Teaching

Divisive Concepts: Academic Freedom Under Attack in Tennessee

Editor’s note: This guest post has been authored by John LaDue. John is the Information Literacy Librarian at the Paul Meek Library which serves the University of Tennessee at Martin.

In their latest attack on public education, the Tennessee legislature has voted to amend 2022’s so-called “divisive concepts” law to expand its reach further into public higher education. Beginning with 2021’s anti-critical race theory bill, the Tennessee legislature has repeatedly attempted to dictate what can and cannot be taught in public schools. In 2022, the legislature enacted the first iteration of the “divisive concepts” law, which, in terms of in-class instruction, targeted primarily public K-12 schools, although there were many provisions that targeted higher education. That law was recently amended to apply the in-class instruction restrictions to public higher education institutions, such as the one I work at, the University of Tennessee at Martin.

Tennessee State Senator Joey Hensley denied that the legislation would inhibit the teaching of the role of racism in the United States, stating “We’re not saying people shouldn’t teach about that, and they should teach about that and how the Native Americans were treated—they were treated badly, too, [but] all of that was many years ago”. The idea that the mistreatment of Native populations ended “many years ago” flies in the face of reality and stands in sharp contradiction to the ACRL 2023 opening keynote address by Rebecca Nagle. The same legislature that recently expelled two Black legislators wants us to not teach about systemic racism because that would be divisive.

One of the outcomes of these laws is the creation of a reporting function where students or employees who feel that the school, or an instructor, has violated the law can file a report with the school and the school would have to investigate the claim and file a yearly report to the comptroller of the treasury on all such reports.

Some of the special programming I put on this year could easily come under attack, such as a lunch series on researching Black liberation movements. However, even some of the basic functions of my job can become a point of contention. As an example, I teach about information, which includes who owns and controls the production and distribution of information: the political economy of information. In my teaching, I explain to students that there are publishing companies who take works given freely by academics and then sell access to them back to institutions like UTM at shockingly high profit margins and that part of what their tuition and fees goes toward is funding those profit margins. If I do that and a student feels that I am promoting resentment of the class that owns publishers like Elsevier and EBSCO, then I can be reported for violating the law, specifically divisive concept 10 (“Promotes division between, or resentment of, a race, sex, religion, creed, nonviolent political affiliation, social class, or class of people;”).

The ALA code of ethics, in part, states, “We work to recognize and dismantle systemic and individual biases; to confront inequity and oppression; to enhance diversity and inclusion; and to advance racial and social justice in our libraries, communities, profession, and associations through awareness, advocacy, education, collaboration, services, and allocation of resources and spaces ”. To uphold the ethics of our profession puts me in violation of Tennessee law.

Personally, I have no intentions of altering what I teach or how I teach it; I would rather be unemployed than unprincipled. However, this legislation has an obvious and intentional chilling effect on educators throughout the state. At the University of Tennessee at Martin, both the Student Government Association and Faculty Senate have passed resolutions condemning these laws; I call on all individuals and organizations in Tennessee and beyond to stand with us and join in our condemnation.

REFERENCES

Allison, Natalie. 2021. “Tennessee Bans Public Schools from Teaching Critical Race Theory amid National Debate.” The Tennessean. May 5, 2021. https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2021/05/05/tennessee-bans-critical-race-theory-schools-withhold-funding/4948306001/.

Buranyi, Stephen. 2017. “Is the Staggeringly Profitable Business of Scientific Publishing Bad for Science?” The Guardian, June 27, 2017, sec. Science. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/27/profitable-business-scientific-publishing-bad-for-science.

Fawcett, Eliza, and Emily Cochrane. 2023. “Tennessee House Expulsions: What You Need to Know.” The New York Times, April 13, 2023, sec. U.S. https://www.nytimes.com/article/tennessee-house-democrats-expulsion-shooting-gun-control.html.

Garcia, Raymond. 2023. “The Stories We Tell.” American Libraries Magazine. March 28, 2023. https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/blogs/the-scoop/the-stories-we-tell/.

Kim, Jane, and Randall Barnes. 2023. “UT Martin’s Faculty Leadership Formally Condemns Two Tennessee Laws as Racist, but behind Closed Doors.” WPSD Local 6. April 25, 2023. https://www.wpsdlocal6.com/news/ut-martins-faculty-leadership-formally-condemns-two-tennessee-laws-as-racist-but-behind-closed-doors/article_efd94a4e-e3de-11ed-a033-07fccfd39aaf.html.

