By Robert Alan Simpkins

I have spent much of my many years as a teacher working in a continuous grind, seemingly doing little else than teaching beyond time with my family.  This year I decided to do something new – I auditioned for, and was cast in, a musical at a local theater, along with my son.  I don’t have a background in theater, music, or dance, so this might seem like a questionable decision for me to have made at my somewhat advanced age, which is at first much how I was feeling after having done it.  In the previous year, my son had appeared in a musical with the same director, Kelly Ventura, in Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.  The production so impressed me in its talent and technical sophistication and I knew the director would again be seeking to push the boundaries of what community theater could achieve.  When my son expressed interest in auditioning for the director’s next project, The Hunchback of Notre Dame musical, I – with the support of my wife – decided to audition as well.  I knew it would be a challenge and take me out of the comfort zone I have developed in my two-decades-plus academic career, but I wanted to see what would happen if I put myself in a new situation where I was not prepared.  I wanted to learn things and I wanted to experience the process alongside my son.  Looking back now, over three months after the show closed its five-weekend run, I have found that I also learned several lessons relevant to my work as an educator, and that will give me things to consider for my approach to teaching in the future.

The first challenge was the audition itself, because although I have given thousands of lectures in my career and can do it fairly effortlessly, and I have sung to myself or for fun with my family, I had never sung in a professional context in front a row of directors who were there to judge my talent and potential for a formal musical production.  Even though they were all people I knew because of my past involvement with the theater (including a theatrical play, as a tour guide, and as house manager), somehow the power imbalance of the situation and fear of embarrassing myself took over as I launched into my audition song while my legs shook and my throat tightened.  I was asked to callbacks two days later, and to sing one of the major solo numbers for the show alongside several more highly experienced singers and actors, using sheet music I could not read and which required me to rely on my knowledge of the official cast recording version of the song.  I also did a cold scene read with another actor.  I was sure I wasn’t strong enough or experienced enough for a lead role, but that wasn’t why I was there – at that point I knew my son was being cast in the ensemble, and that was all I was hoping for as well.  Despite his being only fifteen, my son already had several years of band classes and a long list of plays and musicals on his resume and was relaxed and confident throughout, unlike his terrified father who needed his help (and often needed help from people who had the misfortune of sitting next to me in rehearsals).

On the day of callbacks, we were also asked to go to the dance room to learn some show choreography, and I was intimidated to see a number of people wearing dance shoes or dance attire that made me feel like I came dressed for the wrong occasion (plus I don’t even have dance shoes), in addition to feeling out of place by being one of the older individuals in the room.  The routine our choreographer James Alves modeled before asking us to replicate it in assigned groups was not overly complex, but it was the first time I had to replicate dance steps, and one of my fears beforehand was that I would simply be unable to do it.  What I was able to do was at first awkward, but I tried to stay focused and observe, and did a passable job at it among people I could see were in a range from seasoned to struggling as much as I was, regardless of their age. 

When I was informed that I would be cast in the Ensemble, as well as a small speaking role (as King Louis XI), I was relieved because at that point I did not believe I was capable to doing anything larger than hiding in a group of singers and a short spoken walk-on to bring a little comedy relief to the sometimes dark subject matter of the narrative.  What I eventually would do as part of the ensemble far exceeded this early expectation, with multiple costume changes (some so fast I practically had to step offstage, turn around, and step back on), solo lines, dance routines, and so many entrances and exits that I eventually made a color-coded spread sheet to help me keep track of it all – because that’s how I’ve learned to bring order to my world (and which my son saw and said, “That’s very ‘you’ ”, himself relying just on his young memory to achieve the same end).

Although we were told that past experience or training were not prerequisites to participate in this production, from day one of music rehearsals I realized I was at a disadvantage.  I had to learn a new vocabulary quickly, learn to read sheet music for the rather complex score and lyrics (by Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz – you are brilliant, but I also hate you – especially for Entr’acte, even if I did eventually learn it correctly and it is beautiful), learn how to sing in a group with parts divided by vocal range (I was assigned Bass 2, but in our smaller ensemble size at times all of the basses and baritones sang together), and to hear music in a new way in order to take directions from our phenomenal Musical Director, Phae Lockwood.  I had to jump into activities like vocal warm-ups that others in the group were familiar with, but were initially just confusing to me (‘Mommy made me mash my M&M’s, oh my’?  ‘Don’t throw your trash in my backyard, my backyard’s full’?).  I frequently sang the wrong note or vocal part, used the wrong tempo, failed to read or sing the lines correctly, or just froze because I was not sure what to do.  I sometimes received correction, specifically or obliquely (‘Basses, something’s off’ I usually interpreted as, ‘Bob, you’re doing it wrong’), and had to suck up any embarrassment I felt to try to improve and resist the urge to flee the rehearsal room in a panic, leaving my son with no way to get home had I done so.

One aspect of the group experience that really benefitted me was that the members of the cast had all different levels of experience in musical theater.  The ages ranged across perhaps five decades (I didn’t ask anyone specifically), but even the youngest and oldest had varying levels of experience.  Several members of the cast had formal training, and had even performed at larger theaters in other parts of the state or the country.  The benefit to the rest of us from this was that even among our peers we had those who were like me and were confused and learning as quickly as possible, and others who provided help and support.  They explained technical details we didn’t know, and gave context to fears about the show from their own past experiences. 

On one occasion, our Backstage Manager (and then-Board of Directors President) Jen Masters addressed us all and reminded us that the key word in ‘community theater’ is community, and that the most important thing isn’t the show – it’s the experience we all have, and that meant that we support each other, including the ones most struggling and inexperienced, the ones facing mental health crises, and those feeling the most doubt about whether they belong there, whether they are good enough, whether they will eventually reach the levels of the most talented, the most confident in the group.  This set the tone for the challenging weeks ahead, in which our psychological, emotional, and physical health was confronted with the long hours and increased pressure to produce the audience experience we all hoped the show would be.

The intensity of the rehearsal period, which typically consisted of three-to-four-hour nights, four nights a week, for three full months before opening, produced another benefit.  After a couple of weeks of music rehearsals, I settled down and felt more comfortable and confident (mostly – the songs in Latin gave me trouble all the way until the show opened).  After doing the choreography for a few nights, it too was not nearly as intimidating – and some of us met to spend extra time on it to ensure we were all understanding the steps, musical cues, and our interactions in the same way.  Our chemistry grew as well, even though we generally did not see each other outside of rehearsals, and had little time to talk to each other during them.  We even started to develop silent forms of communication with each other on stage and backstage, where we needed to be quiet in case our mics were hot or we might be heard from behind the stage wall.  We found ways to work together within the restrictions of the rehearsal process and developed solutions so quickly that the early miscues were forgotten. 

The stretch of the rehearsal process known as ‘Tech Week’, segueing immediately into the opening weekend of performances, was grueling and tested everyone’s limitations, but there was no question for me that even more learning occurred there as we saw all of the individually-practiced songs and scenes coalesce into a unified, holistic experience.  I finally learned the timing of the transitions between scenes and costume changes and even started to experience the narrative itself in new ways as we performed it all together.  The most unexpected outcome of this was that the story became more meaningful, and emotional for us all.  As much as we were doing it for the audience, we became absorbed in the world we had created and were living in for that time together on stage.  Tears were common, and exacerbated by our mental and physical exhaustion.

After five weekends of performances (plus a weekly pick-up rehearsal before each weekend), we all felt so at home in the theater and with each other, that the idea of it ending became a source of anxiety.  I recall at the wrap party, one member of the cast was in tears and asking if we could extend it for just one more weekend – but at that point we had just struck the magnificent set and there was no going back.  The show was over, and it was time to return to the lives and routines we had put on hold for the previous four months.  For many of us, creating this world required us to sacrifice our personal lives, and to ask our families, our friends, even our employers to be understanding (I always started work early to offset leaving for rehearsals, which meant sacrificing sleep as well).  But once the show was over, I also found myself reflecting heavily on the experience, and what I had learned about myself and my own ability to learn, adapt, change, and grow – and in turn what that might tell me about my students in their education, and what I could take from this to use in my teaching in the classroom, and as an advocate for innovation in teaching-and-learning in general.

Community college, like community theater, is based on a model of openness.  For this theater, with open auditions and no hard prerequisites, it meant those who were cast had a tremendous range of experience, prior knowledge, comfort levels with the process, social skills, and personalities.  The director and his crew had to manage those variables and ensure the production moved forward with them.  I realized as a teacher that I often had to manage a similar feat, attempting to understand each class and move us all forward together, and work with all of the students who enrolled toward our learning outcomes.  But having been away from the classroom for many years in a student role, my experience with the cast reminded me of the range of factors determining student success other than subject matter expertise.  And I especially appreciated the difficulties my older students faced who would report having been away from school many years, or feeling out of place in a room dominated by younger students. 

