Bonni Stachowiak [00:00:00]:
Today on episode number 532 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, facilitating contentious conversations in your classroom with Mylien Duong.Production Credit: Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential. Welcome to this episode of Teaching in Higher Ed.I’m Bonni Stachowiak, and this is the space where we explore the art and science of being more effective at facilitating learning. We also share ways to improve our productivity approaches, so we can have more peace in our lives and be even more present for our students.Doctor Mylien Duong is the senior director of research at the Constructive Dialogue Institute, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to equipping the next generation of Americans with the mindset and skill set to engage in dialogue across differences. Trained as a clinical psychologist, Doctor Duong has spent the last 13 years developing psychology based tools for educational spaces with an emphasis on tools that are evidence based, easy to implement, and feasible for real world settings. She has received over 20,000,000 in grant funding and published over 50 scientific articles and book chapters, and her educational tools have been used by over a 100,000 educators across the United States.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:01:39]:
And this is my favorite part, Mylien. She lives in Seattle, Washington with her husband and their dog, Luke. And I have a son whose name is Luke, so I was instantly fascinated by the dog. I’m so glad that we get to have this conversation. Welcome to Teaching in Higher Ed.

Mylien Duong [00:01:56]:
Thanks for having me, Bonni. It’s so nice to be here. I always get a crack with my dog being named Luke. People are like, what kind of dog name is Luke?

Bonni Stachowiak [00:02:05]:
I love it, though. I love it. But it just makes me wanna know more about Luke and also, of course, know more know more about you. I am I’ve been looking forward to today’s conversation ever since we said it together, and I I’d like to start out by hearing from you. Why what are what are some of the ways in which you just see this being such a difficult thing? What are some of the key challenges for why facilitating these kinds of conversations can be so challenging to us?

Mylien Duong [00:02:35]:
Yeah. You know, I mean, I think having some of these conversations is challenging to us, and it’s even worse when you are in the role. It’s even harder when you’re in the role of having to contain that conversation and make it a learning experience and prevent it from erupting. And, you know, and I think the thing is we are living in an environment where a lot of these topics have unfortunately become highly polarized and incredibly high stakes. Right? People have been canceled. People have not had their contracts not renewed. People have gone viral for being captured, for saying things are then taken out of context and made to seem as though they believe in one side or another. So these are these are actions that have real world consequences.

Mylien Duong [00:03:32]:
And I think the thing is a lot of us want to just especially as instructors and especially if you’re teaching an engineering class or architecture class, you wanna just kind of, like, pretend like the all of that is happening out there. All of that is happening in the news, in the national media. But, no, in your classroom, it is about the content. Right? With the capital c. But the reality is that we see these kinds of topics creeping into classrooms in places that you would not expect. Right? Students challenging whose whose work is presented in textbooks, right, is often the one that instructors don’t expect to come up in their classroom, but that come up a lot. And then they feel kind of like they’re on their heels when this kind of thing comes up. And it and the thing is, we were never really trained to have these difficult conversations, and we’re not really trained as instructors to facilitate these conversations.

Mylien Duong [00:04:35]:
We’re we’re trained in the we’re we’re content experts. Right? We know subject area really deeply.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:04:42]:
I had such a hard time not laughing when you started saying that because I wanted to instantly say, I was trained how to not have these conversations. I was trained in my family unit. You just don’t talk about it because my parents always had such and still to this day have such radically different perspectives that really what I learned was that and I I don’t I don’t know if you’re familiar with backward design or or this whole idea beginning with the end in mind. So for me, it was what got modeled was if you’re going to stay together as a family unit, so if that’s the goal, then that goal gets reached just by never discussing it. So it’s certainly I know I’m not alone in not ever being trained, not in a professional sense, but also not ever in I mean, sort by the way, fortunately, in in the last decade, I have received much training. But, I mean, prior to that, when I started teaching 20 years ago, it I mean, I had I was not equipped from a cultural standpoint, and I was certainly not equipped in terms of my family background to do that. So we know how hard it can be, and you talked about really that goal. You you said 2 things I wanna explore a little bit more.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:05:54]:
You used the word contain, and, certainly, that resonated with me as something like, ah, I don’t want this to get out of control. We don’t want it to get out of control in that particular context, but that then that gets magnified or amplified because it can go outside of that context. So the idea of containing it. And then the second thing I want to reflect back on is this making it a learning experience. So there’s sort of the danger zone of wanting to contain things, and then there’s the goal. What what would it look like if it was a learning experience? What what what are some of the characteristics or descriptors of that end in mind that we might be yearning for with perhaps not even realizing it?

