Ep 003 - Dr. Janis Velasquez Farmer

Speaker 1 Can you tell your most embarrassing moment for the soundcheck? Welcome to the Summer Quarter Podcast. I am your host, Josh Darius. Typically there's a bit of an opening where I share some words, but this episode we are jumping straight in because my conversation with doctor Janice Velasquez Farmer is too rich and too good. So enjoy. Janice, thank you for joining my podcast. You're welcome. I feel like there's a million things for us to talk about. Like a million things. Can you just introduce yourself what's your name and where you from and you can take that as far back as you want? Speaker 2 Ohh, wow. Yeah, that's a big opening. Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah. And then where have you worked in education? Just so people can have an idea and then we can riff riff from there. Speaker 2 Alright, well my name is Janice Velasquez Farmer and I currently live right here in Bellingham, and that would make sense since I work in Bellingham as well. Speaker 1 Well, you could be on the periphery. Speaker 2 I have a husband and a son, and we're a mixed race family. I think that's an important part of who we are identitywise. My parents immigrated from the Philippines, and so that has become a very large part of my continuing identity development, you know, So I feel like I grew up in a very Filipino household. And I realized recently that it's, it's a lot more than that. So when my dad immigrated, he was like he grabbed a high school diploma from a school, and he hadn't even attended that school. But then that entered him into the draft for Vietnam. And So what I learned, you know, very recently in life was like, how much of that actually played into what I thought was just being a really Filipino household? So PTSD was a huge part, I think, of of me growing up in my household and my family dynamics and then my mom's side. My grandfather was a survivor of the death March of Bataan in World War Two. And then because he joined the US Army, they gave him citizenship privileges and so he was able to immigrate with his family. So both sides of my family come from war, right? And then how does that feed into your? Your DNA. Really. Right. So I think about what generational trauma means and how we're working within that, even to this day. So when I graduated from high school, I thought I was going to college but didn't know how to do it. And then I spent a couple years dinking around. I don't claim Auburn, but I'm from Auburn. Speaker 1 I claim it. Speaker 2 But I ended up at Highline Community College after a friend of mine said, hey, we're going to take over the cheer squad. You want to come? Speaker 1 You did cheer in high school. Speaker 2 Oh my God. Wait, what? What? I've really messed up back. And so they took me at. They told me I couldn't play volleyball anymore, but they let me keep playing soccer. And so there's no sport to play during that other season. So I was like, I guess go do that. Speaker 1 I never knew you were a cheerleader. That's because I don't tell anybody that. Normally I tell people, don't you dare tell anyone in here and tell you want to podcast and I'm going to use it for sound bits on everything it's going. Speaker 2 To be your cell phone ring. But so the best part of one time like it was like one year of being a cheerleader. In high school was when a friend said, you know, we're dinking around after high school and she was like, let's go take over this cheer squad. Speaker 1 Wait, what high school again. Auburn. OK, OK. OK. Yeah, I thought. Speaker 2 That out of the podcast. Speaker 1 I'll bleep it up. Speaker 2 So then I found out that you have to be a student to take over a cheer squad, and that is that makes sense very literally how he ended up in college. From Highlight, I followed a boy up to Bellingham. I'd never even heard of Bellingham. He flunked out. Speaker 1 That's a good thing of what? Of Western, yeah. Speaker 2 Yeah. And that's that's kind of the beginning of that. Speaker 1 Hold on, what did y'all? How did y'all meet? What did y'all meet at Highlight We? Speaker 2 Met at Highlight. Yeah, he went up to Bellingham, went to Western. He flunked out of Western. That was probably a really weird way of giving him a background history. So I graduated from Western with a BA in marketing, and then I worked at Western. Then I moved to Hawaii, then came back to Western. Because apparently you're supposed to do more important things after you get married. Like things that are responsible, you know, get you towards family and stuff. And then when I came back to Western and work there, my boss said, hey, you should get a master's degree. And I said, what's a master's degree? Right. Right. So I mean just so many things that I didn't know about this whole college environment. Speaker 1 And so I did that alright. Where's your family from? From the In the Philippines. Speaker 2 Of bekle and visaya and vanilla. Speaker 1 But the dialects, the elders, what dialects were represented? Because I know it's like a lot, there's a lot. But did did you grow up around Besaya? Speaker 2 I grew up in. I went to Gala. OK, OK. When my grandmother at my mom's side was she was on in Hospice, she reverted back to her original original original dialect and only one person in my mom's whole community could speak it. I don't even know what dialect it was. But yeah, she because she spoke multiple languages, but she went back to like dialect that interesting. Pretty ancestral. Speaker 1 Yeah, it's because it's it's down there. Yeah. I feel like there's been times where my parents will say that I I had the language when I was younger. My family's from Mindanao, Dalva and Sambonga, and when I was younger, I had a lot of it. And then obviously as I grew up, it diminished and went away, partly because my older brother got in trouble because he didn't know certain words. And so my parents were like, OK, just English. And so at that point we just, we just learned we just spoke English. Although the the aunties and uncles would all speak in Besiah. And so we would be sitting in family get togethers and the family would be talking, we'd hear our names and then more, and then we didn't really know what was being said. But there's times where I'll speak to, I'll talk to someone who speaks Besiah, and then these words will just jump up and