Bonni Stachowiak [00:00:00]:
Today on episode number 529 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, working the gardens of our classrooms with James Lang. Production Credit: Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:00:20]:
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. I feel all a flurry with gratitude for welcoming today’s guest back to the show. James Lang was first on Teaching in Higher eE back on episode 19. Jim is here with me now. And, Jim, people think I am freakishly good with remembering numbers because I can always rattle that off, like, on top of my head, and I’m like, it’s actually quite the opposite of that other than it was an incredibly memorable experience to meet you all the way back then and have you challenge so much of my thinking about teaching. And I’m so glad you’re back today to for us to find out more.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:01:23]:
Before we start getting too much catching up with each other, I’ll just share quickly that James M. Lang is a professor of practice at the Kaneb Center For Teaching Excellence at the University of Notre Dame. He’s authored 6 books, including Distracted: Why Students Can’t Focus and What You Can Do About It, Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning, and Cheating Lessons,, which I was just referring to, Learning from Academic Dishonesty. And then, Jim, before I start asking you questions, I had to go look when the last time you were here was. It feels I know this I’m gonna freak you out here, Jim, but it feels like we talk all the time, only it’s very one-sided, but just it’s been so you were back on episode 374, and you came back and talked about some of the revisions on small teaching for the 2nd edition. That was August 12, 2021. Jim, what have you been up to since then? I think there’s been a few things going on in your life.

James Lang [00:02:21]:
Absolutely. Yes. First of all, it’s great to be back again 3 years after that appearance, and I know there are a few before that as well. So we have a nice long history together. Yeah. It’s been a, eventful time since then. So 2021, actually so after 21 years as an English professor at Assumption University, I took an early retirement package from there. Not so much because I wanted to retire, but because I wanted to sort of shift more from full time teaching to part time teaching and part time writing and and speaking with faculty about, you know, ideas about teaching and learning.

James Lang [00:02:56]:
And so I made that shift and sort of retired in May of 2021 from Assumption. Then some life events happened at that point. I was able to, enjoy my early retirement for about 5 months, and then, big medical trauma happened. Long story, and you can read about a little bit in the Chronicle of Higher Education. I’ve written about it in multiple places. But my heart was attacked by a virus called it be caused it, become inflamed called myocarditis. And, it sort of destroyed my heart in the space of a couple weeks, and I was on life support for about 3 months. And I got a heart transplant.

James Lang [00:03:32]:
And the heart transplant so that that that was a lot. But it also was the case that during the surgery, I had a stroke, and the stroke hit, Broca’s area, which is the area of language. So I was actually when I woke up from the surgery, the heart transplant surgery, which was successful, I couldn’t speak actually. So I had to learn to speak again and write again and write from scratch. 1st, you know, I had to learn the only things I could say initially were just yes and no, and then they started working with me right away with flashcards and picture of things in my room that I had to learn to say again, and it was a long process. But you can hear me now, obviously. Brain is an incredible organ. It finds workarounds, the areas that have been damaged by a stroke, and, you know, it depends on the the nature of the stroke and how, intense it was.

James Lang [00:04:18]:
But in my my case, it was mostly able to recover from the experience and back to teaching and writing. And I actually about 6 months to a year after the stroke and transplant surgery, I was able to start speaking again and visiting campuses and supportive, you know, my my work, my the 2 books, especially small teaching and distraction. And I was giving a talk at Notre Dame would have been, I I think, in April of 2023, actually. And Christy Rodenga, who’s the director of their kingdom center there where I am now, and asked me afterwards, would you would I consider coming back? And because I was I was a student at Notre Dame many years ago, and I met my wife there and one of my daughters went there, so I have good feelings about the place. And I just said, you know, yes. You know, of course, I would yes. That would be great, but I can’t really move. We’re grounded here with Stanley, and I’m not quite sure I’m ready to work full time yet.

James Lang [00:05:12]:
And so we we we worked out a position for me to be there on a half time basis on a hybrid schedule. So So I’m there 1 week a month on campus, and my other work I do remotely. And I’m working with faculty members, you know, faculty development, putting on programs for faculty at Notre Dame, public outreach, writing and research, all that kind of stuff that we do in faculty development. It’s it’s been great. It’s really wonderful. Travel is not ideal from Worcester, Massachusetts to South Bend, Indiana. When I’m there, I love it. And I love working with the institution, and and so it’s been great.