Mylien Duong [00:06:40]:
Yeah. I think the thing is that we are living in an increasingly complex society where there are so many different kinds of differences. And it is just not realistic to not prepare our students to be civically engaged and be able to engage and work with people who are different from them and who don’t share the the same beliefs that they do and who have drastically different world views. I see that as part of higher education of and really of the the mission of education is to prepare our students to be contributing citizens to our society. And our society has just gotten more complex, more polarized, and more diverse than ever before. And we had to give them the skills to be able to do that. So for me, what it means to be a learning what it means to be a learning experience is to have conversations where people change their minds about something or become aware of a new way of thinking about something. Or maybe they even build on each other’s ideas, where they take the best parts of what they think and the best parts of what someone else is thinking and begin to craft a vision together for moving forward.

Mylien Duong [00:08:07]:
And that’s what we do in workplaces all the time, or that’s what we’re supposed to do in the most innovative of workplaces. So and that is really the skill that I think that students need to walk out of higher education with.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:08:20]:
In today’s conversation, you have three broad pieces of advice for us for how we can actually do this. This is possible for us, and build up those skills and build up those mindsets and practices, and it begins with preparation. What does preparation look like, and why is it so vital to us being successful at developing these kinds of learning experiences?

Mylien Duong [00:08:43]:
That is such a great question, Bonni. Because when I whenever we talk about this to instructors, the thing that they wanna know the most, which I totally relate to, is what do you do if something bad happens? Right? How do you respond in the moment? And that is actually the last piece of our model. That’s the prepare, support, intervene. That’s the intervene piece of the model. But people don’t pay attention to the p and the s, so I’m so glad that we’re starting with this. Because what preparation really means is setting the context for the conversation to go well. And there’s a couple of things that need to happen for for for conversations to go well. 1 is there needs to be some foundation of trust between you and your students and among the students themselves.

Mylien Duong [00:09:33]:
And there’s a bunch of different activities that you can find them on our website for building this kind of trust. 2nd is that they have to be knowledgeable about the topic that they’re engaging in. And ideally, they would have engaged in that shared learning and reading together so that they’re working from a shared base of knowledge. And the third thing is that you have to establish some ground rules. Some people call them norms, some people call them living agreements. I don’t really care what you call it, but some process of saying, how do we wanna interact with each other when we’re having these contentious conversations? What do you need from me? What do you need from each other to feel like you can really say what you think, and you’re not, afraid that some video of you is gonna go viral on Instagram.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:10:18]:
And the next bit of advice that you have, you mentioned about support. And I have to tell you, this has been such a some something that I still get challenged by, but also am so appreciative that it’s in my toolbox, if you will. And that’s just the importance of slowing down. So talk to us a little bit about what support looks like and especially the element of slowing ourselves down.

Mylien Duong [00:10:42]:
Yeah. We love discussion structures. So when I say discussion structures, what I mean is the least structured conversation is you bring a group of students together in a classroom, and you ask a very broad open ended question, and you just let it go from there. That is really no structure at all. But there’s different ways of adding just a little bit more structure in order to slow the conversation down, give people a chance to think before they speak, and to also regulate themselves as they’re hearing things that might be upsetting. So the highest structure, and I think most of us are familiar with this, is like a speaking stick. So one person talks at a time. You can only talk when you have a speaking stick, and you pass it around.