like, oh, it's still, it's still there. Speaker 2 Yeah, that's amazing. I grew up speaking English. My mom wasn't allowed to speak to Gala when she immigrated. So my grandfather told all of the kids like, you are American now he speak English and he remember he like because he was granted citizenship by the US because he fought alongside U.S. Army. But my dad, I think, made a very different choice. I think that he decided we would speak English because I have so much. He's experienced so much racism. And I think in his mind, to not have an accent would give us greater access to success in in America. And so that's my feeling. My mom always wanted him to teach us the language and so and he didn't. And then my mom learned when she was like in her 40s. Is she a good friend too? Because she said I want to learn and so they all stop talking to her in English and then they would ignore her if she spoke to them in English. And I was like, those are good friends though, because you know what? She is fluent. Yeah, she even has an accent now. Or like, you know, how do you have an accent? Like you not have an accent before. Speaker 1 But if you're around everybody who has an accent and they are teaching you everything, I think it makes sense, yeah. My dad told us a story where he learned English through a program that the Reagan and administration had put out, and basically you could get paid to learn English. Yeah, I don't remember. Speaker 2 You learning it too? What's that? I'd be learning it too. Speaker 1 Oh yeah, so he told us. He was sitting there in the class and like he knew, he knew how to speak. Speaker 2 English. Oh my God. So he was. That's a hustler. Speaker 1 Oh, there's a lot of stories. In fact, there should be some story. I should have a segment just for my dad in the podcast. But so he was taking this class and he was speaking English. And one of the ladies next to him, she was like, your English is too good. He's like, OK, And then he would just put on the accent and he get paid. Speaker 2 Because he had to learn. It's required learning in the. Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's taught in school. That's so funny. Yeah. So. Which makes sense, because then that program would be opened up for to immigrants and from countries where, yeah, perhaps English isn't taught in the schools, but the Filipinos show up and like, I got that this is easy money. Speaker 2 For an easy A man, my mom was put in so many ESL classes, she was like, but I speak English, listen to me. But her last name, Formulajo, is just like, that's a class that this student goes into. Speaker 1 So you went to wait, So what jobs were you working at, Western? Ohh yeah, I never even told you about my jobs before and after. Speaker 2 So when I graduated, I was a I was part of the ethnic student center. I did a lot of work with the ethnic student center when I was a student at Western. And so I met my first boss through that community and so Tom Norini and I'll say his name because I gave him so much credit in my life. He was in admissions and so I went into admissions and. I worked with him for multicultural outreach, so my very first job was directly working with students who might have looked like me, or had a story like me, or didn't know the process like me. Because I was a straight A student in high school, I should have gone to college, but when it came to like college admissions counseling, the counselors kind of figured I knew what I was doing right? And so they never asked. And my parents didn't go to college. You know, so my older brother didn't go to college, and so I just ended up not going. And there's no reason I didn't go except for I didn't know how. So my job then was to make sure that students knew how. And that was a big process of it's like a lot of that personal reflection. And then also talking to students, learning about their stuff, you know, like just talking to them like they're humans. Because sometimes that process makes very it's very dehumanizing. So that job, I learned so much. So like, I always tell everybody, if you want a great job out of college, go to college admissions. You have to travel on your own. You have to figure a whole bunch of stuff out. You have to learn about how to interact with people, even if you feel like you're actually an introvert, Which is how I feel, right? Because then you, you, like, have to stand up and give presentations. You're talking to all different types of people. So I learned a lot through that. And then? When I moved out to Hawaii, Tom was like, alright, I'm now the director of student network services. Speaker 1 Come back and I was like, no, I'm. Speaker 2 In Hawaii. Let me tell you what I'm going to be doing today. Speaker 1 How long are you there for? Speaker 2 I was there for a little over four years and I went there with the intention of actually going to grad school. But yeah, that didn't happen. I think I studied for a couple tests for a couple days on the beach. Then nothing else happened. So when I and that's because Tom had told me I need to go get my master's degree, right? Speaker 1 So then got married, met my husband out there, got married out there and like, I thought you got married, you met at Highline, which? Speaker 2 That was the boyfriend who flunked out husband. That's why I see. Speaker 1 That's why I say it was a good thing to be fun. I got it, got it, got it. Yeah, OK. I met my husband in Hoy OK. Speaker 2 Yeah, he's from the East Coast. He's not Hawaiian because that's everybody's next question. So we met, we come, and then Tom said, you know, I'm the director here, I have a job for you here, come here, come back. And eventually we decided to come back. So I was I worked in student outreach services, and my first role was to help students who had left Western. Close enough to graduate, but didn't graduate. Okay. Yeah. So my job was to help them graduate. Yeah, Okay. Speaker 1 And so I just feel like there was just hold on. So you have to go out and find them like hey. Speaker 2 We did, yeah. Speaker 1 There were people that like even that I knew okay like. Speaker 2 Bro, you didn't graduate. And they'd be like, how do you know? Speaker 1 You know, so just you. Speaker 2 Know what you go over to there. And we just, we just pulled out like all these things and a lot of it was just building pieces and putting them back