James Lang [00:05:44]:
And we have just finished a new book also that’s, you know, we can talk about that when it comes out. Yay.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:05:49]:
I’ll just

James Lang [00:05:50]:
have another conversation then. They’ll be out in April of, 2025. So, yeah, I’m I’m keeping busy.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:05:56]:
Oh, that’s wonderful. I’m curious as you share about this, and thank you for for sharing such such a profound life changing thing, and I certainly will link to the pieces of writing that you’ve done on it. I’ve been so moved by them and edified by them. When you think back to that time, to what extent were you spending time outside of yourself kind of in the mind’s eye observing what was happening from a teaching and learning standpoint? Was there any metacognition going on, or was it quite different from, the capacity or desire to do that reflecting on what this says about teaching and learning since it’s been such a big part of your life?

James Lang [00:06:38]:
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, even in the hospital before I got the surgery, I was in at Tufts and there’s a teaching hospital. And so I would kinda watch sometimes what the nurses were doing and and actually oftentimes I would have 2 people working with me, either a doctor or a resident or or a nurse and a nurse in training. And, you know, and some and sometimes they would have that person in training doing a procedure or and the the more experienced person would be sort of be observing that. They wouldn’t discuss it in front of me, but I’m sure they went back into their you know, to somewhere and then had a discussion about what happened and how they did. So, absolutely, I I loved to watch that, and that was kind of interesting to me.

James Lang [00:07:18]:
But, of course, the metacognition was really when I was trying to learn to speak again. And absolutely right from the start, I was just fascinated by the process because even though I couldn’t speak, I all the other parts of my understanding were were available. I could read. I could hear you. I completely understand what people were saying to me. I just could not there was, like, a gate between my brain and my mouth. It just I could not get the word to come out. So so then as they were kind of I came home, I have a speech therapist, and she would come out to the house 3 times a week and, give me a little task to do.

James Lang [00:07:53]:
And then I would always ask her, why am I doing this? You know, try to understand what was happening and sort of observing as as as the words would come back. I’ll kinda notice. Okay. I if I say a word 2 or 3 times, it comes back. And so, like, so why does that happen? So then I would think about, okay, well, that’s, like, neural pathways are kind of being firming up there. And, yeah, it was really interesting. And most recently, I started been participating in a study, some researchers who do stroke, people who had strokes recovery, and they’re kind of looking at how well they recover from strokes. And so they did a bunch of stuff with me.

James Lang [00:08:28]:
They they put, like, a brain cap on me, and they were, like, measuring things as I was doing tasks and everything. And I keep sort of interrupting and saying, wait, why are we doing this? They go, we we can’t tell you. Like, it doesn’t matter. You know? So so I said, well, if it’s all done, can I ask you, like, questions about it? They’re like, yes. That’s fine. But, yeah, I was very curious about what’s going on and what they’re measuring and and why and how my responses were. So it’s it’s always been a really whole the whole time, all the way through, I’ve been having this kind of metacognitive layer of of what’s going on.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:08:59]:
Well, I’m so grateful that you were willing to come back and share today. And in fact, I asked you to come on and essentially read to us. Some number of years ago, a, university hired me to, to and it’s gonna sound too cutesy. They were it was really well done. They had a theme that was kind of a take drawing inspiration from rest time. And, yes, of course, we often have rest time when we are little. And they sent all their faculty out little boxes before their retreat, and the boxes contained coloring crayons and coloring books with customized pictures to match their theme. It was really, really well done.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:09:32]:
So I got to have a little story time, and so now it’s your turn to have a story time with us. You’re gonna be reading to us a column. And the really, literally, the moment I finished reading it, it was so moving, and I instantly contacted you and was like, would you be willing to come on and read to us? Not really realizing the extent to which I was asking you to do something that doesn’t come quite as naturally to you as perhaps the last time that we spoke. So I would just really thank you for that. And, if you anything you wanna share that before you start reading. Yeah. Yeah.

James Lang [00:10:04]:
Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I was I’m a been a long time English professor, so I am used to reading things out loud to students, passages and poems and all that stuff. That was a part of my life and that, you know, I think I was pretty good at it. But one of the things now I the challenge of producing speech now is something that I can do, but when you add another layer to the process, like reading something and speaking out loud, or for example, trying to sing something, like sing lyrics. You have a melody and also the you also have to remember the lyrics or read them and then also produce them. Right? Those the extra channels there, it makes it difficult for me sometimes. And so reading things out loud is actually a little more difficult for me than it used to be, and you’ll hear it as I read.