Mylien Duong [00:11:37]:
That is highly structured. But there’s also different ways. Like, you can have, think pair share is a structure. So talk in twos and then share out. Talk in small groups and share out. Or you can have activities where you have students express their views on a on a spectrum from agree to disagree. So there are different ways that you can structure a conversation that allow you to control how open how open ended you want this discussion to be. With the idea that the more open ended it is, the riskier it is.

Mylien Duong [00:12:15]:
And it feels great if that if the class if if the students are used to doing that, they have the skills to participate, you’re comfortable facilitating, then open it up by all means. But I think more structure often can contain the risk, so that even if something offensive gets said, there’s enough of a moment for you to catch it. Right? And to be able to respond to it in that moment and prevent it from going out of hand.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:12:45]:
Such a good model for us to give students a chance to think before they speak, and, certainly, we can do that for ourselves where we can slow down our breathing. And and one thing that has been really helpful to me in these endeavors, by the way, I I, you know, I when we remember them, of course, we remember ourselves at the worst times, but when I when I clumsily manage to do something that that seems to work, it’s to open up speaking of the trust, it’s to trust the room, to trust that learning community that I don’t have to have all the answers, and that, in fact, asking questions can invite those different perspectives. But bringing these first two piece of of advice and these models together, I do that best when I have prepared in advance to do that Yeah. Not in the moment. And that especially gets coupled then with the slowing down when I’ve prepared these kinds of structures that you’re describing, and I’ve done that in advance, then I’ve got those tools right in the moment that I’ve kind of thought through those, and it can instill more of those habits where my my fight or flight is, like, wanting to, like, go so fast and to get myself out of it. So talk a little bit what other ideas, might we share with faculty just in terms of other ways to get ourselves or or our students thinking before we speak.

Mylien Duong [00:14:09]:
That is such a lovely question that and such a lovely practice that you shared because the thing that we say about discussions is that you should always have a goal. Right? What do you want your class to get out of having this discussion together that they can’t get just by watching a YouTube video or reading, reading a textbook? What do you want that exchange of ideas to look like? And with that in mind, I think you have then a target, something to shoot for as you’re facilitating the conversation. And I think as some self awareness is really important as you begin to have these conversations, I’m gonna think in advance about what kind of role do you wanna play. Do you ever want to express your view on a topic? Do you wanna play devil’s advocate? Is that the role you wanna play as a facilitator? If so, you should tell them ahead of time so that they expect that. Right? And then I think just knowing also in yourself, like, your own biases and trigger points. Students are so incredibly acutely attuned to this, more so than I think any of us really grasp when we’re teaching. Right? I had a student tell me the other day, my instructor would just would just whenever I said anything that was anti Zionist, she would just stop looking at me. You know? And she probably didn’t know that she was doing that.

Mylien Duong [00:15:41]:
And so you have to be aware, like, you I think it’s it’s an important practice to just assume that it’s gonna come across. Right? Your biases are gonna come across. Your views are gonna come across. And the only way to maintain neutrality is to either do one of 2 things. 1, it’s to be fully transparent with your students about what your views and your blind spots are. I think that’s an incredibly risky thing, but some some instructors pull it off. And then 2, is to work really hard to be aware of those biases and to and to fight against it in the moment and to be radically open to the views of your students. Because I think you lose their trust lose their trust if they see those biases coming from you.

Mylien Duong [00:16:30]:
They stop believing that you’re taking them seriously. They start to question whether you’re evaluating them fairly, and that’s not a great place to be in the classroom.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:16:41]:
And then you talked about that that as a facilitator, we might have different roles that we want to play. And you you described how if what I really wanna do is share my perspectives, I really need to be transparent about that. Might we shift our role over the case of a term depending on what that goal is? Is our facilitator role attempting to match that goal, or might it shift more just based on our own desires and strengths and and expertise? So what what tends to change how we might show up in in thinking about our role?

Mylien Duong [00:17:15]:
What I find most with the faculty that we work with is they tend to have a specific role that they like to play when they’re, when they’re facilitating. And it really is depending on their personality, depending on their strengths. So I’m more of, I’m just more of a mediator by personality. And so what I find that I do best is I like to connect ideas together. And I like to say, you know, Bobby, what you said sounded a lot like what Julia was saying. Right? Other people are contrarian by nature. They love playing that role. They can just find the the weak spot in an argument.