In the context of the show, although one goal was to ensure all individuals had a good experience and felt included and supported, there was also the larger goal of ensuring the quality of the production.  Here the individualized nature of some teaching models led me to deeper reflection.  Was ‘group mastery’ a potential goal with benefits to individuals beyond those of their personal mastery?  During the show, the cast was committed to the quality of the show itself, where there was no value to leaving someone behind or excluding them.  The dominant value was inclusion – and anyone whose actions were not contributing to that was also adversely impacting the show itself.  Thus individual responsibility was favored and reinforced.  The understanding that a successful show required everyone to be responsible also ensured no individual could assume they were not important, or that if they exhibited less effort it would not matter.  Perhaps learning activities in which the group helped each other, and the diverse forms of experience became group assets could improve the quality of the overall learning environment and experience.  This peer-learning in a mixed age group reminded me of Montessori education my wife had described from her years as a pre-school-to-kindergarten teacher, but here it was with adults.  It showed me the power of peer learning when everyone is committed to the larger end goal.  The patience exhibited by both the directorial team and the cast members also ensured we could make mistakes, learn, and improve without fear, and that our individual success was essential to the success of the group. 

The immersive nature of the experience meant we didn’t forget things, and we grew increasingly familiar with the production, the songs, the choreography, the blocking, the costume changes, etc.  Commonly we would quietly or silently sing the songs that were not ours, lip-synching the words together in the wings, singing them at home, hearing them in our heads (which I continued to do for weeks after the show ended).  It also meant we were learning by performing actions, and part of the learning process was physical.  However much memorization it required, in many cases our remembering improved when we got to blocking scenes, and more so as we ran the scenes in order – especially without breaks.  Could my classroom learning activities be improved by redesigning the learning process to mirror this, with activities, repetition, and a stronger collective, mutually reinforcing experience?  Would students benefit from my classes being more immersed in their scheduling, with short-term, intensive classes taken in succession, as some colleges and even some of our own faculty have experimented with?

For myself, probably like many long-time educators, making radical changes to my own established practices and habits will be a challenge.  I don’t know if I can fully conceive of a way to take all of these lessons and re-think my teaching to use them.  I don’t know if I can create the learning environment in which students, entering with all their own diverse sets of expectations, will embrace it.  I don’t know if I can muster enough creativity to have a plan that is essentially like one of Kuhn’s paradigm shifts, sweeping aside one way of seeing something with another that might at first be resisted but ultimately persists if what it provides leads to a way of thinking that removes past contradictions or conflicts and points the way to a new future of classroom instruction (in-person, virtual, or both).  I take comfort in knowing that in asking myself these questions, I am not alone, and that within my community college district and across the country teachers at all levels are asking similar questions and sharing their experiences.  That is one of the communities of which I am a part, that will ensure that my teaching experience is also supported by others of mixed perspectives and years of experience, and that we all also seek that common goal of ensuring the success of our students.

As Stephen Schwartz’ lyric in The Hunchback of Notre Dame musical states, “The world is cruel, the world is ugly, but there are times and there are people where the world is not.”  Our students may come from difficult experiences and personal situations, and they may face them throughout their lives, but we need not model the world they will face during the interval in which they have entrusted their education to us.  Like the world we had created in our musical theater, educators might create a world with our students in which we all build an inclusive, supportive learning experience and in doing so become one of those times and places where – looking back – they will remember how much they learned, felt supported, grew more confident and expert in their abilities, and left our community feeling better prepared for the world out there because of what we all did together.

Robert Alan Simpkins has been a Professor of Anthropology at Porterville College since 2012, where he is currently faculty lead for Guided Pathways and the Academic Senate Past President.  He previously served two terms as the Academic Senate President, and before that two terms as the Social Science Division Chair, and organized PC’s CHAP (Cultural and Historical Awareness Program) series for five years.  Prior to coming to PC, he was an adjunct instructor at De Anza College and at San Jose State University.  He has an MA and a PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and BA from San Jose State University.  As an Archaeologist, he is interested in the relationship between roads, architecture, cultural landscapes, and socio-political organization.  His particular focus has been the Golconda kingdom in the Indian Deccan region, which was the subject of his doctoral dissertation and on which he has presented his research internationally and published extensively, most recently in the article “Inferring Road Networks and Socio-Political Change from Elite Monuments of the Golconda Kingdom” in South Asian Studies in 2020.  Although a native of the San Francisco Bay Area, he enjoys the farms and orchards of the central valley and the proximity to the mountains, and going on drives and exploring with his family.  He has a weakness for books, toys, classic movies and animation, art, stories, and anything that he finds amusing.

by Robert Alan Simpkins

A student in my Biological Anthropology class recently commented to me about a story I have been sharing with my students in that class for nearly a decade now.  On Tuesday, April 1st in 2014, I traveled from Porterville College down to Bakersfield College with several Anthropology students and my colleague Richard Osborne – the man whom I replaced in the Anthropology program upon retirement from his full-time position – to see Jane Goodall, the famous researcher known for decades for her groundbreaking work on Chimpanzees in Tanzania, and now also an advocate for global conservation. 

Dr. Goodall was appearing at Bakersfield College as part of their Centenary celebration.  Richard and I knew that her appearance was specifically due to the efforts of our counterpart at BC, Anthropology Professor Krista Moreland.  Bakersfield College had sought a major event for their celebration, and working with then-new BC President Sonya Christian, and with the support of the Wiley and May Louise Jones Speakers Fund, the Bakersfield Californian Foundation, and the Kern County Museum Foundation, Krista had provided it.  Holding the event on a Tuesday night created limitations for many people, especially those outside of the immediate area, but for fans of Goodall’s work like Richard and myself, she was a superstar and meeting her was an opportunity we could not miss. 

We were pleased to have enough interested students to fill the PC van – a mixture of Anthropology Club devotees and students from our classes – and we all drove in the dark on that school night, packed in tightly, and bubbling with excitement.  We arrived a little later than we had hoped and sat high in the bleachers of the gymnasium.  Krista came to the lectern and introduced her childhood hero in a moving speech framed by ‘three revolutions’ in human thought – the first associated with Copernicus and the shift away from the earth-centered view of the universe to a sun-centered one, the second associated with Darwin and the shift away from the seeing the separateness of humans among all other living things to one uniting us all through the lens of biological evolution, and the third which she attributed to Jane Goodall, who showed us how much chimpanzees – and by extension other animals – were more like us and we more like them than scientists acknowledged when Goodall started her research back in the 1960s. 

Dr. Goodall then approached the lectern, there just two days before her 80^th birthday, and was charming, funny, moving, earnest, and profound.  Among her stories, she described that resistance she faced initially by ‘experts’, including her own professors, who rejected her claims that animals could think, express emotions, and have unique personalities – views she knew were incorrect from the start because she had learned otherwise from her first teacher: her childhood dog Rusty.  Through her persistence and careful documentation of the chimpanzee community of Gombe National Forest over the years, and an eventual change of perspective by the scientific community, her view of animals would become the accepted one, and with it a change in how we saw our relationship to the rest of the animal world.

She signed books after her presentation, and we in our group all stood in the long line outside in a light rain for the chance to meet her up close.  I recall thanking her for staying so late and she simply smiled, saying “not at all” and how badly she felt for everyone waiting outside in the cold and rain.  Krista later shared that Dr. Goodall insisted on staying until everyone in line had their turn, long after we made the hour-long drive back to PC.  I don’t think I finally arrived back at my house until around midnight, and it wouldn’t be long until I had to get up again for another day of school.  Yet I left with a memory that still feels like it happened only yesterday, the day we all met one of the most extraordinary people of the modern era.

Above: PC Anthropology Professor Emeritus Richard Osborne with Jane Goodall at Bakersfield College on April 1, 2014.  She is signing a photo of the two of them he brought that was taken years ago when he spotted her at LAX in baggage claim.  Photo by Krista Moreland.

Above: The Anthropology students from Porterville College along with Richard Osborne’s wife Ginny Osborne (back row left) and myself (center front) after meeting Jane Goodall (backside left, in the chair) at Bakersfield College.  Photo by Richard Osborne.