James Lang [00:10:49]:
I’ll make stumble I stumble here and there. There are certain patterns where I I get mixed up, and I’ll maybe one time it happens, I’ll I’ll stop and sort of notice, like, this is why this happens here. I might maybe can try to explain that, but so it does happen on a regular basis. But, honestly, that was one of the tasks my speech therapist gave me. I I had to read books out children’s books out out loud to her, and so it’s a good it’s a good thing for me to do. I have to keep challenging myself because most of the recovery from a stroke happens within the 1st 3 months. That’s just sort of the, you know, the things that we people know about strokes and how your brain sort of is able to recover. Most of it happens in the 1st 3 months, but it actually can continue for many, many years after that.

James Lang [00:11:31]:
So I wanna keep challenging myself, and so I appreciate the opportunity to do it especially with a friendly audience like you and all your friendly listeners.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:11:40]:
Yes. And I can certainly guarantee that there are quite a number of words and names in this that I would not be able to pronounce without much effort to go look them up and practice. So I’m very much looking forward to our story time and and, for your willingness to read this aloud. Yeah.

James Lang [00:11:55]:
Alright. So this, essay was published on my subs deck. So I’m now I’m sort of writing for 2 places. I’ve been writing for the Chronicle of Higher Education for a long time, and so, you know, I do my writing there as essentially faculty development and and print essentially. How do I teaching teaching and learning issues, providing resources for people, asking questions about teaching and learning. Substack is another place where I can sort of pursue my interest in literature and philosophy, but I still take the the things I read in in literature and philosophy and apply or come up with ways to connect those texts to higher education. So that’s this column is, came about as a part of a part of a philosophy reading group. And so we read this, short novel by Voltaire in the group, and it made me think about some of the things a debate that we’re having right now in higher education.

James Lang [00:12:46]:
And so I’ll read it and then we can have a little quick discussion about it afterwards. Alright. I own a lot of books, although it’s probably the right amount for an English professor in his fifties who has always loved books. When I’m looking for something to read, I can just let my eyes wander around my own bookshelves where I’m likely to find something I own but haven’t read or something that I deserves a re that deserves a rereading. The inspiration for this post comes from a novel in the latter category, Voltaire’s Candide, first published in French in 17/58. Based on my markings markings in the copy I pulled from my shelf and the yellowing nature of the pages, I would guess that I first read about the misadventures of Candida as an undergraduate. I also remember teaching it at least one time as a graduate student, perhaps that even happened more than once. But it has been at least 2 decades since my eyes set on the book.

James Lang [00:13:35]:
I lost track of some of the particulars of the plot. I also remembered plenty of scenes as I encountered the names of characters where the first sentences are pivotal scenes. Novel tells the story of a young man born into a noble family in Germany, raised by his uncle in pleasant surroundings. He has a tutor named doctor Pangloss, whose name has since been turned into an adjective, Panglossian, expressing irrepressible faith in the perfect goodness of the world. Pangloss expounds on this philosophy in the first chapter, and here’s a quote from the novel. It is proved that things cannot be other than they are. For since everything was made for a purpose, it follows that everything was made for the best purpose. Observe.

James Lang [00:14:15]:
Our noses were made to carry spectacles, so we have spectacles. Legs were clearly intended for breaches, and we and we wear them. Stones were meant for carving, for building houses, and that is why, my lord, is the most beautiful house, for the greatest baron in west baron in Westphalia, Aotearoa, the noblest residents. And since pigs were made to be eaten, we eat pork all that year round. It follows that those who maintain that all is right talk nonsense. They ought to say that all is for the best. End of that quote. In the kind of plot about face familiar to us from sitcoms, this speech is followed by 3 paragraphs in which everyone’s life falls apart.

James Lang [00:14:54]:
His uncle kicks Candide out of the house, and Candide spends the rest of the novel experiencing a series of head spinning misfortunes and meeting other characters who have also been subject to the depths of human depravity. Their collective experiences include slavery, vloggings, botched executions, murders, rapes, wars, cannibalism, and more. Every major and minor character has a story which would produce enough misery for a couple of lifetimes. Voltaire describes it all in a comic tone, but I was surprised at the amount of detailed brutality he includes. In the second half of the novel, Candide encounters a down on his luck scholar named Martin who becomes his traveling companion. Martin sits at the other end of the philosophical spectrum for Pangloss as he explains to Candide to justify his grim view of human existence. Another quote now, a million regimented assassins surge from one end of Europe to the other, earning their living by committing murder and brigandage in strictest discipline because they have not more honest livelihood. In those towns which seem to enjoy the blessings of peace and where the arts flourish, men suffer more from envy, cares, and anxiety, and the besieged town suffers from the scourges of war where secret vexations are much more cruel than public miseries.