Mylien Duong [00:18:02]:
Right? And so that they can really rely on that strength to push their students to sharpen their thinking. And so I think it is really more about your personality and your specific sets of strengths and weaknesses. And I find that most people stay pretty consistent when they’re facilitating what kind of, like, persona they wanna adopt.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:18:26]:
That’s really helpful. I tend to not play some of those roles very particularly well, so it’s kind of nice to just to really get those the grounding around the things where you might have more gifts that you’ve been able to foster or others have fostered in you. So tell me more about the role of a mediator, the extent to which neutrality plays a role in you wanting to live out those strengths in you.

Mylien Duong [00:18:49]:
Yeah. I think the thing is I I was a peacekeeper in my family when I was growing up. When somebody was mad, you know, when my mom was mad mostly, my dad would be like, oh, you know, could you go in there and and try to try to get her to come out for dinner? You know? And and so that is just a role that I tend to fall into really probably too much if I’m honest, you know, across both personal and professional life. But I think when when you are, you asked about neutrality. And I think I don’t think so much about staying neutral when I’m mediating. That’s not my goal. My goal is really to help students to to fully understand students, to help them clarify their own thinking, and to ensure and to help them communicate that to the rest of the class. Right? That’s my role when I think about mediating, is that I’m I’m really working with a student to really package something that I feel is coherent, is worthy of empathy, the students can relate to, and then communicating that in a clear way.

Mylien Duong [00:20:06]:
And then and then doing that over again with different students so that they’re able then the goal is really to help them hear each other. That’s my role when I think about mediating.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:20:19]:
And one thing that hasn’t come up in our conversation yet as it relates to that is the idea of I I I was putting myself I I can be pretty I can be also fall into a role of mediator and everything that you’ve said is is is energizing to me, and I could see myself taking on some similar strategies that you might. Where I will tend to get a little bit angry is when we can’t agree that there are such a thing as facts. There there is such a thing as evidence. So you laughed, so I’m kind of guessing this comes up for you too. How does the role of evidence come into any of the roles that we might play in having these kinds of conversations?

Mylien Duong [00:21:00]:
Yeah. That is honestly a really tough one. And, it is to me, it’s like its own topic.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:21:07]:
Mhmm.

Mylien Duong [00:21:08]:
Right? What is considered a fact? What is considered controversial is sort of its own topic. And definitely and I honestly don’t know that anybody has really figured it out. Right? There is this whole sign there’s this whole philosophical study of how we come to know things and understand things. And it is true that there there is a basic set of assumptions that we have agreed upon as a society as this qualifies as a fact. Right? Whereas this is a controversy. And, you know, if you ask me right now, like, I’m I’m not a epistemologist. If you ask me, like, how would you define a fact? I’m not sure I could tell you.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:21:56]:
Mhmm.

Mylien Duong [00:21:56]:
Right? I don’t know. It appeared in a textbook. Most most scientific experts who studied this agree that is a fact. But what if it’s, you know, but what is most? Is it 95%? Right? And there are a lot of things that we now take as facts that weren’t accepted as facts. Like, that the earth is round, for example, was not a fact that used to be accepted. And so I think sometimes what helped me is to kind of 2 things helped me when it comes to this conversation. The first thing is having some having like, putting in that broader context and having a sense of humility about my own ways of knowing and, being being willing to be challenged on those ways of knowing. I think when you take it to that level, it’s a much more interesting conversation than, like, do vaccines work? Like, let’s not debate that.

