a discussion? Like, did you adapt beyond getting over it in your head?

I think I looked at it more like being in a band on stage. There's rehearsals. You play your songs together, and then you rehearse. But you make mistakes. You start different songs at the same time. There's mess-ups like that, all things that have happened to me. But the people in the audience don't usually recognize if you forget a lyric or if you play something wrong. And so I started looking at it that way. Like, this is-- there's a performance element to it.

Close enough.

Yeah. If it helps you get over that kind of anxiety, it can be-- it's useful to think of it in some ways as a performance.

And is that-- would you describe that as your philosophy now?

I don't-- I would hate to think that I am serious enough to have a teaching philosophy.

Oh, no, Fred. What's this imposter syndrome stuff?

Right? [LAUGHS] But yeah, I guess it would just be like looking at myself in the mirror and just going, chill out, dude. That's-- [LAUGHS] that's my philosophy. CHARLIE BENNETT: You know, I used to look myself in the mirror and say, chill out, dude, a lot, but it was never before teaching.

That was a very different situation. That can be applied to a lot of things in life.

What's your next teaching event coming up? When's that-- when is literally the next time you're going to teach here on campus?

So some drop-in things are coming up. I don't have any for-credit classes that I'm teaching this semester. But I've got drop-ins about library orientation. It'll be online for folks in China. And I've got orientation that's online for folks that want to learn how to use Otero, things like that. Just the drop-in things, for me that's my main area of instruction.

And do you feel chilled out about those right now?

Yes. I am much better, much more comfortable about getting in front of folks than I used to be. I'm not going to say that I'm-- that I'm great at teaching, but I'm much more comfortable doing it now than I used to be when I started.

This is Lost in the Stacks, and we'll talk more about being librarians in the classroom on the left side of the hour.

You are listening to WREK Atlanta, and this is Lost in the Stacks. Today's show is called "Anyone? Anyone?" Maybe that's not how we're supposed to say it.

[LAUGHS]

We're talking to each other about library instruction. And to be honest, I think we're talking to each other about that desire to connect with students. That seems to be really what this is all about. In the epilogue to his bestselling book, What the Best College Teachers Do, Ken Bain states, "If you ask many academics how they define teaching, they will often talk about transmitting knowledge as if teaching is telling.

Mm-hmm.

But Ken Bain continues. "Part of being a good teacher-- not all-- is knowing that you always have something new to learn. Not so much about teaching techniques, but about these particular students at this particular time and their particular sets of aspirations, confusions, misconceptions, and ignorance. To learn from the best teachers, we must recognize that we can learn and that we will still have failures.

In 1930, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives in an effort to alleviate the effects of the-- anyone? Anyone? The Great Depression passed the-- anyone? Anyone? A tariff bill, the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act, which-- anyone? Raised or lowered? Raised tariffs in an effort to collect more revenue for the federal government. Did it work? Anyone? Anyone know the effects.

Hey, yeah, I am also excited. That was "Go to Class" by The Debbie Downers, and before that, "Charlie Brown" by The Coasters. And we started with "College" by Treasure Island, songs about learning environments and their distractions.

This is Lost in the Stacks, and today's show is called "Anyone? Anyone?" Marlee, you do it better.

Anyone? Anyone?

OK.

I don't know.

Well, Charlie, you want to go?

No.

It's your turn to be interviewed, though.

I-- yeah. I'm not sure I can do this whole, like, not being a host thing.

Oh, really?

I'll try not to guide, though--

I noticed that you brought a visual aid.

I did. I did. I brought notes.

Yeah. OK.

It's reactive, so I'll just-- I will follow your questions.

Does it have to do with your first teaching experience?

It does.

OK. So tell us about your first teaching experience.

I don't remember it at all. So I went to my CV and discovered that on July 13, 2010, I provided a blog design, one-shot instruction session to an English 1101 class.

That seems like a very 2010 kind of class. CHARLIE BENNETT: Yeah, it sure does. I was not a librarian at the time. I was working at the library, but I was not a librarian. And then I did some basic blogging workshops. I remember one of those, and I remember it didn't go very well at all because everybody wanted something different from it. Then in 2012, I was the embedded librarian in a Moby Dick class. Major authors, Herman Melville class. Still not quite teaching, but present in the classroom.

Well, no, the blog design was my first teaching experience.

That was definitely--

That was an instruction session.

OK. And then-- so since then--

Since then, I'm going-- I'm going through-- it's not until spring 2012 that I remember the session that is registering on the CV. I taught-- co-taught a literature seminar, which is a very weird way to dive in, with the dean of libraries and our colleague, Sherri Brown, who is now gone.

To another institution.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Both of them are now at new institutions. But yeah, it was a literature of work, and I was a co-teacher. I led one class, which didn't go great because I didn't have a rich enough question base to get the discussion really cooking. But I was in a class at a table with seven to nine undergraduates.

This is a for-credit class?

Oh, yeah. It was LCC 3836 for the Honors program.

Oh, OK.

And the idea was to get them to talk about a book that they'd read, or a story, or--

It was a standard literature seminar. So you'd have readings each week, and you'd go in-- I think it was twice a week and sit-- oh, it says 12 students. There were 12 students in the class. And we would try and create a discussion based on questioning.

I'll say that sounds like teaching college and not teaching library.