That was the story I had shared with my class, and the memory that had made an impression on the student who had mentioned it to me.  The fact that I shared this experience with Richard Osborne, who remained as an adjunct instructor at PC for a few years after his retirement from his tenured position, was also significant because he had been a mentor to Krista before she obtained her own tenured faculty position at BC, and in his time with me at PC, played a similar role.  It was from his traditions of providing learning experiences beyond the classroom that I was able to observe firsthand and develop alongside him, that shaped my early role and approach to teaching and service at PC.  In those years, we led the Anthropology Club together, taking weekend trips with our students to places they often had never heard of or seen previously.  He was dedicated to bringing the club members to community service projects too.  And it was Richard, along with a handful of other PC faculty and staff, who over two decades ago started a project called the Cultural and Historical Awareness Program, or CHAP, for which they organized speakers, activities, and events to expand the experience of students and the community beyond the classroom – a project that was later replicated at other nearby colleges as well.  Many of those events too provided a unique memory from a time where so much else has been forgotten.

The simple message of appreciation from my student took me back through all of those experiences, and showed me how one person can make a difference through example, influence, patience, generosity, and sacrifice – to provide experiences for others to learn from and remember.  I know Krista and I will always value the influence Richard Osborne had on us as newer faculty, learning from him what it means to be a teacher and a mentor.  And we will always remember that night when Jane Goodall came to visit Bakersfield College.  I hope all those Anthropology students in our van who made the trip down to Bakersfield with Richard and I will also remember it, and all of the other places we traveled to with them, and with so many other students over the years. 

When we reflect on our pasts, how many things that we have learned and have shaped us came from the classroom?  How many things came from special events?  How many came from unplanned encounters or random events?  How many came from taking a chance that the time spent on something unknown would be more worthwhile that what we might otherwise have done in that time?  In her book, “I Love Learning; I Hate School!”: An Anthropology of College, Susan D. Blum noted that the ways most of us learn in life bear little resemblance to our experiences as students in the traditional classroom, yet as educators we persist in doing it this way despite knowing this.  Learning is so much more than credits, grades, and degrees – it’s also the repository of memories that persist, remaining vibrant after so many others have faded, joining the pantheon of experiences with sufficient gravity to remain, and be seen again and again, because what they represent remains significant to who we are and how we see the world.  However we pursue our work as educators, we might be driven by that as our standard.

Above: My signed copy of Jane Goodall’s book, Through a Window: My Thirty Years with the Chimpanzees of Gombe, along with my little chimpanzee figurine in my office.  Photo by Robert Simpkins.

Works Cited:

2016.  Blum, Susan D.  “I Love Learning; I Hate School!”: An Anthropology of College.  New York, Cornell University Press.

Special thanks for the memories to Krista Moreland, Richard Osborne…and Jane Goodall.

Robert Alan Simpkins has been a Professor of Anthropology at Porterville College since 2012, where he is currently faculty lead for Guided Pathways and the Academic Senate Past President.  He previously served two terms as the Academic Senate President, and before that two terms as the Social Science Division Chair, and organized PC’s CHAP (Cultural and Historical Awareness Program) series for five years.  Prior to coming to PC, he was an adjunct instructor at De Anza College and at San Jose State University.  He has an MA and a PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and BA from San Jose State University.  As an Archaeologist, he is interested in the relationship between roads, architecture, cultural landscapes, and socio-political organization.  His particular focus has been the Golconda kingdom in the Indian Deccan region, which was the subject of his doctoral dissertation and on which he has presented his research internationally and published extensively, most recently in the article “Inferring Road Networks and Socio-Political Change from Elite Monuments of the Golconda Kingdom” in South Asian Studies in 2020.  Although a native of the Bay Area, he enjoys the farms and orchards of the central valley and the proximity to the mountains, and going on drives and exploring the region with his family.  He has a weakness for books, toys, classic movies and animation, art, stories, and anything that he finds amusing.

By Michael Carley

Back when I had a weekly newspaper column, one of the first ones I wrote, and still a favorite, was entitled “The Power of Humility.”  It was a topic I would return to at least seven times, around once a year.  I’ve even thought of expanding it into a book someday.

The concept would serve me, and my colleagues, well as we engaged in our student success work.

We’d been involved in a number of student success projects for a couple of years already, but in 2013, when PC and KCCD joined the Achieving the Dream network of community colleges, we were asked to form a Data Team.  At first, none of us were sure what our role would be, so we started from scratch and made it up as we went along.

The Data Team ended up being a brainstorming group, a diverse team of faculty and staff from several areas of campus who came together to take a deep dive into any and all data available, both quantitative and qualitative.  It could be anything from demographics to student and employee survey data, to focus groups, to success rates from every part of the student journey.  I chaired the team, but anyone could ask that we review whatever data they cared about.  Some were reports I already had prepared or that we used districtwide, while others were things that had no precedent, so we had to create them ourselves.  We were a subcommittee of our Success and Equity Committee (itself a subcommittee of College Council), a group that has now been reconstituted as our Guided Pathways Committee. 

As we began our work, the hope was that we would look at data objectively and suggest changes to existing processes and procedures, especially those that might be unintentionally creating barriers to student success.  We learned that early when reviewing student cohort data, a districtwide initiative that would later become our 1^st time student cohort dashboard.  We went through the report in detail and one of the things that stood out was how important it was for students to take 15 units in a term.  We had long known that full-time enrollment mattered, but the difference in completion rates between those who enrolled in 12 to 14 units and those who enrolled in 15 or more, even in just the first term, was striking. 

In colleges across the country, the concept of 12 units as full-time had become so much the norm that both faculty and students thought of it as a maximum rather than the minimum for certain types of financial aid.  We were doing a disservice to students by suggesting 12 units as the expectation.

That didn’t mean everyone would immediately embrace the idea.  Some, especially some of our counselors, worried that too many units would lead to worse outcomes.  Anecdotally, they had reports of students who found the workload cumbersome.  We reviewed other data and found that even course success rates were higher among students who took 15 or more units.  We found this to be true of almost every type of student, even those on probation who are often restricted in the number of units they’re allowed to take.

Counselors knew however, that many students have other responsibilities, jobs, families, etc.  We couldn’t embrace 15 units for everyone.  At one point, I pointed out that only about 10% of our students enrolled in 15 or more units in their first terms.  “What if we increased that to 30%?  It would be a game changer.”  It was.  By fall 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, 29% of our students were enrolling in 15 or more units.

Student services staff recognized that the data showed the need for change, but we also knew that their concerns about workload and distractions were valid.  The focus isn’t just on 15 units in the first term.  We also encourage 30 units in the first year, with multiple approaches to how to get there.  It could be 15 in the fall and spring, or 12, 12, and another 6 units in the summer.  And students who cannot enroll in the recommended number of units are informed of the effect on their educational journey and financial aid implications.

Our “15 to Finish” campaign had fits and starts, with leadership and staff changes along the way.  But it was culture change that made it happen.  In our most recent Strategic Plan, the objective became to get at least 35% of students enrolled in 15 or more units in their first terms, and 30% enrolled in at least 30 units in their first years. 

There were other examples.  We found data that led us to encourage enrollment in English and math early in the student journey, preferably in the first term, to push the steps of matriculation, especially completion of education plans, and make changes to how we approach students on probation.

Perhaps the biggest change was our approach to remedial education.  There, Data Team had a relatively minor role.  Even before the Team’s implementation, the college was experimenting with changes to our approach.  We were involved in the Multiple Measures Assessment Project and the California Acceleration Project, among other initiatives, and we tried stacking courses, combining multiple courses, and several other approaches, anything that reduced the sequence of remedial education that kept so many of our students from succeeding.  By the time AB705 was passed, we were already working on the very reforms that would be implemented through most of the state, corequisite courses.  As a result, Porterville College was one of only a handful of colleges statewide that implemented fully in fall 2019.

Humility was key to this process.  Faculty set aside their egos, and many of their worries, to work together to find what worked.  Math, English, and ESL faculty learned from each other.  Our administrative leadership allowed faculty to take the lead and signed off on various experiments, negotiating where necessary and allowing certain initiatives to fail so that we could learn from them.

Humility requires trust and we needed to build that, not only within Data Team, but with anyone we worked with.  At one point, we found that our DSPS students were struggling to achieve their outcomes.  We shared data with the office leadership and invited them in to meet with us, not to chastise or criticize, but to listen and learn.  DSPS counselors and staff shared with us some of the new things they were working on, which were encouraging, and also some suggestions which led us to recommend minor changes to training for our student tutors.

I had to learn humility as well (a lifelong lesson).  Our recommendations were shared with the Success & Equity Committee, then sent to the appropriate person or group.  Not all were implemented.  As we found from our Student Satisfaction survey that students were less happy with their textbooks than they had been in the past, one concern was cost.  We suggested that Academic Senate form a group to look into textbook cost and consider alternatives.  Senate didn’t see the need.