Mylien Duong [00:22:57]:
I think what we’re really talking about is, like, how do we come to know what we know? And what are what’s the level of evidence that we find to be acceptable? Who’s our authority? Right? Like, those are the conversations. And then I think the second thing sometimes that’s at play is there is a sort of emotional and social component to some of these conspiracy theories. Right? So there’s there’s been all kinds of research show that, you know, there’s among a subset of people who really value pre thinking and liberty and autonomy, that if you tell them a sort of outrageous belief and but you say that it’s commonly shared, they actually are less likely to believe in that. Do you know what I mean? So there is a part of a of an an of an identity that is like, I I swim against the current. I am a free thinker. That is also really important to service in these conversations.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:24:00]:
Yes. And the I swim against the current doesn’t bristle up against me when we get to the actual foundation of somebody where that where that bumps up against their identity. And and as you were describing this, I was thinking about my sometimes lack of humility when it comes around ways of knowing. That is certainly you you said it. I was like, yep. It’s like she caught me. She caught me. I didn’t know.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:24:23]:
And and so, yeah, if we can bring that humility to these conversations and and then really be able to then have our raw identity bumping up against someone else who’s really found their way in life by swimming against the current, I mean, that that’s just such such a more beautiful place to have conversations with other people to reach mutual, better understanding. And you talked about wanting to change people’s mind, and I’m always fascinated by that topic of how people’s minds get changed. And, of course, the short answer, because I can oversimplify it all, relationships. You know, relationships built on trust is how minds get changed. And how do we build relationships built on trust? Well, we get to allow for people to expose what’s in their own set of beliefs and values that aren’t wrapped around so many triggering things. So the last, bit that we’re gonna get to here is when intervention is necessary. What can you tell us about this stage and how we might be able to deescalate when these conversations start to get really heated?

Mylien Duong [00:25:27]:
Yeah. I love that we’re saving this for last because I think it is the thing that people most want to know is what to do when things get really heated. So I would say that there are very specific things that you can do. And let me actually pull them up because there are 5 specific strategies. The first is to slow down and ask a question that digs for deeper meaning. So this could look like something like, wait. I heard this. Does that does that is that what you meant to say? Right? What led you to say that, or what makes you think that? What experiences in your life have shaped that belief? The second thing that you can do is you can acknowledge the meaning of what’s being said.

Mylien Duong [00:26:21]:
So, for example, you can say, like, something like, it’s clear to me that a lot of you really value human life. And that is something that we all share in common. And that is giving rise to a lot of big emotions in this room. Right? And I think what you’ll see that’s in common across both of these techniques is you just kinda change the level at which you’re having the conversation. Right? There’s, like, the content. There’s, like, the issue that you’re talking about. But I think you can either go deeper or go go higher. Right? Go higher in terms of making meaning of the the content that is being exchanged.

Mylien Duong [00:27:06]:
And I think that can get you out of the cycle of of people arguing with each other about the content. And then the third thing that you can do is you can you can pause and put in structure. So I literally mean things like, okay. Maybe you’re having a free flowing conversation and you say, wait. Hold on. Hold on. Things are getting a little heated here. I want us all to get a chance to just collect our thoughts.

Mylien Duong [00:27:34]:
So here’s a prompt, and I want you to write for 2 minutes as an answer to this prompt, and then let’s go around and share one sentence about how you’re feeling. Okay? The 4th thing that you can do is you can go back to the norms that hopefully you set. And you can say, woah. Woah. Woah. Woah. I hear a lot of interrupting going on here. And we said that we wanted to really listen to each other.

Mylien Duong [00:27:59]:
Right? Right? So let’s take a minute, and then let’s go back. Let’s take a deep breath together, and then let’s go back to to creating the classroom that we wanna have. And then the 5th thing, this is the hardest thing to do, which is to address it directly. So you might say something like, Bobby, I’m hearing this from you. And, Julie, I’m hearing this from you. And it seems to me like the like, you both agree that human lives are important. But what is really the dis the core of the disagreement is the death count in Gaza, is the is the viability of Israel as a state. Right? And it’s tough to do this kind of this kind of integration, finding the thing that they might share and finding the core of the disagreement when you’re in the moment.