Kruesi, Kimberlee. 2022. “Colleges Face Legal Risks under ‘divisive Concept’ Bill.” AP NEWS. March 8, 2022. https://apnews.com/article/education-lawsuits-race-and-ethnicity-racial-injustice-tennessee-072fe36a7a05b3f931a71ba82d217209.

Lamb, Zacharie. 2023. “UT-Martin Student Government Passes Resolution Condemning Tennessee’s Laws as Racist.” WKMS. February 27, 2023. https://www.wkms.org/education/2023-02-27/ut-martin-sga-passes-resolution-condemning-tns-recent-education-laws.

Quinn, Ryan. 2023. “Tennessee Again Targets ‘Divisive Concepts.’” Inside Higher Ed. April 18, 2023. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/diversity-equity/2023/04/18/tennessee-again-targets-divisive-concepts.

Tennessee General Assembly Legislation. n.d. “HB 1376.” Tennessee General Assembly Legislation. Accessed April 28, 2023. https://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/BillInfo/Default.aspx?BillNumber=HB1376.

WBIR. 2023. “TN Bill That Allows Students to Report Professors Who Teach ‘divisive Concepts’ Passes House and Senate.” Wbir.Com. March 6, 2023. https://www.wbir.com/article/news/education/new-bill-would-strengthen-rules-over-what-can-be-taught-in-classrooms/51-ddd267e4-3d98-4de0-bb2e-3284740b4cb7.

Zalusky, Steve. 2021. “ALA Adopts New Code of Ethics Principle on Racial and Social Justice.” Text. News and Press Center. July 28, 2021. https://www.ala.org/news/member-news/2021/07/ala-adopts-new-code-ethics-principle-racial-and-social-justice.

Returning & Relearning

This month I returned to a yoga studio for the first time since March 2020. The studio I used to frequent did not make it through the pandemic, despite pivoting to online class offerings, so I spent the majority of the past 2.5 years with a fitness routine aimed primarily at boosting my mental health in the outdoors. It was a safer alternative and helped lessen the feeling of being cooped up at home.

This winter I finally felt like I was in a place to practice yoga in a studio (which I recognize is a decision each person needs to make for themselves). A new one opened up near me, and I decided to try it out for a month. I signed up for a beginners hot yoga class, knowing that it had literally been years since I’d had a solid yoga practice. When I entered the room on a Wednesday evening I was excited and nervous. The room was quiet, there was plenty of space between people, and I began to feel a familiar sense of calm.

The class began at a slow, beginner’s pace, with the instructor calling out modifications for those who needed them, as well as opportunities to up-level certain poses. I remembered most of the poses but my movements were stiff and clumsy. I didn’t have the balance or range of motion I had previously gained from practicing multiple times a week. My body was different, older, and my joints reminded me of that with a pop! every time I moved between certain poses. There were a few poses I couldn’t quite remember, so I relied on the guidance and example of the instructor and others in the class. There were some poses I remembered but just couldn’t do anymore.

I wasn’t a complete novice–I had a decent yoga practice before the pandemic–but I was returning to an activity that I hadn’t done in years. I needed a beginner’s pace, but not necessarily beginner instruction. I sometimes knew what to do but couldn’t quite make my body do it. I felt like I was relearning the flow of yoga: how to begin, transition, and end at my new pace. I need different supports (blocks, bolsters, etc.) at different points in class now, and I need time to work on my flexibility and ability to meditate.

This isn’t the first time that a yoga class has made me reflect on what it means to be a learner, but it did foster a different kind of understanding. In my department my colleagues and I often work with learners who are returning to the classroom after a significant amount of time away from university. They might be working on completing an undergraduate degree, or, more commonly, working on a graduate degree. They often bring a wealth of experience from their jobs and work in the community, but admit that the university, and the library, look very different from when they first attended. They grasp certain concepts quickly, while others require more time to internalize. Their research often benefits from their strong content knowledge and practical experience, however some are just beginning to flex their research, reading, and writing skills again.