But I had to admit that the survey didn’t directly point to cost, just that textbooks weren’t as well-received as before.  We didn’t know the reason(s).  So the next recommendation came to my office.  We needed focus groups to examine the issue of textbooks (and a few other topics).  The groups, luckily conducted right before the pandemic, resulted in a nuanced discussion in which students pointed to several issues with textbooks and our use of them which were much more actionable on the part of faculty than attempting to address cost alone.  They also cited positive ways in which some faculty use textbooks and related educational resources that others might emulate.

Humility with trust allows for experimentation, in the interest of the greater good, in this case, student success.  You have to trust that you won’t always know the result of your efforts or even whether you will be successful.  In examining data from the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE), we found a lot that was encouraging, but made suggestions that we hoped would improve the college’s performance on two of the five CCSSE benchmarks, with a specific focus on two questions that had been persistently among our lowest.  The results from our 2022 iteration of the survey were mostly encouraging.  We surpassed our goals for the two benchmarks.  Can we point to a specific recommendation as the one that did the trick?  Not really.  It could be the result of other things we changed.  And, of those two specific CCSSE questions, one showed improvement, but the other, one quite dear to my heart, declined even further.  We will have to renew or change our efforts.

We had to have faith that what we were doing was going to work, even if it took time to see it in the data.  We could see students making their way through English and math more quickly, taking more units, and other reforms that seemed like success, but completion takes time.  Measured via cohorts and tracked over three years, we had to assume that our other reforms would eventually result in better completion rates. 

And, they did.  At first, there seemed to be little change, then with the 2016 entering cohort, the percentage of students completing a degree, certificate, or transferring within three years jumped from 18.4% to 26.3%.  It was no fluke; the 2017 and 2018 cohorts showed additional incremental improvement, with the latter completing at a rate of 28.9%.  Though the pandemic and its challenges may result in a pause, we expect our improvement to continue.

Improving the success of our students required trust, patience, and collaboration, for each of which, humility was key.  We all had to set aside our egos, departmental or personal self-interest, and preconceived ideas of what would and wouldn’t work.  We followed the data with the needs of students at the forefront at every step.

The need for humility continues as we transition to the next stage.  The Success and Equity Committee has transformed into our Guided Pathways Committee.  Data Team remains, and is now larger, but rather than being primarily a brainstorming group, we are working to provide each of the Guided Pathways workgroups with the tools they need to generate their plans and serve their students.  There have already been bumps along the way as we adjust to the new structure, but with each of us focused on the needs of students, rather than our own desires, we expect continued success.

Michael Carley is the Director of Institutional Research at Porterville College.  Before joining Porterville College in 2000, he worked as a Research Associate for Sociometrics Corporation, a small social science research company in Silicon Valley.  Michael holds a B.A. in Sociology from CSU Fresno, an M.A., also in Sociology from Stanford, and a certificate in program evaluation from CSU Fresno.  In his free time, he enjoys hiking in the mountains, spending time with his son, and writing, having published a novel, novella, and most recently, a memoir. 

By Robert Alan Simpkins

Earlier this year, my family and I had the opportunity to tour the Walt Disney Studio Lot in Burbank thanks to some friends who arranged it and walked us around.  For Disney aficionados like us, the tour was rich with subtle history, following in the footsteps of some great creative figures – from well-known animators like the ‘Nine Old Men’, or other unique talents like Kay Nielsen, Mary Blair, Tyrus Wong, and Retta Scott – whose individual contributions to the studio are not always recognized, even when the work itself may be familiar.  The visit was the culmination of a period of several months of a kind of Disney pilgrimage that started the previous summer in Kansas City, where we saw the site of Disney’s first studio, Laugh-o-Gram, and continued in the winter when we visited his first studio after coming to California in 1923 on Kingswell Avenue in Los Feliz, and the site of his second studio on Hyperion Avenue (now lost, except for the remaining bungalow moved to the current studio lot).  Visiting the sites helped me visualize Disney’s own journey from a young cartoonist, to a pioneering animator, to the owner of a major studio overseeing the work of hundreds of artists drawn from across America (and beyond) producing some of the most creative and innovative work of their time.  It’s those early years especially that fascinate me, when there were few rules, except those of their own making, and the ideas about what could be done in animation storytelling were constantly changing.  Although the studio on Hyperion Avenue no longer exists (a Gelson’s market now stands in its place, but inside are photos of the studio), standing at its former site helped me feel the presence of all those early artists working together and wonder what impact they had on each other, as they each evolved creatively while working collaboratively.

I also wondered what the equivalent experience could be in my own field of education, and how to bring together educators of different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives into a place where we could learn from each other, be inspired by each other, and seek to improve ourselves with each other’s support.  I had been fascinated to learn about what another community college had done some years ago in an effort to create such a space for new ideas and fresh thinking – Linn-Benton College’s “Wild Thinkers Forums” that evolved into “Innovation Councils” (Fay and Lahr 2019).  I had that in my head when our former Kern CCD Chancellor Sonya Christian first mentioned an idea for a convening district-wide to discuss teaching-and-learning, and that would – over the next year and a half – evolve into what we would present in April 2023 as The Teaching-and-Learning Exchange Festival, or TALE FEST.  The idea behind it was to gather, at least for a day, educators from across the Kern Community College District into one place where they could meet each other, learn from each other, and we hoped be inspired by each other.  There was a risk to bringing together people who had never met each other, and came from different colleges with different local traditions and perspectives and expectations about their work, but our goal was to make it as friendly and inviting as a possible.  With the support of then-Vice Chancellor of Educational Services, Emmanuel Mourtzanos, I reached out to an educator I believed would be the perfect fit for the event – Notre Dame Anthropology Professor Susan D. Blum, who agreed to come join us and set the tone with her own tale of her educational journey, and personal insights into teaching-and-learning.  We then gave everyone at the event (seated with colleagues from other colleges and disciplines) time to talk with each other about different areas in our collective work, before giving away some books featuring different kinds of tales (and a delicious lunch!).  The day was about as successful as I could have hoped for, with the energy and enthusiasm of everyone in the room apparent.

I knew this single event could not bring about a more permanent ‘culture of creativity’, nor lead to the building of a district-wide ‘innovation engine’, fueled by our ideas and energy.  Faculty innovation often falls to individual faculty, or social groups formed through their own interaction and self-selection, and through seemingly inevitable siloing, groups diverge and divisions can emerge.  And this does not include adjunct instructors, who are rarely able to participate in these social interactions, and classified professionals, managers, directors, administrators, student workers, and others on campus whose work is necessary to student success, and whose roles give them perspectives on students faculty may not experience.  And so any institution may feature pockets of innovation, but to achieve this equitably across an institution, it needs to be embedded in the institution’s culture and system of support.  This cannot be achieved on personal initiative or inspiration alone – it requires the cooperation of a college’s diverse and sometimes competing or even mistrustful stakeholders.  It requires that combined participation of groups that work on different contracts (or without contracts).  It requires compromise, sometimes disappointment, and letting go of the fears that prevent us from embracing meaningful change.

Popular culture often celebrates the inspirational teacher, and in doing so presents the work of education as the byproduct of gifted individuals.  In the past two years in the work of Porterville College’s Guided Pathways Committee, which I co-Chair, we have tried to promote our goals for student success as deriving from a holistic, college-wide approach, with our instructors as a critical part of the vision, but also working in partnership with a variety of specialists in other, non-instructional roles.  As part of that effort, last year we solicited input from across the college for ways to ‘ensure learning’, following the phrasing of Guided Pathways Pillar 4 and the California Community College Chancellor’s Office’s Vision for Success.  Feedback from our instructors (full-time and adjunct), managers, directors, and administrators was compiled into an ‘Ensure Learning Plan’, later endorsed by our Academic Senate and College Council.  In the hard work of reforming our little college, those involved in the work have not always agreed, and at times, misperceptions, mistrust, and miscommunication have threatened to stifle progress, break the innovation engine, and enshrine the past as the obstacle to the future.  This plan was a step toward a new vision of collaborative creativity, mutual understanding, and support.

The work ahead will be the most challenging part of this project, because it involves changes to habits, thinking, and relationships.  Our approach to professional development may need to change to ensure we are exposed to and supported for year-round opportunities and the sharing of knowledge, resources, opportunities, and ideas that lead to continuous self-improvement.  We took steps toward this part of the goal with the recent hire of a new Assistant Director of Academic Technology and Professional Development, and formed a task force revising and reviving our dormant Staff Development Committee.  We engaged in extensive discussion with our Academic Senate – for which I served as President the past two years – on the faculty role as an area that falls by California law under Senate purview (#8 in the ‘10+1’ for California Community Colleges).  And through district-wide efforts initiated by our former Chancellor Sonya Christian, we have discussed ways in which to ‘ensure learning’ as individual colleges and through the mutual support and the exchange of ideas across the Kern Community College District.  Even this TALE Blog itself is part of this effort to nurture that ‘culture of creativity’ toward our institutional educational goals, and generate enthusiasm for our educators alongside mutual understanding and support.