Mylien Duong [00:28:54]:
So this is why I’m I’m talking about it last.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:28:58]:
Yeah. That in the moment thing does become easier when we have identified our sets of choices. So this is really, really helpful for us that we can slow down. And I I heard you a number of times throughout your guidance to us really being able to pause and then name things, and name things from different perspective, whether we’re naming some meaning making and helping to surface that through questions and or whether we’re naming, like, a process that’s either being violated or followed and recognizing that we’re following this process we talked about. And we talked about that this could get uncomfortable. This is actually a good thing, as odd as that may sound to some people, etcetera. And then I wanted to surface one other thing that you had said in your examples. You you were you were talking about the types of questions that we might ask in our redirection.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:29:48]:
Is that what you meant to say? Tell me about some of the experiences. And one word that you did not use was the word why. And this is something that Dave, my husband, has always been good at helping me remember, although I wish I was quite as practiced as he was. When we ask questions with the word why, it really can flare up people’s defensiveness. So I don’t have you ran into that in your research to use something besides why? Yes. Get people off the defensive?

Mylien Duong [00:30:18]:
And you know what’s funny too, Bonni, is that it’s not my first instinct either.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:30:23]:
You

Mylien Duong [00:30:23]:
know, I tend to be a very direct communicator, so I would I I am very likely to be like, why would you say that? And it is completely true that starting a question with why will sometimes trigger people in ways that we don’t intend and flare up people’s defenses like you say. And so even, rephrasing it as how come can sound a little bit more softer even though in my mind, they mean the same thing.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:30:55]:
Are there any other words or phrases that come to mind for you that may produce unintended, results in terms of flaring things up?

Mylien Duong [00:31:03]:
I think one thing that often is annoying to people is if you go, I understand what you’re saying, but

Bonni Stachowiak [00:31:12]:
Oh. I am Yes. Oh, yes. That’s a big one. And what so what’s an alternative to that?

Mylien Duong [00:31:21]:
So whenever I hear a student say that, I say, wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Hold on a lot. So show them that you understand what they’re saying. Can you rephrase what you think he’s saying? So instead of saying something like, I understand what you’re saying, but, actually, rephrase what it is you think they said.

Mylien Duong [00:31:42]:
I hear you say that you’re really concerned about women’s health issues, and I completely understand that. And I have another piece I wanna add. And so I think and also the but is important because sometimes it is helpful to rephrase it as, this isn’t like my my opinion is an addition. I wanna get it on the table in addition to yours, not instead of yours. So that’s why sometimes I say, it it can be helpful to replace the but with an and.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:32:16]:
I’ve been fascinated just by the idea of rather than trying to overcome bias to instead interrupt it and have those interruptions take place on a more systems level than on individual levels. And so this idea of wanting to avoid the use of the word but, but what what but and what I heard you say was that the first skill we’re gonna focus on and build starts with being able to rephrase what I just heard the person say, and that’s just like you were saying earlier, the idea of building up skills over the course of a class. We’re We’re gonna build up skills. Okay. Once I know you can actually rephrase in your own words what you heard that person say, then we can add in the idea of not saying the word but and instead saying the word and and connecting our ideas together more effectively. So you’re get you’re giving me this Lego brick sort of vibe going where I can connect these skills without thinking I can just do it all at once, but being able to practice some of these smaller skills and build up. Before we get to the recommendation segment, what advice do you have for us as we are trying to build up these skills ourselves and also being able to facilitate these skills well for other people? Any any final advice you wanna give us?

Mylien Duong [00:33:39]:
I think the most practical thing that I can that I can recommend to people is well, okay. 2 things. 2 things. 1 is I I think that there’s a lot of people out there that believe that this work is important. Right? That we need to be having these conversations and that we need to be having these conversations in the classroom and teaching our students these skills. But they’re afraid, and I think there’s good reason for that given the moment that we’re in. So I think my first piece of advice is start wherever you are with whatever you’re comfortable with, and you will become more comfortable with taking more risk over time. You do not need to talk about Israel Palestine in order to have a contentious conversation in the classroom.