James Lang [00:16:11]:
In short, I’ve seen experience so much that I am forced to believe that man’s origin is evil, end quote. Candide resists these arguments of Martin because early education under Pangloss Pangloss formed his philosophical outlook so firmly. He continues to assume that benevolent reasons exist for all the evils he observes and experiences, although he seems less and less sure of himself as the tortures and violence pile up. At the end of the novel, most of the major characters, including Candide, Pangloss, and Martin, find themselves living together in a humble farmhouse. In the final chapter, all of them, now chastened by their experiences but still clinging to their separate world views, visit a local philosopher and ask him essentially the purpose of human life. The philosopher mocks them for asking such a stupid and pointless question, and he says, what’s that what has that got to do with you? Is it your business? And then slams the door on their faces. In the final paragraphs, Candide comes to his own conclusion about how to manage a life filled with turbulence, I e, a human life. He quits worrying about whether Pangloss or Martin are correct, decides that he and his companions should turn their attention to the immediate work demanded by their current circumstances.

James Lang [00:17:25]:
Farming. In response to a final speech by Pangloss about the harmonious nature of the universe, Candide finishes the novel with these words. That’s true enough, but we must go and work in the garden. In other words, worry less about praising the perfection of the blue skies or taking a grim satisfaction at them falling around you and worry about attending to the work that sustains you. That’s the end of the first section, and the next section is called can you in the Gen AI era? Moments in which life changing events are occurring around us and without question, those of us in the educational world are facing a life changing event with generative artificial intelligence bring out the Panglosses and Martins in all of us. In general, I have more of a Panglossian temperament. I have been more of a Martin a Martin with Gen AI. I see little good in the rival chat gbt and its ilk for the future of teaching, learning, and humans more generally.

James Lang [00:18:19]:
I’ve also been irked at the Panglossian exhortations of gen AI enthusiasts who don’t mirror my skepticism. But candid reminded me that allying myself to some firm philosophical perspective on artificial intelligence is not necessary. I can’t see the future. Nobody else can either, including the people who make a living predicting the future of education. In the meantime, I have plenty of work to keep myself occupied. Last week, I I wrote a column for the Chronicle of Higher Education and drafted this essay. I know that Gen AI can support writers in some tasks, but I enjoy every part of the process of writing, so I feel zero temptation to use it in that area of my life. Today I have 3 meetings with other humans, none of which will be AI chat bots.

James Lang [00:19:00]:
Tomorrow, I have to work on the syllabus for a summer course I am co teaching. We have drafted gen AI policy gen a policy, and gen AI will have a cameo here and there in the course, but it won’t be much. That’s a choice we have made and a choice available that remains to teacher everywhere. Teachers everywhere. I think I should say, and a choice that remains available to teachers That’s in a mistake in the the writing aspect. Okay. The problem with Subsec is nobody you you you’re your own editor. Yeah.

James Lang [00:19:28]:
In the College of Education, I have an editor. She does that work for me. But in some sec, you have to do your own editing. Okay. Anyways, I don’t mean this is I don’t mean to suggest that we should not engage with the Gen AI or not argue about it or not hold opinions about it. But I’m less and less convinced that I have to have to develop or subscribe to some grand theory of artificial intelligence to do most of my work well as a teacher or writer. I have skills and experiences that I’ve developed over a lifetime and a commitment to supporting teachers and learners. I still see those skills and experiences making a positive difference in the lives of other humans.

James Lang [00:20:02]:
You might be feeling the same way. You feel storm clouds gathering above you, and you’re worried about the future of education. In the meantime, you’re connecting with students and creating learning in the gardens of your classrooms. The rain may or may not fall. In the meantime, the gardens need tending. If you continue to believe in the value of the plants that have always flourished in your garden, keep growing them. In that respect, I’m no longer buying the argument that we shouldn’t use traditional assessments or in higher education, such as research paper or analytic essays, because AI can mimic them. If you see intellectual skills developing from asking students to brainstorm their own ideas about a text, organize those ideas into an outline, and bring them to life with words, then assign essays.