The work of a small, rural community college like Porterville College may not be comparable to one of the most successful film studios of all time, and I could only dream that one day someone would walk its campus and think about the work that was done here, the people who did it, the love they had for that work and those for whom they did it – the students, who are the future of everything around us and inheritors of what we do today for tomorrow.  Maybe to the students, all of our colleges could be like what Walt Disney told guests on that famous day in 1955 when he opened the amusement park he and his team of Imagineers and all of the other countless people who worked to realize that vision.  As I write, we are preparing for a new event for our college – a Welcome Day – and hope that our new students will see this place too as a happy place in which they feel welcome, and where they may “savor the challenge and promise of the future” and “hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration” to them in their lives, and to our community.  Education, after all, is a place of adventure, of fantasy, of new frontiers, and of dreaming about tomorrow.

Acknowledgements:

I would like to express my gratitude toward the Community College Research Center at Columbia University, and Davis Jenkins and Hana Lahr in particular, Achieving the Dream coach Bret Eynon, Porterville College Vice-President of Student Services Primavera Arvizu and California Community Colleges Chancellor Sonya Christian for their collaborations that helped make the work described here possible, as well as everyone at Porterville College and the Kern Community College District with whom I have had the privilege to work on these projects.

Works Cited:

Fay, M. P., & Lahr, H. (2019). Wild thinkers: Linn-Benton Community College’s creative and collaborative approach to guided pathways reforms. New York, NY: Columbia University, Teachers College, Community College Research Center.

Robert Alan Simpkins has been a Professor of Anthropology at Porterville College since 2012, where he is currently faculty lead for Guided Pathways and the Academic Senate Past President.  He previously served two terms as the Academic Senate President, and before that two terms as the Social Science Division Chair, and organized PC’s CHAP (Cultural and Historical Awareness Program) series for five years.  Prior to coming to PC, he was an adjunct instructor at De Anza College and at San Jose State University.  He has an MA and a PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and BA from San Jose State University.  As an Archaeologist, he is interested in the relationship between roads, architecture, cultural landscapes, and socio-political organization.  His particular focus has been the Golconda kingdom in the Indian Deccan region, which was the subject of his doctoral dissertation and on which he has presented his research internationally and published extensively, most recently in the article “Inferring Road Networks and Socio-Political Change from Elite Monuments of the Golconda Kingdom” in South Asian Studies in 2020.  Although a native of the Bay Area, he enjoys the farms and orchards of the central valley and the proximity to the mountains, and going on drives and exploring the region with his family.  He has a weakness for books, toys, classic movies and animation, art, stories, and anything that he finds amusing. 

By Nick Strobel

I have been teaching at Bakersfield College for 27 years and before that I taught the intro astronomy courses at University of Washington for five years, so I’ve been doing the teaching gig for 32 years now. I’ve been reflecting a bit on those 32 years on how the academic environment has changed and how I’ve changed with it or maybe the environment hasn’t changed all that much but I’ve gotten better at recognizing what’s already there and adjusted accordingly.  Whatever the case may be, I can see three major shifts in my teaching.

The first one is obvious: moving from teaching at a university in Seattle to teaching at a community college in Bakersfield. The students I had in my intro astronomy courses at UW were first-year non-science majors. In that respect they were just like the students I teach here at BC. University of Washington is a top flagship R1 university, so UW could be selective in who they admitted. That meant most of my UW students were ready for college and were paying thousands of dollars to attend UW. Bakersfield College admits the top 100% of those who apply and the Central Valley way of doing things is different than the Puget Sound way of doing things, so there was a bit of “culture shift”. I can’t say “culture shock” because I had done some mental preparation ahead of the move and I purposefully chose a place that focused on teaching, rather than research. However, as you know, it’s one thing to prepare oneself intellectually at a distance and quite another to experience something while immersed in it.

The second shift came with the introduction of Student Learning Outcomes and the assessments of SLOs in the early 2000s. My first syllabus to include the SLOs was in Spring 2004 but I think a lot of the SLO work had been done in the previous year or two. The shift arose because figuring out the SLOs for the intro astronomy courses required me to take a more careful, deliberate look at what was important to get across to my non-science major students—what did I want a non-science major to know about the process of science and how the universe worked long after the class was finished? The SLO work gave me a sharper focus on what needed to happen in the classroom and enabled me to trim some of the fat—things only a nerdy science buff would try to remember. The first set of SLOs had ten SLOs. After ten years and further clarification of the difference between course objectives and SLOs (from work around understanding ACCJC requirements vs. Title 5 requirements), I refined the set of SLOs down to four. Whether it was ten SLOs or four SLOs, the basic question was the same—what did I want my students to get out of the intro astronomy classes and remember five years from now?

The third shift came with the professional development we did at BC in 2013-14 about first-generation students. I already knew that my students at BC were different from the ones at UW but it wasn’t until then that institutional research was being shared widely that about 80% of the students at BC identified themselves as the first ones in their extended family to have ever attended college. We learned how the academic culture was foreign to most of our students and I came to realize at a deeper level how my background was different from a lot of my students. Both of my parents got bachelor’s degrees at a state university and all eight of us boys were expected to go on to college. That expectation was also with most of the friends we hung out with at school. I had no idea if my classmates at the University of Arizona or UW were first-generation college students or not. I was so immersed in my own culture that I didn’t even know to ask the question or to look for clues in what my classmates said in ordinary conversation.

Finally, some things started to make sense! Why didn’t my students do X, Y, and Z when it should be a natural, common-sense thing to do? Well, of course, it would be “common sense” for someone living in a second or more-generation college culture but not to those outside of that culture. BC’s conclusion from the research on and professional development about our first-generation students was to become a Guided Pathways institution in 2015-16.  

The first pillar of Guided Pathways is “Clarify the Path”. Normally, that means making the course sequence of a certificate or degree easy to navigate from start to finish. In my own undergraduate education, the astronomy majors were given a one-page listing of the courses we needed to take in each of the eight semesters to get the Astronomy bachelor’s degree. We’d also get a Physics bachelor’s degree with the suggested course sequence. However, “clarify the path” can also mean teaching the students about the academic college culture and how learning good study habits (and other “habits of mind”) pays huge dividends in the long run, not only for doing well in a college class but also in the professional world after college, for those management or executive-type of jobs or research/analytical jobs for which a college education is required. We need to be explicit in our assumptions and expectations with our students in order for them to understand than then internalize what it takes to do well in college. We can then celebrate even more students walking the stage in May!

Nick Strobel has been teaching Astronomy and running the Planetarium at Bakersfield College since 1996. He has held various leadership positions at BC, most recently as the Academic Senate President. He also writes the twice-a-month astronomy for the Bakersfield Californian. 

By Karen Oeh

As an undergraduate student at San Jose State University in the 90s, a lecture style classroom made it difficult for me to retain information shared by the professor.  I used a tape recorder to record lectures and rewrote pages of information in a notebook to strengthen my success as a visual learner.  Fortunately, undergraduate Anthropology courses involved interesting hands-on projects and engaging lab activities.  I fondly remember an experiential learning activity in my 7 am course, Archaeology.  For a group project, each student was tasked with gathering acorns, and we transformed the acorns into bread.  We recreated the methods of the indigenous Ohlone tribe to understand traditional resources and lifeways.  This practical knowledge appropriately applied to my early career as a Field Archaeologist employed in Cultural Resource Management in the San Francisco Bay Area, home of the Ohlone Costanoan.

For over 30 years, this activity stuck with me because we effectively applied our knowledge through a hands-on approach to learn cultural values and break down stereotypes.  I asked myself how I can provide activities for my online students to showcase their creativity and benefit those with different learning styles to ensure they also remembered the course material. I also wanted to develop fun learning games about course topics with students experiencing interactive methods of “digging in the dirt.”

The answer to this question came when I learned about and aligned my Introduction to Archaeology course to the Peralta Online Equity Rubric.  One of the rubric criteria, Universal Design for Learning, emphasizes that faculty recognize that students will complete course activities, review content, and learn in different ways, each unique to the student.  For successful outcomes, we must incorporate three core principles; multiple means of representation, action, and engagement.  (Describing the Peralta Equity Rubric, October 2020)

One idea was to design a discussion asking students to replicate Paleolithic hand art as Experimental Archaeologists.  I was excited to offer a lesson using materials at home to demonstrate how art was made thousands of years ago. To pair with their discussion of visual art, I also added an assignment on this topic with a virtual field trip exploring different sites to look more closely at the Paleolithic culture and symbolism found on cave walls.