Yeah. I ended up in the deep end of the pool pretty quickly once I became a librarian. I-- yeah, I've taught first-year seminars for many years, once on my own and mostly with Fred. COVID blew that up. I'm traumatized. I'll never go back. I've taught five or six semesters of-- minimesters. And I have taught so many one-shot course instruction on podcasting or library orientation or audio engineering, editing. Yeah, it's just all-- it's all a mess up there.

--does the metaphor of the job affect Bartleby? And then everything else was like, yeah, so you're going to want to download Audacity. I mean, it really started at a different place than it is now.

But it's not that-- we had that show where we were talking about ideal curriculum, and all of that was about information literacy. You haven't really mentioned anything that's information literacy.

Yeah, I really don't do that much. My in to library instruction has been podcasting sessions, which are essentially composition sessions for audio projects if someone is in need of a little supplement to their way of teaching. There's a lot of noises. I don't know if everybody can hear them.

I'm sorry.

No, this isn't podcasting. This is awesome.

[LAUGHS]

CHARLIE BENNETT: There's a lot of noises in the studio, everyone. Just ignore them. How do you, quote, unquote, "write" an audio project as opposed to a writing project?

So is this something that you have continued to develop as you teach it, or did you-- the first time you taught Audacity, that's still how you teach it now?

What a leading question. No, I mean, yeah. It is unrecognizable to my first couple sessions. This has been my course that I've worked on, you know?

In what way?

So I would like to think that I am not a sage on the stage, but I pulled that for a long time because I was doing instruction that was very specifically about, hey, you're entering your group project here where you have to create a podcast as your assignment, so what I need you to do is think about this. Think about this. Do this before you start recording. Do this before you start editing. Work like this with your fellow students.

Do you think if life took you back to a situation where you would be teaching that literature review or--

The seminar.

Literature seminar. Yes. Sorry. Rather than a step-by-step audio editing class--

Yeah.

That's a very different kind of presentation.

It sure is.

Do you think you could adapt your style now to doing something like that?

That's a great question. I don't know. Even right now the for-credit course that I'm co-teaching with an LMC professor, it's a project studio. It's all about, hey, here's how to do a thing, and here's some stuff for you to learn. Let's talk about it. Sometimes I think I'm a great teacher and sometimes I think I'm a terrible teacher. I have not been reflective enough to really know.

It sounds like you found freedom in the structure of your current method of--

Well, I'm a jazz guy, Fred.

Improv. This is Lost in the Stacks, and it's time for a music set, which probably will not be improv.

No. And you can file this set under Z711.2.L43.

Anyone? Anyone seen this before? The Laffer curve. Anyone know what this says? It says that at this point on the revenue curve, you will get exactly the same amount of revenue as at this point. This is very controversial. Does anyone know what Vice President Bush called this in 1980? Anyone? Something D-O-O economics. Voodoo economics.

(SINGING) Walking toward the changing blue.

Sounded almost like The Beatles again.

That was "Out With the Old" by Schnauser, and--

Oh, it's not The Beatles.

It's not The Beatles.

No, it wasn't. [LAUGHS] And before that "In With the New" by Emily Elbert, songs about changing things up.

This is Lost in the Stacks, and our guests today have been me, Marlee Givens, Charlie Bennett, and Fred Rascoe. And I have one last question for all of us. What advice do you have for librarian instructors?

Oh, boy.

All right. I'll go first.

Yes, please.

I'm going to borrow a line from Kramer. [LAUGHS] Make them do all the work.

That's pretty good, actually, I like that one.

[LAUGHS] How about you, Charlie?

Do everything on purpose. MARLEE GIVENS: That's a good one. Fred?

I think for librarian instruction, particularly drop-in instruction when you're only with them for an hour, just remember that it's about them and what they want to learn, and it's not about you. CHARLIE BENNETT: That might have been better than the whole rest of the show right there for teaching.

Yeah.

Hey, roll those credits, Fred.

Lost in the Stacks is a collaboration between WREK Atlanta and the Georgia Tech Library, written and produced by all of us that you just heard, Charlie Bennett, Fred Rascoe, and Marlee Givens.

Legal counsel and a copy of The World According

Wit, Wisdom, and Even More Wit were provided by the Burrus Intellectual Property Law Group in Atlanta, Georgia.

So none of the speeches that he wrote for Nixon, I guess, huh? OK. Special thanks to our students, and thanks as always to each and every one of you for listening.

Our web page is library.gatech.e du/lostinthestacks where you'll find our most recent episode, a link to the podcast feed, and a web form if you want to get in touch with us.

Next week's show is a rerun, and we'll be back after Labor Day to learn about something new.

It's time for our last song today. And you know, last week we played a song by 1950s heartthrob Jimmie Rodgers. And we pointed out that there was another well-known Jimmie Rodgers from the 1920s and '30s, early foundational country music artist. Well, our pal Phil Burrus, the OG Lost in the Stacks lits-ner appreciated us mentioning the other Jimmie Rodgers and let us know that he hoped we would play a track sometime soon. So I did some looking.

Well, it was Depression-era.

Right. So from 1931, this is "Blue Yodel No. 8, The Mule Skinner Blues" right here on Lost in the Stacks. Have a great weekend, everybody. [JIMMIE RODGERS, "BLUE YODEL NO. 8, THE MULE SKINNER BLUES"]

(SINGING) Good morning, captain. Good morning, shine.