James Lang [00:20:45]:
Some students will shortcut that process by cheating with AI to be sure, but students have always cheated, probably much more than you realize. We didn’t stop asking students to write essays when the Internet arrived because of at least 3 month fundamental truths about the act of writing. Writing is, number 1, a form of thinking, number 2, that produces learning, and 3, generates new ideas. That was true in 2000, and it’s true in 2024. If you are concerned about cheating or the other effects of gen AI on education, then maybe add some new plants to your garden, I e, experiment with new teaching approaches. If you’re worried about students losing their writing skills, then have them write in class. Workshop their writing with each other and give them feedback in oral conferences. If you’re worried about gen AI spoiling human relationships, promoting bias, practice some of the techniques recommended by proposing proponents of inclusive or equity minded teaching.

James Lang [00:21:40]:
If you’re concerned that students will swallow this new technology unthinkingly, dedicate a class period to modeling a critical approach to technology. But if Gen AI will play a major role in the careers of students in your field, then by all means, reshape your garden. And be grateful that some of your colleagues will have gardens that don’t resemble yours so students have a variety of learning experiences across all of their courses. Final section, work in work in our gardens. Gen AI exploded into our lives so quickly that occupied our attention, stoked all of our worst anxieties. More than 2 years later, we still have lots of pain losses in the Panglosses in the tech industry arguing for its value. Plenty of Martins are counterbalancing them with arguments about the dangers it it poses. Happily, I believe the candids are becoming a larger presence in the discourse.

James Lang [00:22:28]:
The pen glosses will continue to yap into our ears, and while I might roll my eyes at them a little, I’m willing to hear their arguments. I definitely don’t wanna become a Martin, so nothing goes to sits on the horizon. I wanna listen, learn, and be willing to change my mind. And in the meantime, let us go work in our gardens. That’s it.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:22:49]:
Such a beautiful piece. Thank you so much again for reading it to us and and bringing us this conversation today. So you talk about going to work in our gardens. And in recent days, I have been revisiting a book that I read quite some time ago, Stephen Brookfield’s on becoming a critically reflective teacher. And one of the things he talks about in that book that I have sadly never experienced in my almost 20 years of teaching in a higher education context is the ability to co teach. And I understand that you are co teaching with someone now, and I’m curious where you might draw from that idea of working in your gardens as it relates to co teaching, and if that’s something that you’ve done regularly before or or what that what that experience has been like for you.

James Lang [00:23:35]:
I’ve done it once or twice my whole career. This time it’s talk about metacognition though. Like, you know, being able to observe another teacher and and both together there in the room. Right now, like I’m in Massachusetts and she is leading the course, but I’m on Zoom in every class, so I’m able to observe with her and sometimes I still will run the class from Zoom. And it’s just wonderful to observe what’s happening, when you’re not the one actively doing the teaching and to think about, okay, how’s that working? Could we shift if we did this again? What would that look like maybe a little differently to to to have a kind of different effect on the students or the experience? So it’s really, really wonderful. I know it’s just challenging because Eats Up Resources have 2 people to the same course, but, as much as possible, I think it’s a really great experience for the students and the teachers. And it’s also I I think that your point here is a good one because, now I’m not just sort of learning from resources that I’m hearing or that I’m reading and thinking about my teaching in context of me and some, like, nonhuman resource, like a book or something that I listen to, actually with the presence of another teacher, right? So we sit together, we make plans, and we discuss what happened, and so that actually kind of really focusing with each other on a shared task is exactly what I’m talking about in terms of attending our gardens and just kind of, okay, this is in front of me now. It’s a very energizing experience, and I wanna just lean into that, enjoy it, and and learn from that.

James Lang [00:25:05]:
And so both within the students working with the students in the room with the 2 of us there, but then also the 2 of us working outside of the room. They’re they’re both great.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:25:14]:
I’ve been doing so much reading and thinking and speaking about AI. I was honored to be selected as the scholar in residence at the University of Michigan Dearborn, and I got to explore and talk to a lot of people around AI and its intersection with higher education. And one thing that just has recently really been surprising me in a in a new way is just the extent to which students are terrified of being caught at using it when they didn’t use it. I mean, unjustly, caught, and I’ve watched a bunch of videos with students who have talked about their experiences. And so I I I will say that I haven’t had as many facilitated discussions as I would like in my own teaching experience where we could actually open up the like, it’s okay to talk about this thing. I’m a person who loves to talk about taboo things. I just think it’s so freeing as other human beings to realize that we so much struggle with similar things and and just to be able to open that up. So what has your experience been like to to have you been able to foster that kind of trust where we can actually talk about how we use it without feeling like we’re suddenly gonna be falsely accused or or what have you?