In our discussion of Paleolithic cave art, students embedded images of their negative hand-prints and wrote about the process of mixing ingredients and blowing “paint” through a straw.  Students reflected on their cultural and personal symbolism displayed in contemporary society.  This “gallery walk” of shared imagery created a positive learning community through practical applications.  Students experienced a visual representation of different artwork and read supportive feedback for a deeper learning experience.  Also, this shared experience enabled me to connect creativity to understanding.  Here are some examples of student reflections that demonstrate learning comprehension:

“My personal symbolism is displayed through the art on my walls that reflects my cultural heritage, posters from campaign rallies and social justice organizations and the books that line my shelves. The objects that I intentionally and proudly display around my home are symbols of who I am and what matters most to me.”

“I had no one around to hold their hand up, so I outlined mine on paper and cut it out.  I spread blue glitter glue on the wall, taped the hand on to the wet spot, put green glitter on my hand, and puffed it onto the wet glue.  It worked fine – especially after I used two more handfuls of green glitter, because it took a lot of material to get anything like the definition in the Cueva de los Manos.”

In another example, I wanted to accommodate students with different learning styles by inviting them to submit poetry for a discussion on the Garbology Project.  Students examined their background and culture with a reconstruction of habits and behaviors from clues in the trash.  By submitting a poem, students dug deeper into their identity and used their voice to express a connection to the material.  The following poem demonstrates that “rather than simply memorizing and repeating information, higher order thinking (HOT) skills ask students to interpret facts through a new lens” (Planbook Blog).

Trash Day

People of culture and care

Of false nails and human hair

Paper bunches and cleaning supplies

Freshly cleaned and sanitized

Where take-out meets seasoned home grown

Plastic caps and paper crowns

Candy wrappers and prescription bottles

Pads and stamps no baby bottles

Dusting off the ash of herb

Not rich no longer poor

Time to put the cans on the curb

Always wanting more

Incoming boxes at the door

Trash day has come and gone

Additionally, peer replies to a discussion poem cultivated inspiration and acceptance as one student commented, “I really enjoyed reading your post as it was considerably unique and insightful. Sometimes it can be hard to write poems, and that is some skill and bravery from your side.”

A “flipped online classroom” may best describe my style of teaching where a learner-centered model takes the form of at-home activities with clear instructions and guidance.  Students take charge of their own learning experience to meet objectives, and through social learning and discussion sharing, they foster a sense of support and rapport.  It was a goal to infuse my excitement of Archaeology and reflect on my role as an online teacher to design engaging lessons that appealed to a diverse group of students.  I reinforced their effort and asked them to reflect on any difficulties when questions arose about our course activities.  Having good communication and clear instructions make these activities rewarding to grade.

In conclusion, the principle for Universal Design for Learning withinthe Peralta Online Equity Rubric motivated me to redesign my Archaeology course to create unique and interactive activities that demonstrate student learning because students can pick the appropriate submission format that fits their learning style. Students can participate in ways that benefit their personal choices and creative abilities to synthesize course information.  By opening the door for opportunities and embracing differences, students maximize their success through individual expression of higher order thinking skills, as demonstrated through the submission of an image and poem.  A student agreed, “I found these to be a great way to truly recognize and validate everyone’s different learning styles and creativity. Yes, I feel that various multimedia approaches are helpful and beneficial and wish all classes offered this.” 

As an “Experimental Instructor,” I want to reach outside the box to create hands-on activities by putting myself into the role of the learner and acknowledge that we all have diverse interests and needs.  Being open to student feedback, adjusting requirements, and communicating my mistakes reinforces trust.  It means a lot to have students share their personal stories and confide in me situations they are facing.  It gives me the opportunity to ensure students feel a connection by being flexible, caring, and engaged in their success.  Teaching and learning is an on-going process, and it’s important to have student confidence as well as value the feedback from students to make necessary changes to remove barriers. 

Karen Oeh holds a BA and an MA in Anthropology, and has been an instructor in the California Community College system since 2003, as well as a specialist in online instruction since 2007.  She joined the Kern Community College District in 2017, and teaches online courses for Porterville College and Cerro Coso Community College.  In addition, she has served as a Program Coordinator within the California Community College system for over 23 years, supporting students in ACCESS/TRIO, AANAPISI, Career, and Transfer, and is responsible for tracking data and reporting on the Ecosystem Tools (Cranium Café, NetTutor, and Proctorio), hosting webinars focused on training and equity, and managing the Online College Counseling courses.  She has also worked with CVC-OEI, the @ONE Course Design Academy, has completed the @ONE Peer Online Course Review (POCR) training, serving as a local POCR Reviewer for Porterville College.  She has aligned four courses to the CVC-OEI Rubric and two courses to the Peralta Online Equity Rubric.  Karen was also accepted by the Center for Learning and Applied Research (CLEAR) at Bakersfield College as a 22-23 Research Fellow to conduct a 10-month action research project.  When she is not teaching, Karen devotes her time to her farm in the Santa Cruz Mountains with 3 horses, 2 cats, and 25 chickens.

By Janet Uresti

Over these last few months, I have been spending a lot of time reflecting on my mental and physical health and the time I dedicate to both. Am I on the right track? I truly believe each of us is on this Earth to learn, grow and serve a purpose. Have I served that purpose? Is this a mid-life crisis since I recently turned 40? Is this a fear that I have not accomplished what I am here for?

I’ve tried scheduling my days. I’ve tried “Putting First Things First” and “Beginning with the End in Mind.” (Who doesn’t love Stephen Covey’s book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People)? But my feelings of inadequacy and fear of failure and fear of saying “No” get in the way of the bigger picture. What if I’m not on the right track? What if I don’t know what I really want?

This summer I decided I was going to get my act together. I started with my physical health. I joined the gym and gave up soda (my one true vice). I knew I needed to become more active, lose weight and feel better. Then, the school year began. I returned to teaching full-time during the day and then two nights a week at Porterville College. Exercise and eating well quickly moved to the bottom of my priority list because I needed to ensure that I spent adequate time with my sons, make sure I am ready for both jobs, and try to fulfill responsibilities in my church and community.

I’ve been overwhelmed. Tired. Feeling alone. Maybe I feel the way a lot of people felt when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. While I was nervous during that time, I loved being with my children more and the idea of not having anywhere to be. The lack of a schedule (on the days I didn’t work) was freeing. 

Last year, as things began to return to “normal” after the pandemic, there was a lot of discussion around social-emotional learning. This fascinated me. I don’t think as a society (or myself) that we saw how hard individuals were during the pandemic because a lot of their needs were being met by the educational system. We sometimes forget Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and how as people we cannot reach self-actualization without having a foundation of physiological and safety needs being met. 

This year started and the rural school I work at gained a social worker who asked teachers if we wanted her to come in for a short “Mindfulness” lesson for 15 minutes, one day a week. At first, I was a skeptic. I am the child of very Conservative parents. As the daughter of a nurse who – even though he served in the Navy in Japan for more than a year – never seemed to believe in Eastern medicine and the overall connection between mind and body, so what would I, or my students, learn from these lessons? But since I was having my own struggles, what can it hurt, right? Anything that will help the students.

The social worker comes in, rings a Tibetan singing bowl at the beginning and end of each session, and reads from a script. Each week the focus is different. Students are asked to focus on their breathing, their body, and their thoughts, and it gives them strategies on how to focus on their thoughts and identify how they’re feeling. 

Again, at first, I thought it was kind of silly, but as I have my own struggles with feeling overwhelmed it helped me to focus and reflect. What is truly important? What is my purpose? Then, when I saw how the students reacted and how seriously they took it and how much they appreciated it, it showed me that this “settling” of mind and body could truly help them be better learners if they felt more at ease and comfortable with themselves and others. It could also help me as their teacher.

It’s interesting how when you’re searching for answers in your life how things seem to come out of nowhere and be applicable to your situation. I do not discuss religion at work (this, however, is a blog post). Soon after I thought about what teaching-and-learning experience I might share, I was studying a religious talk that would be discussed at church that Sunday. It was called “Do what Mattereth Most” and was given by Rebecca L. Craven. The content of the talk is religious, but there was one line that struck me and seemed applicable to this topic. Craven said, “And it’s not about doing more. It’s about doing what matters.”

The next Monday, I attended a Small Schools Conference at the Tulare County Office of Education. The guest speaker was Roni Habib, a former schoolteacher, and alumnus of Harvard University, who gave a presentation titled “Joyful and Resilient Teaching (and Living!)”. His presentation focused on being mindful of ourselves (and students). He modeled how to practice mindfulness in the classroom. He taught us fun games and cheers to share with our students to help them be focused, have fun and be ready for that day’s lessons. He shared the importance of reflecting on what we are grateful for and having our students and ourselves physically write out three things we are grateful for each day and sharing those ideas with one another. If you ever could take a training course with him, I highly recommend it!