Mylien Duong [00:34:30]:
You can start with whatever content you are teaching and open it up a little bit at a time, right, by starting with giving a lot of structure, even having students go around and say what they thought of the reading. That is a discussion. That’s the beginning of 1. And so wherever you are, just take one step forward. And then I think the second thing about you know, I love what you said about overcoming your interrupting your biases. And it’s so hard to do that unless you’re used to be exposed to a variety of ideas that disagree with yours. So I would say, like, find somebody who disagrees with you politically and engage with them. You know? And nobody, like, super extreme has to be within what we call your zone of acceptance.

Mylien Duong [00:35:22]:
They were able to hear it. It doesn’t it’s not too triggering. Somebody you respect and think is thoughtful, but they disagree with you. And start to engage with them either in conversation or by reading their books or listening to their podcast. Begin to expose yourself to a wider and wider range of ideas. And I then I think you will not only interrupt your biases, but you will become more unbiased over time.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:35:48]:
A fond memory that I have of having conversations similar to what you just described, our our friends, Carrie and Stephen Moore. They would always win because because so much of politics that gets ignored is the local stuff and what a difference local politics can actually make in communities. And so they would always bring the little we they’d have us bring the little booklet that would have come and discuss some of the local measures that were being considered in our community. And I really enjoyed it because these were people who we didn’t all know necessarily. And as they facilitated the conversation, it would often be that it was on issues we just had no idea. I mean, some of these things that come up, I can’t even say what they are just because I don’t I don’t wanna be taken out of context, but I would just be like, I don’t even I don’t have an opinion on this. And then to hear from someone who was a nurse or to hear from someone that taught in a context very different than mine and that kind of thing, but it built up that kind of trust where I got to hear some different perspectives on local issues, but they weren’t the ones that were on the national level that do tend to be. And you talked about the zone of acceptance and that being I mean, it’s a wonderful way to hear from people who actually have some opinion that I would respect more than mine, which is to say I haven’t even thought about this particular issue ever.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:37:09]:
I don’t I just don’t even know what I would think, and it was so nice to be a part of those kinds of conversations. As a side note, we haven’t had those conversations in years because he’s been earning his PhD, and he just finished. And we saw him at his graduation party, and he actually we brought up that conversation, so they’re coming back. They’re coming back, and I cannot wait for more more conversations that are that feel like they’re based on safety and trust and all all the good things that can really facilitate those kinds of things. How wonderful. That’s just a wonderful thing. Well, this is the time in the show where we each get to share our recommendations. And today, I wanted to recommend a book.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:37:46]:
I had to actually go back and look to see if I had never recommended it before. I have this silly rule for myself, Mylien. I try not to recommend the same thing more than once, which you could imagine in 10 years of podcasting is kind of a hard rule to instill for yourself. But sure enough, I’ve had conversations with this person about this topic, but had never officially officially recommended it, at least that I was able to to find. So I’ve been revisiting Steven Brookfield’s book on becoming a critically reflective teacher. And so much of Mylien and my conversation today, it was interesting in how much they were intersecting. He spends a lot of time talking in the beginning about assumptions that we make assumptions that we make about the role of a teacher, and it’s it parallels so well with what Mylien was talking about of what kinds of assumptions get built up around what we think our role is as a facilitator. That was really interesting.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:38:41]:
He talks about dominant ideologies and hegemony and just the idea of the importance of recognizing that the systems and structures and powers that get built up over time, they’re not easily going to just let that power go over to other people. So it was just really it’s a really well written book. He is so humble. And when you spoke earlier about just the importance of humility and having these kinds of conversations, I went back and revisited the notes from an episode I recorded with him. He, by the way, is a a white British man, and so he came on to talk about race, and it was specifically as, you know, in his own identity and and, it’s just a beautiful episode looked at, for some really helpful perspectives from someone who is his intersectional identity is very much in terms of recognizing his power and his privilege that comes from that. So, yeah, it was just a beautiful thing. Really enjoying revisiting the book. I read it many years ago and can’t recommend it enough.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:39:42]:
It’s also if you haven’t picked it up in a while, highly suggest taking it off that virtual or actual bookshelf. Again, wanna recommend becoming a critically reflective teacher, the second edition by Stephen Brookfield. And, Mylien, I’m gonna pass it over to you for whatever you’d like to recommend.