James Lang [00:26:24]:
I mean, I found I actually my own children. So I have 2 children in college right now and one that just graduated in May, and they they don’t they don’t wanna touch it. They you know, I I actually have tried to encourage them because, you know, I think it’s fine for certain things that I think are can be useful. You know? And so oftentimes, like, for example, my daughter who’s going to graduate school now, and she was kind of looking you know, give me a summary, like, what should I do if we get my student loans. Right? So so go to Jet High. Go to Chat GPT and and get a summary of the things you used to think about here. And and they just don’t wanna do it. I think they’re so, like, afraid of it and that they get bad information or no.

James Lang [00:27:00]:
She’s not even in in the class. I’m just sort of asking her to use it for her everyday life purposes. But they’ve been sort of terrified in some ways by this possibility that, I don’t know, that it’s it’s wrong somehow. And so I I actually see that I see that too in my own students, and we do have, like, a unit coming up. The course we’re teaching is called the, art and science of learning, and so the last part of it is about the future of learning. And and so we’re gonna talk a little bit about AI. So I haven’t worked with those students quite yet on the issue, but, no, my own children, absolutely. They they just don’t wanna they don’t wanna touch it because they’re afraid of being accused of self as as a result of it.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:27:35]:
And so much of our conversations on this podcast and and also the ones through that experience have been around, and you and you talked about it in this piece, of course, the you mentioned the 3 benefits of writing and writing as thinking. And and so I would categorize those things more broadly in desirable difficulties. And I would I would imagine so much of it that as human beings, we’re not alone. It’s not like students are somehow this alternate form of human being that is so unlike us and wanting to avoid desirable difficulties. So what has been kind of your experience of wanting to build up confidence, whether that’s in yourself, whether that’s in other faculty, or whether it is in a student context for what desirable difficulties do for the learning process?

James Lang [00:28:27]:
Yeah. I think I think this is gonna be, like, the maybe the biggest thing going forward in higher education, thinking about the the the balance of challenge, you know, and people are calling you know, saying words like friction now and ways to talk about the difficulty, the challenges, whatever it might be. There’s no question that we know that challenged, friction, difficulties benefit learning. But there’s there’s always a sweet spot. Right? So no challenge. You’re not gonna learn anything. If you have AI do all the work for you, you’re you’re not gonna learn anything from that. You’ll produce a a product.

James Lang [00:28:59]:
You’re learning anything from the the process. If there’s too much sound, you’ll back away. It can have other impacts on your your mindset or your motivation going forward. Right? So you have to have that kind of sweet spot where you’re challenged enough that it makes you work through the process and and try different strategies, and it’s gonna take time and effort and all that kind of stuff, but not so much that you’re not that you’re discouraged or just sort of turned away from the whole thing. Right? So find that spot is gonna be, I think, the the real challenge for higher education going forward, especially for teachers. And it I think right now, it was, you know, 30 years ago, it was all it was all a challenge. Right? Then we had this moment of where it’s like, oh my gosh. Everything could be easy.

James Lang [00:29:45]:
Right? I think now people are kind of becoming more and more aware about, okay. Wait a minute. We can’t just go all the way there. Right? We have to we have to step back a little bit here and and recognize where we put the challenges now. Maybe we put challenges in different places than we used to, but the challenges still need to be there. And the really difficult part is that, of course, it’s it’s different for every student. Right? So where is the challenge for that particular student might be different from the challenge for me. So this is gonna require, like, a long time, and probably never be.

James Lang [00:30:15]:
It’ll be always because the the the technologies will always change and evolve, and then maybe the the sort of the sweet spot is gonna be sort of moving around all the time, which is fine. But the most important thing for me to kind of show people is the channels is where the learning does come from, and so we have to find how we keep doing that to help create the kind of learning that we want that we think is most important. So, you know, I’m really kind of pushing this idea now that we have to writing is a valuable thing. It’s not just sort of ideas are not just translated into into words. There’s not just like a this glass relation clear relationship between the idea and the words. When you put the words on the page or articulate them, it’s changing the idea. It’s shaping the idea. And so you can’t just let, you know, a program do that work for you.

James Lang [00:31:06]:
It’s gonna it’s otherwise, it’s gonna it’s gonna just take your idea, and you’ll be like, okay. Yeah. That was my idea. But if you actually wrote it, what might happen is, oh, wait a minute. That was my idea that I started with, but, actually, I wanna change that as I’m writing it. And so we have to keep challenging people to use that tool to create new ideas and new thinking. And then really, again, the the slowness of the process is probably what helps produce the learning, because, again, we know that time is is important for long term learning. So all these things, we just have to keep each discipline might have to do this.