I do not have all the answers. I know these are things I will continue to struggle with, but I am getting better at letting people know my needs and advocating for myself. (For example, although it was hard, I had to request to only teach one class in person at PC next semester. I am hoping to spend more time with my boys). There are other areas of my life I am working on prioritizing and maximizing my time and efforts, which is helping me better manage my mental and physical health. Even in my classroom, I am trying to figure out what lessons and strategies will maximize student understanding and growth and what can be left out. What more can I do in my classroom to promote “Mindfulness?” I hope as we continue this journey that we can all remember “… It’s not about doing more. It’s about doing what matters.”

Janet Uresti is an adjunct instructor at Porterville College. Janet was raised in Lemoore, CA, and graduated from West Hills College, Lemoore with an A.A. in Liberal Arts in 2001. She attended California State University, Fresno, and graduated with a B.A. in Mass Communication and Journalism in 2004. She got a job as an education reporter at the Porterville Recorder and worked there for a while when a school district administrator encouraged her to become a teacher. She went on to earn a multiple-subject teaching credential in 2009 from Fresno Pacific University and taught kindergarten for two years and third grade for two years at a small school district in Porterville. After having two boys a year and a half apart, she decided to take some time off but later got a job teaching part-time at an independent study charter school for at-risk teens. It was there that she discovered her passion for helping students gain skills to become college and career ready and she returned to Fresno Pacific University to earn an M.A. in Administrative Services. She taught articulated college and career readiness courses at the school, which helped her get hired at Porterville College as an adjunct instructor in 2019 where she teaches student success courses. She also currently teaches sixth grade at a rural K-8 school.

By Robert Alan Simpkins 

When I teach my Anthropology classes, I understand that most or all students in those classes will not become Anthropology majors or pursue a career in Anthropology.  My hope is that I will give them something through the class that they will remember, and that might shape how they think or see the world.  What I do not know is what that ‘something’ is, and how it might provide some benefit to them in the future.  In the early weeks of our college’s closure under the pandemic in 2020, I unexpectedly found myself drawing from my early college experiences in an unexpected way, while my family was all at home and unsure when schools and businesses would reopen and if it was safe to venture outside.   

My first semester of college, I was not studying Anthropology.  I was a film major at New York University, where I had received a scholarship.  As a film major, I of course was enrolled in film courses in that semester – which I enjoyed – but also through work study as part of my financial aid was trained as a film projectionist in the Cinema Studies department and had this role for two additional classes that happened to be taught by a husband and wife at the university.  I immersed myself in film that first semester, using the resources of their film library to watch on my own time movies that were not available to me growing up, but had read about in books.  In the era before streaming, this kind of access was thrilling for me.  For a number of reasons (financial, cultural, and personal) at the end of the semester I decided not to continue with the program, and soon after that, I decided not to pursue filmmaking for my education or my career.  I never stopped loving movies, but I never took another film class again. 

A few decades later, in a household full of uncertainty about the future under COVID-19, I was busy learning how to transition my classes to online instruction while my wife and I waited for news from our children’s school about their plans for assignments, technology, etc.  With all of us being home all day every day, and with watching television as something we could all do together, I had an idea: I would create a film school curriculum, and teach our children about film history and improve their cultural literacy.  We had already watched a number of age-appropriate classic films, so I skipped those and made a list of additional films we had never watched together.  I grouped them around themes, with a roughly chronological order.  Each day we would gather in the living room, where I gave a short introduction to the film, providing some details about the making of the film and its cultural significance and influence (minus spoilers).  I was delighted when everyone seemed to enjoy and want to discuss the films, and even more delighted when they spotted the influence of the films on other works later. 

After we worked our way through the silent film era and to the Golden Age of Hollywood, we got to some selections where I was unsure how, for example, our seven-year-old daughter would react to Citizen Kane.  Yet she and my son sat through it without complaint, and she gave it a big thumbs up at the end.  Not long after that our son and daughter were watching a cartoon with a ‘Rosebud’ gag that my son paused and called me in to see.  But re-watching it brought back memories of NYU film school and my time as a projectionist for a professor’s Orson Welles course.  When I was given a choice of classes in which to work as a projectionist, I picked that one in part because although I had seen several of Welles’ films in high school, many were not available on home video and the Cinema Studies film library seemed to have them all.  Reflecting on that class, I remembered how much I enjoyed his lectures, and wondered if it was possible, over three decades later, that he was still teaching.  I searched and quickly found an NYU email address for him, and sent him a message about my time there and his class, and my ‘Kid’s Film School’ concept and how I was drawing from what I learned during that semester in Greenwich Village to share with my family.  His wife’s class was on the cultural history of New York City, and in my reflections I thought of her class too, and decided to try to find her email and share the story with her as well. 

Before long, both had replied to my emails, and thanked me for writing them.  My Orson Welles professor was about to retire after a career as long as my own life.  His wife had been a Dean at another college since I was at NYU, and was already retired.  With so much unknown about the future under the pandemic conditions, I was happy that I was able to share with two teachers from so long ago that their classes didn’t just have an impact on me, I was passing along what I learned to my family, and to our children.  I may not have become a filmmaker, or a film professor, but for a while at home while we sought ways to stay enriched and engaged as a family during tense and uncertain times, I got to play that role.   

As I shared with both teachers in my email:  “While universities, faculty, and administrators may think in terms of their most distinguished alumni when viewing their legacy, I wanted to show how there are these little legacies too, where even a student who spent only one semester in the program absorbed a great deal and appreciated the opportunity and years later found a use for the education in creating the next generation of film-lovers.” 

My Orson Welles professor shared with me in response: “Receiving a note like this at a time like this means a great deal!  Thank you so very much.  I’m so pleased to learn of what you are doing.  We are finding that film, poetry and music….all the arts, really, are such an enormous help in these dark times.  It means a great deal to us to know that our teaching still has some impact after such a long period of time, and that it is being passed from generation to generation.” 

I don’t know what impact my teaching has or will have had on my thousands of students now after more than two decades in this profession, but hope that I have left some of those ‘little legacies’ as well that might manifest themselves in unexpected moments, and that can spread beyond the individual students in my classes, to the people around them.  The time we spend with our students then is about more than what we are teaching at that moment and for that assignment.  It is also about that opportunity to give them something long-lasting and impactful even if they don’t realize it at the time, and even if its value isn’t apparent to them until half a lifetime later. 

Robert Alan Simpkins has been a Professor of Anthropology at Porterville College since 2012, where he also is currently the Academic Senate President and faculty lead for Guided Pathways.  He previously served two terms as the Social Science Division Chair, and organized PC’s CHAP (Cultural and Historical Awareness Program) series for five years.  Prior to coming to PC, he was an adjunct at De Anza College and at San Jose State University.  He has an MA and a PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and BA from San Jose State University.  As an Archaeologist, he is interested in the relationship between roads, architecture, cultural landscapes, and socio-political organization.  His particular focus has been the Golconda kingdom in the Indian Deccan region, which was the subject of his doctoral dissertation and on which he has presented his research internationally and published extensively, most recently in the article “Inferring Road Networks and Socio-Political Change from Elite Monuments of the Golconda Kingdom” in South Asian Studies in 2020.  Although a native of the Bay Area, he enjoys the farms and orchards of the central valley and the proximity to the mountains, and going on drives and exploring the region with his family.  He has a weakness for books, toys, classic movies and animation, art, stories, and anything that he finds amusing. 

Photos from the Digital Delano Project

By Oliver A. Rosales

When I was first hired at the Bakersfield College Delano Campus in 2012, I had never actually spent much time in Delano.  As an alumni of Garces High School (Class of ‘98, Go Rams!), I recall visiting Delano as the local high school was on our regular football schedule in the then South Sequoia League.  Between 2005-2012, I completed my PhD in History at UC Santa Barbara, where during the doctoral research phase, I traveled across the country to multiple archives researching California labor and civil rights history.  When I approached the ABD Phase (All But Dissertation), I began presenting my work at academic conferences and attending sessions of other scholars working in the field of U.S. labor and civil rights history.  When the chance to work at the Bakersfield College campus opened up, I was excited because Delano had always been a recurring topic of conversation among scholars doing work on California labor and civil rights.  The legacy of César Chávez and the farm worker movement looms large in Delano and across the San Joaquin Valley; anyone studying Latino history in the twentieth century knows about Delano’s legacy.  After landing the job, I was excited to jump into teaching various history courses focused on the twentieth century, where I could align local history and oral history methods to illustrate to my students that “history is all around them,” often times within their homes or the collective memories of their families.