As teaching librarians, it’s an interesting balance we need to strike with returning learners. We want to honor their existing knowledge but also can’t make assumptions about what they know or don’t know. We want to give them the space an opportunity to try things out on their own, but also want to be available for assistance as needed. There is no room for “You’re a graduate student so you should know this,” in this space. What I think it comes down to is an awareness and respect of what it means to be a learner returning to the classroom, nervously excited (or in a state of dread or somewhere in between), and wanting to be seen not as a novice but as a learner in a different state. I don’t think there is a good word for a returning student. “Relearner” sounds clunky and inaccurate. I don’t even necessarily think these learners require a label, as long as we remember to check our assumptions and hold space for all learners to begin from their own beginning points.

Learning to Teach Credit-Bearing Courses

One element that excited me about my current job was the opportunity to teach credit-bearing courses in our Library Informatics bachelor’s degree program. In my role as department head, I not only get the chance to teach and but also lead the program. For my first year, I mostly did the administrative work of leading a program. I worked with our advisor (one of our librarians in our department) to resolve student issues, coordinated our program assessment, set up our course rotation each semester, and assigned classes to the folks that report to me. My first year was really a chance to dive into the program, learn about its creation and context, and lead conversations with the department about the program’s future. It seems that my second year here has focused more on actually teaching the classes, something that excites me and also gives me a lot to think about.

My first chance to teach happened this past summer, where I co-taught LIN 175: Information Literacy, our general education course that covers the research process and gives students a look at research through an IL lens. We taught in a five-week, five days a week, two hours a day, synchronous format. I was able to learn the content, teach about ? of the class sessions, and work closely with the students enrolled. Their final project was a group poster (inspired by the better poster template introduced by Mike Morrison) on an IL related topic of their choice. This version of the class was also a heavy revision from ways the class had been taught previously; our team got together in May and reimagined how the content was introduced and created the final poster project. In many ways, our revisions worked well and the new structure kickstarted a lot of good discussion within the department about how we want this class to work.

This fall, I had to pinch hit and teach a seven week, asynchronous version of LIN 175. I had never taught a credit course asynchronously before and relied on my department colleagues who let me look at their past syllabi and lurk in their Canvas shells. Teaching a seven week course was definitely eye opening. It was fast paced and pushed me to juggle my day-to-day job, creating content, and evaluating student work. Particularly, I ran into the following challenges and opportunities:

Out of sight, out of mind. At first, I sort of forgot I was teaching an online class. I was involved in so many other projects and in-person activities that I had to actively remind myself there were students, online, waiting for my instruction and feedback. Like any other project, I had to find ways to build it into my to-do lists and my calendar.
Developing weekly content aka building the airplane while I was flying it. In general, I roll my eyes at the “building the airplane while we’re flying it” phrase, but it definitely was my experience this fall. Especially at the beginning of the course, I felt that the day before I “dropped” a new module, I was frantically recording lectures, organizing learning materials, and double checking the assignments were set up correctly. While I had a lot of the content from the summer class, there are vast differences between working with students daily, in-person, and having a student work online asynchronously. It’s not an easy transfer! It did get a little easier in terms of setting up modules as time went on, but it was anxiety inducing to start.
How much content is too much content? With the in-person, five-week class, we had two hours each day to go through context, do activities, and learn the materials. I feel comfortable with lesson planning for two hours. I did not feel as confident designing asynchronous content. I still am learning what is reasonable/doable for a week’s worth of learning materials. I want to pick things that are relevant, engaging, and applicable to the students. I also want content that connects to each other and sets the stage for application assignments. Those assignments are really my only way to know if students have absorbed and learned the material, I don’t have the same in-person cues. I ended up with some good modules and I also made plenty of notes of how to improve content for future iterations of this class.
Building connections with students. Something I’ve heard from both faculty who teach online courses and students who have taken online courses is that connecting with each other is tough. Just because I have students complete a reflection over VoiceThread doesn’t mean they connect with their peers or feel connected to me as their professor. I know there’s learning I need to do to better understand how to cultivate community in this time frame and virtual environment. In many ways, I feel like I’m VERY behind on this conversation after the pandemic (but look forward to reviewing all the content created in this time).

When I submitted my grades on Monday afternoon, I felt a sense of relief. I did it! I don’t think I’ll teach this class, in this format, until the fall, so I have time to make some tweaks and build off what I learned the past seven weeks. For now, I’ll make a transition to preparing for a different seven-week class that starts in January. Wish me luck!