James Lang [00:31:38]:
Right? So I know for in writing disciplines, I still want students to slow down and write things with their own words even if it’s similar context they can use AI for other purposes or tasks. But the thing that I care the most about is you can use your own brains to put words on the into the page and let them develop, grow, and get and generate new ideas that might help you and other people in the world.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:32:06]:
I recently had someone on the podcast, Leon Fertz, and he was talking about that he believes very similarly to what you just described as far as he doesn’t he’s known as an artificial intelligence expert, but he he’s also known for saying, don’t this is not something that takes the place of the writing process and how important that is. Having said that, I keep marveling at the fact that he does the majority of his writing while the man is running. While he is running, he is recording himself, and then AI takes his writing and puts it into paragraph form. But, I mean, it’s his his words. He’s not using using

James Lang [00:32:41]:
I have a colleague that does the same thing. He he takes walks with his recorder, He puts a feed the the transcript, produced by AI, and yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:32:51]:
So would you say that similar to if someone’s listening to an audiobook, is that reading, and is speaking our ideas out loud writing?

James Lang [00:33:00]:
Is it they’re they’re similar, but they’re they’re you know, there are little differences right here and there. I mean, but that’s fine. I mean, I I think anything that people that that sort of help them process important words, whether it’s audio or or in print is great. And I’m just happy that people that are reading, again, that’s my, like, English professor. So just if people are reading, great. How if they’re doing is great. And in terms of, you know, producing ideas, what are you doing in conversation or on print, There’s probably differences that sort of maybe make a difference, but still, just both are good as far as I’m concerned.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:33:32]:
Mhmm. And get get get one’s ideas out even if it is difficult. And in fact, those difficulties can be desirable.

James Lang [00:33:40]:
And and oftentimes, the difficulty can come from I speak it out loud, but then I have to sort of work with the words, shape them a little bit here and there. And so you might think about maybe there’s, like, a 2 stage process there. Right? So, like, the speaking out is is great. And anyone who leads discussions knows you can you can new ideas will come to you as you’re speaking sometimes. Right? And so that’s what we all do right here in this in teachers and and and podcast hosts and podcast guests as well. Right? So that that’s good. But then if I wanna go further with my idea, I might say, okay. Let me try to write it down and then see what then what comes out of that.

James Lang [00:34:13]:
Right? That maybe push a little bit further.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:34:15]:
Yep. Or if you’re fortunate like I am to have a podcast editor, how much better so that my stories that go on for too long are are often that gets taken care of by by the editing process by wonderful Andrew. So well, this is the time in the show in which we each get to share recommendations, and I wanted to share people should go read this piece and really start to think about your own garden of your teaching. And what I really appreciate about this piece is that it leaves lots of room for many, many perspectives and recognizing that our contexts are different, our strengths are different, our disciplines can be different, and yet, what does it mean to work on our garden? And and that’s something that rather than responding to just this fear or this anger that the latest technology has arisen in us to I’m gonna use a metaphor which wasn’t planned, but it’s genius. Really dig down to our roots. I mean, those values that got us into teaching in the first place, or if perhaps that’s not what got you into teaching, perhaps now where you find yourselves really, really finding those roots. Second thing I wanted to recommend, speaking of writing, is John Warner, of course, speaks and writes a lot about writing, and he has a post teaching writing in a generative AI world, a compendium. And as a heads up, John Warner will be coming up on the show.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:35:37]:
He hasn’t been here for in a while too, so he’ll be coming up on a future episode as well. And the last thing I actually wanted your help with a little bit, Jim, to recommend, and I just wanted to read the the end of your bio. And and you shared about the health challenges and your heart. And the end of your bio says Jim and his family will be forever grateful to the family of the donor whose heart beats in his chest. Make your wishes known to your loved ones. Donate your organs. And the reason I thought you might be able to help us with this, Jim, is there anything that people may not know about donating your organs? I mean, I I’m so old fashioned. I’ve got the card, you know, the little card that goes with my driver’s license, but is there anything I mean, that’s I’ve had that for a very, very long time.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:36:19]:
Is there anything else that we might wish to know about that process just to make sure that we actually can have those wishes be fulfilled?

James Lang [00:36:28]:
It is important for your family members. Ultimately, they make the decision. Right? So you can sort of say on your driver’s license and that that you wanna donate your organs. You’re essentially expressing that wish to the people who will sort of make the decision about your your family. So that’s that’s the more important part here is. And this also might be state by state. So it’s worthwhile knowing what the organ sort of process donation process in your state. But it’s important to sort of know that making that that’s a first step to sort of check that box or whatever it might be.