To somewhat of a surprise, many of my students knew very little about the history of the farm worker movement.  Many of my students, while their families may come from migrant agricultural backgrounds, stem from families of more recent immigrants from the 1980s forward, after the heyday of the farm worker movement had passed.  Still, in Delano, many of my students attended César Chávez High School or Robert Kennedy High School, not realizing that the naming of their school was a direct reflection of the history that occurred within their hometown.

For nearly a decade then I’ve practiced oral history methods with my students.  The design of these assignments has been a culturally responsive approach that taps into the rich histories of agricultural, labor, and migration within student families; historical themes so commonplace to my students regardless of racial, ethnic, or cultural background.  After practicing this method for a few years, however, I began to realize that more could be done in helping address a systemic problem within the region faced by students, a lack of traditional archives. 

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) in 2017 funded Digital Delano: Preserving an International Community’s History.  Part of their common heritage series, the grant was focused on expanding digitization efforts in rural underserved communities.  Through that program, Elizabeth Sundby (Delano Campus librarian) and I hosted a series of public events featuring writers and cultural stakeholder groups invested in preserving the history of international migration in Delano.  At these events, aside from creating a public humanities learning opportunity, we hosted digitization events where the public could digitize family historical artifacts.  This was a first step in creating the Digital Delano archive, which we have continuously grown since the grant was implemented. 

Digital Delano served as a spring board for subsequent grant opportunities.  From 2017-2020, Professors Andrew Bond (English) and Josh Ottum (Music) and I co-directed the NEH grant Energizing the Humanities which provided a three year interdisciplinary humanities program for faculty focused on the San Joaquin Valley.  Over 30 faculty participated in the program, having a chance to read and meet authors from diverse interdisciplinary perspectives all invested in writing about California’s Central Valley.  In 2021, the NEH awarded $190,000 to CSU Bakersfield for a Landmarks in American History grant, which will fund 72 teachers from across the United States to have a resident learning experience in Summer 2023 and visit local historical landmarks associated with California farm labor history.  As co-director and lead author for that grant, the ideas generated for the project stem directly from the oral history practices I’ve done at the BC Delano campus for a decade. 

I find my own learning is continuously advanced by embracing culturally responsive teaching in Delano.  I’ve become fascinated by the use of ArcGIS and geospatial technologies and its capacity not only to create new forms of digital archives, but also how technology can be used to visually map communities in new ways.  The intersection of the work I’ve done in Delano and ArcGIS technologies informs my approach to the Whiting Foundation’s Public Engagement fellowship.  This $50,000 grant is currently funding my professional development with ArcGIS technology, as well as providing teacher professional development and public humanities programming in the spring of 2023 related to local landmark sites in the San Joaquin Valley.  I am thankful to my students in Delano for enthusiastically engaging the history of their local communities, as well as to the Bakersfield College and Kern Community College District administration for always supporting faculty innovation.  I am hopeful readers of this blog will consider attending public humanities programs next semester, as well as embracing culturally responsive teaching and innovation in their own classrooms.  There are many opportunities for faculty to be a bridge between student learning, innovation, and stakeholder groups interested in improving educational outcomes across the Kern Community College District.

References

• https://bakersfieldcollege.libguides.com/DigitalDelano
• https://www.kvpr.org/arts-culture/2018-04-23/project-seeks-to-preserve-delanos-history
• https://news.csub.edu/two-professors-awarded-national-humanities-grantnbsp
• https://www.whiting.org/content/oliver-rosales

Author Bio

Oliver A. Rosales, Professor of History and former Faculty Coordinator of the Social Justice Institute at Bakersfield College, earned a B.A. in History at the University of California, Berkeley, M.A. in History at California State University, Bakersfield, and a Ph.D. in History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is also a former Visiting Faculty at the Bard College Master of Arts in Teaching Program and Visiting Fellow at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Studies at Harvard University. He is contributor to The Chicano Movement: Perspectives from the Twenty-First Century; Civil Rights and Beyond: African American and Latino/a Activism in the Twentieth Century United States; and The Journal of the West. He served on the Nominating Board of the Organization of American Historians and is Board Chair with California Humanities.

By Clara Hodges Zimmerman

In April 2021, I responded to a call from a colleague at Berkeley City College for collaborators on a project funded by ASCCC Open Educational Resource Initiative (OERI) to write a textbook-style advanced-level OER for students who were learners of English. It was a year into the pandemic and I was back to teaching after having a baby in October. To be honest, I was feeling a little isolated and disconnected from my vocation (although maybe that was just the sleep deprivation!). So, I eagerly emailed back my enthusiastic response and joined eight other community college ESL instructors from around the state interested in filling a gap in the OER/ESL world.

Goals

We had several goals in mind as we started.

First, we wanted a text that truly addressed the mix of language and composition skills for a reading-and-writing focused course one level below transfer English composition.

Next, as ESL teachers, we spend a lot of time making materials that address our students’ unique needs and identities, particularly since most ESL textbooks are geared toward an extremely general, international audience. We wanted to create a text that was narrower in its intended audience but reflected the diversity of the students in our classes; it was just our luck that the participants in this project represent rural, urban, small, and large campuses from around California.

Finally, we felt strongly that students need authentic models of student writing as well as other authentic texts not edited for an “ESL audience.” To that end, each of the six chapters in the book contains an unedited student essay and authentic readings from a variety of sources.

Process

Since most of us didn’t know each other, one of the first things we did was discuss and create a values statement to make sure our goals aligned. Central to this statement was a firm belief in the need for broad, equity-minded representation in images and examples used throughout the text and an emphasis on writers and writing that mirrors the diversity of the California Community College population. We also agreed that, because we each bring our own biases to the table, we would keep an open mind throughout the writing process and be open to suggestions for revision. In retrospect, I believe that this discussion was crucial to the success of this project since it provided a focal point for our large team of contributors.

To select content and frame the structure of the book, we pulled course outlines from our colleges’ English composition classes and advanced ESL courses, examined and compared them, and made choices based on what we felt students would need to be prepared with for success in transfer-level English. We also reviewed existing OER for ideas and pooled activities and lessons we’d developed for our own classes. Then, we drafted the chapters. After completing a draft, we peer reviewed each other’s work, filled in any gaps, and put the draft on LibreTexts, our publishing platform. Finally, the book was peer reviewed for content, accessibility, and appropriate licensing by a team at ASCCC OERI.

Takeaways

I was fortunate to be able to present the text with my colleague and project lead at October’s CATESOL conference and, as we prepared, we spent some time reflecting on the project.

We agreed that the process of creating this text was far more intensive and laborious than we had imagined going into it. Since our team was large, weaving together everyone’s voices to create a cohesive text was a challenge. However, we came to think of these different voices as a strength of the text and a feature to highlight. Other challenges were much more mundane; for example, learning how to import and edit the textbook in LibreTexts was a learning curve we hadn’t anticipated. Personally, though, despite the tremendous time and effort spent on this project, I still came away with my cup filled; I felt, and continue to feel, a greater sense of community and am reinvigorated about my vocation.

More than anything, this project underscored for us the power and importance of inter-campus collaboration in service of our students. A shared vision and set of values that reflect a commitment to student success will lead to projects that create an impact in our students’ lives. And, the more high-quality OER that are created, the easier we can meet zero- and low-textbook cost goals for our classrooms.

Now that it’s out in the world, our text will, we hope, be useful in a variety of language classrooms and situations. While we designed the book for an ESL class one level below transfer English, much of the content could be easily adapted for to levels above and below this – in my case, I’m teaching a transfer-level English class this semester and have adapted activities and examples to use in my class. (This flexibility is one of the benefits of using OER; I don’t feel guilty about assigning a text and only using bits and pieces that suit my class’s needs!)

As an English teacher, I love a good call to action. I encourage you to think about creating, adopting, and sharing OER in your own classes as it feels useful and appropriate for your situation. These high-quality resources can help alleviate financial strain on our students, be customized for real students in real classrooms rather than an imagined audience, and create opportunities for valuable cross-campus discussions and collaboration. What are we waiting for? 

We’d love feedback on the text, particularly if you have adopted it in some form in your classroom. You can find Reading, Writing, Research, and Reasoning: An Advanced ESL Text here.

Clara Hodges Zimmerman grew up between Indonesia and California and developed a love of language and learning at a young age. Her family moved to Porterville when she was in high school, and her first college class was English 101A at Porterville College (thank you, Professor Mills)! She has a BA in Anthropology and Sociology from the University of Redlands and MA in English with a TESOL emphasis from Central Washington University. Prior to coming to Porterville College as an adjunct instructor in 2015, she lived and worked in Washington State and Guangxi Province, China. She teaches English, ESL, and Linguistics courses at Porterville College. In her free time, she loves reading, being outdoors, and spending time with her family.