Featured image by Kelli Tungay on Unsplash

Uncovering Expectations and Opportunities, Opening Doors

It’s hard to believe, but we’re already wrapping up week two of the fall semester at my campus. This means that my information literacy instruction responsibilities are starting to ramp up. Teaching has been a big part of every library job I’ve had since grad school. So it naturally follows that teaching dominates a lot of my time and thinking, not to mention my posts here–from reflections on experimenting with specific activities or strategies in the classroom to the evolution of my teaching practice over the years and attempting to uncover the research process. It’s that last bit in particular that I want to pick up on here, with fresh eyes.

For many years now, transparency has been a guiding principle of my approach to teaching and all information literacy-related work, in and out of the classroom. I aim to expose embedded–and often invisible–information literacy concepts, skills, strategies, and expectations in order to make the mysteries and complexities of the research process more accessible to students and engage them in it.

A few weeks ago, I attended the faculty development series my campus offers just before the start of each semester. My colleague led a session about strategies that instructors can use to support neurodivergent students. Her recommendations included providing explicit and intentional directions about academic and behavioral expectations and providing options for student participation to give students some control. Her suggestions made sense to me–I could imagine how such clarity, as well as choice, might support neurodivergent students’ engagement, and neurotypical students’ engagement, too.

I’ve tried incorporating some of her recommendations in the few classes I’ve worked with so far this semester. More specifically, I’ve tried to make clear at the beginning of each class how students might choose to engage in the session. I provided, for example, a list of what engaging might look like including participating in the in-class activities, asking questions, and contributing comments, as well as avoiding distractions in order to focus, actively taking notes, reflecting on how the day’s content relates or applies to their own experience, etc. I also articulated how students might accomplish these things: vocally in class, in the online platforms as part of our day’s activities (e.g., Padlet, Jamboard), or after class by emailing me or stopping by my office. I provided these expectations in writing on a slide and described them during class. I have always articulated how I hope students will participate in class, suggesting that they ask questions or share their thoughts. This new level of intentionality and detail at the outset, though, brought a more focused spotlight than I have been in the habit of offering. To be honest, it felt a bit awkward to me. I was concerned that it might feel forced or be perceived as juvenile or even didactic. So I’ve attempted to frame these introductory remarks as an invitation to students rather than a patronizing prescription, explaining that I understand students might be uncertain about how to participate given that I’m an unfamiliar guest instructor and I want to be clear that I hope they’ll actively engage in the class. To me, that framing feels more comfortable and authentic.

I’ve only tried this in three classes so far this semester. It’s a limited sample, but I have to say that I’ve been struck by how engaged many of the students in these three classes have been. Of course, that could have nothing to do with this tweak! But maybe…

What strikes me now is how this new, small change is, in fact, so closely aligned with the transparency I’ve been cultivating around information literacy. This intentionality in being explicit about class engagement options is just another kind of unveiling, another way to increase clarity, accessibility, and inclusion.

It makes me wonder what else I could be working to uncover and clarify for students in and out of the classroom. Where else might I be making assumptions? What other paths and processes– established and expected to me but invisible to students–could be unveiled? How and where do you practice transparency in your teaching?

Looking Back: A Yearly Wrap-Up

I’ve (almost) made it! As of May, I’m eleven months into my first not-so-new-anymore academic librarian position. Looking back on my first year in an academic library, there are a handful of lessons, moments, and people that come to mind – including just how fast time flies while working at a university. In the spirit of growth, this month’s post reflects back on my various lessons from this academic year.

Teaching a library credit-course has always loomed rather large for my first position. So, it makes sense that there’s more to be said about teaching than I have space for (see my January post, for example). That being said, here are couple of lessons from the library classroom.

Proper Preparation

I’m going to let you in on a little-known secret – I get nervous each and every single time I have to teach. It doesn’t matter how many years of teaching I have under my belt, it doesn’t matter if it’s a one-shot lesson I’ve delivered ten times. I always get at least a little nervous whenever I have to teach, and it took me a while to realize that that’s okay. There’s something that’s always stuck with me from my alternative teacher certification days that still holds true for me to this day – proper preparation prevents pitiful performance. Aside from being an impressive example of alliteration, this maxim has become something I live by when it comes to teaching.