Mylien Duong [00:39:59]:
I’m gonna recommend something that I’ve been using a lot, and a little bit of context about this is that I’m a bit of a health nut. I’m always on top of emerging health trends, and I am a scientist, as you know. So it is very important to me that I do things that are evidence based. And so what I’ve taken to this practice of using Perplexity AI, So it’s kind of like a Google search, but you go in and you can ask your question like, does Gua Sha work? Right? Which is my last question to Perplexity AI. And it will summarize it’s not like ChatGPT. So it is less prone to misinformation. It won’t just confabulate or make things up. It will provide you with an answer that synthesizes the evidence that exists and also pull in sources so you know where the information is coming from.

Mylien Duong [00:40:53]:
Of course, you can do that, all kinds of things, not just health things. But related to to this health not tendency of mine is I started to do so this is something that has passed the evidence based test, cyclic sighing. And cyclic sighing is a way of breathing where you breathe in, but you pause halfway, and then you finish the the in breath. So and then big deep out breath. And I don’t know why it works. I think that there are a lot of people who study it, but it has been published in science as showing that it decreases your sense of stress and it lowers your rest resting heart rate if you do it 5 minutes a day.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:41:40]:
I have never heard of cyclical sighing before, but on Thursday, we’re facilitating a session for my fest, which is the midyear festival, and we’re planning on starting with some breathing. So you know I’m gonna have to go check out sickling sign. I’ve never heard of that before. Thank you so much. And tell me on that, you said using perplexity does and I couldn’t even understand the word you said. Is that?

Mylien Duong [00:42:02]:
Washa is this new it is a a trend, kind of like jade rollers.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:42:08]:
Okay. Do

Mylien Duong [00:42:09]:
you remember jade rollers when they came out? But it is like a flat tool, marble tool that you use to run across your face and sort of give yourself, like, a face massage. And there’s this whole there’s this whole thing out there about it improving your muscle tone, which turns out to not be true.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:42:27]:
I was I was speaking of my bias coming out, my instant bias was, no. It doesn’t work, and I don’t even have to go to Proprixity AI. So thank you for confirming my beliefs because, you know, we’re in the zone of acceptance over here, but that’s so funny. Oh, gosh. That’s great. I remember being I’ve I must have been 13 or 14 years old, somewhere around that neighborhood and reading a book about about the differences in beauty products, and basically, like, the ways in which people were stealing money hand over foot in terms of making you pay a $100 for something that, you know, is the same as the $2 one. I’m of course, I’m making up these details now, but just that book has stayed with me all these decades later. I’m a little suspicious.

Mylien Duong [00:43:13]:
Served you well, Bonni.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:43:16]:
I had no idea we would get into such contentious things today, Mylien. That’s so great. Oh, well, what a delightful conversation. I’m so glad to be connected with you by Scott Shigeoka , and what a delight has been to have this conversation and become familiar with your work and your research. And I’m just delighted by today’s conversation. I’m leaving with so much hope and not just hope for hope’s sake, but hope with some intentional actions that I can take to facilitate contentious conversations in my classroom. Thank you for the gift that you gave us today and the gift that you give so many educators, to really have a set of tools and resources to do our work effectively. Thank you so much for today.

Mylien Duong [00:43:58]:
Thank you, Bonni, and thank you for all that you do.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:44:03]:
Thanks once again to Mylien Duong for joining me on today’s episode. Today’s episode of Teaching in Higher Ed was produced by me, Bonni Stachowiak. It was edited by the ever talented Andrew Kroeger. Podcast production support was provided by the amazing Sierra Priest. If you’ve been listening for a while and you have yet to sign up for our weekly emails, the updates that come to you, head over to teaching in higher ed dot com/subscribe. You’ll receive the most recent episodes, show notes, as well as some other recommendations and resources that don’t show up on the regular episode. Thanks so much for listening, and I’ll see you next time on Teaching in Higher Ed.