James Lang [00:36:59]:
There there’s another step, and you have to involve other people in your lives to make sure that that happens. And so, you know, you have that conversation at any time. Right? You can be you can be 30 inside the conversation, just let people know. Right? And hopefully people will honor those wishes.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:37:13]:
Yeah. Thank you so much for that vital reminder. I think sometimes we really shy away from conversations about death, and I’m so grateful for recent, sadly, having to live out what people’s wishes were, you know, when they die and just how much easier it can be in an already difficult process when you really truly understood people’s wishes, and and, that’s really, really helpful. I’m I work with someone who’s alive today because of a a organ donor, and I I I suspect that we get to be the ages that we are. It’s just gonna be more and more people whose lives get saved because of the the generosity and intentional planned generosity like that. So, what a difference that can make. So thank you so much. I’m gonna pass it to you for whatever you’d like to recommend.

James Lang [00:37:58]:
Okay. So I mentioned I’m teaching the course on the art and science of learning. I’m teaching with Kristi Rudenga, who is the director of the Notre Notre Dame Center, and she’s a neuroscientist. So she’s giving these students the perspective of science and the brain stuff and all that kind of stuff, and I’m sort of sharing more sort of cultural perspectives and narratives and and even poems about learning. And as part of that reading, we we read a snippet of Malcolm the autobiography of Malcolm X. And in this particular snippet, this it’s only like 5 pages long, in which he describes he’s trying to send letters to someone outside of the prison, and he’s he realizes after, you know, a lifetime of informal education, he doesn’t have much formal education, and he can’t write very well. And so he’s kind of frustrated. He’s trying to and he’s also reading books from the prison library.

James Lang [00:38:47]:
He realizes, you know what? I these books are saying things that I think are interesting, but I have a really bad vocabulary for this kind of, like, academic writing or more nonfiction writing. So he’s in prison and what he decided to do is get a dictionary and then he tried to learn to write and and and and read more effectively by copying out the first page of the dictionary. Everything, the punctuation marks, etymologies, everything. He copies the entire page. He thinks about that for a day, then he does the next page. And then he keeps doing that. He copies the entire dictionary out in his prison cell. And you just think about that as like this is like an incredible thing.

James Lang [00:39:28]:
Like, no teacher would recommend that as a practice. No reading teacher or writing teacher would say, yeah, you should do that. Right? And yet he was so dedicated to learning that he was willing to just do this incredibly time consuming talk about desirable difficulty data. Right? Right? How much challenging that was, and not only did he copy out, but he also would then think about it, try to use the words. Anyways, so I thought this was, like, just, like, an amazing thing to read and think about how this fits in, like, our nears about how learning works and what we should be doing as learners and the role that learning can play in our lives. Right? Of course, anyone now who’s seen if you’ve seen read anything by Malcolm X or watched any of his speeches, learn incredibly like, our you know, his his ability to kind of put words together and and inspire people is just incredible. Right? So this process really got him to that point. So my recommendation is to read the autobiography.

James Lang [00:40:18]:
It’s just it’s it’s it’s an incredible book. It’s, you know, you take that moment there and push pursue him all the way through his life, which was obviously cut short, but, you know, he’s continued to learn even in his last year of his life, he goes to Mecca, completely changes views about things because he has a really open mind. He was always wanting to learn. He was very curious about things. He was willing to be wrong and acknowledged that he was wrong, and I just think he’s, you know, he’s inspiring in lots of different ways, but he’s really inspiring as a learner and to kinda see how he sort of shaped his life around learning. So for those of us who are teachers or learners, I really recommend the autobiography of Malcolm x.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:40:58]:
Thank you so much, Jim. I am so appreciative of today’s conversation for the ones that have been happening for 10 years, and I’m also grateful. I have it down in my notes to contact you about your book coming in April 2025. So be checking your email because I can’t wait to both read that as well as to have you come back and share about it then. So until we meet again, thank you so much.

James Lang [00:41:18]:
Alright. We’ll see you next year.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:41:22]:
Thanks once again to James Lang for joining me on today’s episode. Today’s episode 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 have yet to add the weekly emails from Teaching in Higher Higher Ed, head over to teachinginhighered.com/subscribe, and you will receive the most recent episodes show notes as well as some other recommendations that don’t show up on the regular show. Thanks so much for listening, and I’ll see you next time on Teaching in Higher Ed.