Teaching is stressful. Each class, each lecture, each activity comes with its laundry list like number of considerations to think about. Activating students’ prior knowledge, preparing mini-lectures, creating opportunities for students to practice new skills, assessing those skills; these are just some of the few things an instructor has to take into consideration whenever planning an instruction session. Granted, some level of stress is unavoidable when teaching, but craving time out each day to prepare and plan instruction has made teaching a lot more manageable for me.

Reflection

Planning takes time, but actual instruction sessions themselves fly by. It’s because of this that reflection has become a staple of my pedagogical praxis. Thanks to my lovely colleagues who introduced me to the concept, I now have a journal specifically for both planning out my classes but also reflecting on each instruction session. Having a space for reflecting on each class session has afforded me a variety of insights. Something I learned early on about teaching is that classes don’t always turn out the way we image, so having a journal filled with the ups and downs of instruction helps me better plan for future sessions. In a way, my reflection journal works as a form of self-assessment, but it also serves as a marker of progress – comparing my notes from the first week of Fall classes to this Spring lets me know I’ve come a long way as both a librarian and an instructor.

Working Out a Workflow

Prior to my current position, my old workflow consisted of notes in a very lovely planner that I would consistently forget to regularly check. I regretfully admit that, because of my lax scheduling, there are a handful of work and nonwork related events that I missed. But, I’m happy to report that since starting at my current institution, I’ve become the type of person who lives by their Outlook calendar. My last to-do every day before leaving the office is taking a look at my calendar for the next day and locking in exactly what I need to be working on and when. More importantly, I’ve grown into the habit of setting my calendar up in advance as often as possible. This means that sometimes I place an event or deadline on my calendar months in advance but, thanks to my calendar’s reminders function, the likelihood of me forgetting to prep for that event or deadline is much smaller than it has ever been.

Outreach

It seems to me that figuring out your approach to outreach is an almost universal librarian experience. Each library and each campus come with their own set of distinct factors to take into consideration when planning outreach. Because of that, I think it’s safe to say that there’s no one hard and fast rule for conducting outreach to your campus community. What I’ve come to learn about outreach is that most of all it requires time and visibility.

Connecting with students has quickly become one of the most rewarding parts of my position. But, like that phrase about Rome, those connections aren’t built in a day. Whether it’s in the classroom or a campus cultural center, building relationships with students and the on-campus organizations that serve them require an investment of time and presence. My biggest success story in this regard has been my outreach to my campus’ César Chávez Cultural Center (I touched on this in my March post) which led to me being personally sought out by students.

Service

Service to the library, service to the university, service to the profession at large – service period is something I didn’t have much experience with till this year. Much like the other lessons, figuring out my approach to service work has taken time. Though it seems like a requirement typical of most academic libraries, service seems like the type of work that can either become an additional burden or a fulfilling joy. My approach to service has consisted of finding opportunities aligned to my passions. For example, back in March I took part in two training sessions with the library internship program I was in during grad school. During the sessions, I had the opportunity to discuss my experiences in the job market and my transition from intern to full-time librarian with current interns. Maybe it’s something to do with the type of people this profession attracts, but I’ve found that incoming librarians tend to be very responsive and appreciative of hearing earnest advice about the profession to which I usually reply with, “this is one of the fun parts about my job” – and, it’s true. I’ve found that sharing the experiences and advice I’ve received along my path to the profession thus far to be immensely gratifying. Doing so has made my service feel a lots less like work and more like giving back.

Friendship

Last and most certainly not least, friendship. Having people that you know that you can lean-on, as well as making space for those people to lean-on you, goes a long way for me in my personal life. But, I’ve come to learn that that’s also the case for me at work. I know, I know – librarians typical tend to identify as introverts (myself included) but having a close-knit circle of work friends has been huge for me. All of us have our fair share of bad days, but not everyone has someone that they can lean on during those times. Being open and vulnerable with my circle at work has gotten me through some of my roughest days at the library.

In a lot of ways, I feel like I’ve finally gotten adjusted to my new career. I fully recognize I still have much to learn but reflecting back on my first year has allowed to realize just how far I’ve come in a relatively short period of time. Though I’m happy to report that I’ll be taking some time off this Summer – I’m really excited to catch Rage Against the Machine and Kendrick Lamar in July – I’m looking forward to all the new lessons and challenges the coming academic year will bring.