together. So here's your package. All you could do is finish this. I did that and then I was an academic support coordinator after that. So working all with students first generation. Speaker 1 Black and brown students, poor students, you know, So again, all my people, yeah. Speaker 2 Helping them through the process once they were actually at Western and trying to navigate the systems left and right. So that's what I did at Western for a long time, went to Watcom Community College and actually, no, no, sorry. After that, I went back into admissions. Speaker 1 Wait, hold on. Where? What did you get your master's in? Speaker 2 I got my master's in adult education. And that was after I went back into admissions because that's when they were like, OK, Tom said you really need to get this thing called a master's degree and you can go on waiver when you work for the college. And then I was like, OK, well, that sounds really worth it, right. And so I did that and I finished it while I went back into admissions and I was the director of admissions for multicultural outreach and recruitment programs, so around all the programs at Western. And then had a whole team of people that did all that work that I'd done previously and that was pretty amazing and totally burned me out. Like, I mean there's, you know, when you've got a title like multicultural outreach and you have a team of people and you see everybody over there, like these guys are getting money to go travel into other states. And we had to go find our own money. We had to find grants and stuff in order to get the money to do the work that we needed to do. And our work was nonstop because working with families who have no idea what they're doing is nonstop work. So it really burned out. I decided to go over to Watcom Community College to be the associate registrar and did that for several years. And then at the very end of my stint at Watcom, I was the director for Intercultural Services and the interim first chief diversity officer for like one month. Speaker 1 And then you ended, because where'd you go? Speaker 2 I went to Bellingham Public Schools as the first director of Equity, Diversity and inclusion. OK. And I'm still there. Speaker 1 Yes, that'll be a whole another podcast. Speaker 2 Oh man, full on podcast and a book and probably a movie. Speaker 1 Can't wait. I hope that this scene is in the movie. Speaker 2 Right here, recreating your room and everything. Speaker 1 So yeah, we, we have seen both of us respectively have seen a lot of angles of the school districts. We've done a lot of similar work when it comes to equity, diversity and inclusion work, and I'd love to just open up the conversation around, yeah, what we've seen in terms of the work, what I'll back up. Part of the drive for this podcast is to show students who have gone through the process of really starting to open their eyes to see the systems that we're in. And we've talked about how oftentimes that process can be almost debilitating, depressing, such a difficult reality check, and that oftentimes students don't know where to start. It's just so much information. The hope for this podcast is to be able to show the students that there are people that are doing the work and there has work that has been done. You know and and this I would do want to turn pull in this these thoughts around creativity when we're thinking about the next iteration or innovating a system that has marginalized folks. Historically we have seen, we have done a lot of work and I would be curious to know from your perspective what is some of the work that you have been very proud of? Speaker 2 What makes me the most proud is what has also brought us the most joy, right? So one thing to know about doing just the, we call it the work all the time but this work in equity and. Diversity, like, none of my roles until now actually said equity, diversity and inclusion, but it's always been that work. So, you know, thinking about this theme of creativity, we've always had to be creative and strategic and think outside the box because there's no box for this. Like, like they try to force all of this into a box, but it's way too big, it's way too broad and we have way too much in it for ourselves to feel like we will ever be constrained to a box. So. In student outreach services and again, Tom Norini, he was just such an incredible thinker. He was a loving human. He cared about students, he cared about his employees. And so everything that we did was, how do we get around that obstacle, right? How do we get around now, the new obstacle that was created? Because we found our way around the first obstacle. And so he never let a challenge. Stop us in our tracks, which is really easy for a system to do that. I mean that's the goal of the system is to stop you in your tracks and and splice up your momentum so that it always will feel like you're dragging your feet in mud. And so we had to be creative, like you said earlier, you know you had. I had to go out and find those students and that's what we did. And we found ways to entice them back to come to us when I was working with students who. You know, couldn't afford to eat. We discovered there's ways that you can create your your financial aid package. It is all very legal and they're not going to tell you to do it this way because they maybe lose something in the process, but you're going to be the one who benefits from it. We did that for families to sit. They would understand the process. I mean, there's just so many different ways that you can present things that the system doesn't really want you to do because they don't want that door to be open. The the system's goal is to keep the door shut so that only they can control who gets into an educational program. So what I learned from that, though, is to continuously look for those strategies. And I feel like Tom was a huge part of that, educational part in me, and my dad was a huge part and just me as a person. So even to this day, I think all of my dad's teachings were always to like throw things at me and see what I was going to do with it. You know, like I laughed because my dad would greet me. He treated me like another boy. I'm the only girl and he treated me just like one of the boys. And so he when he would greet me, he'd literally start dancing around and try to punch me in my face. He never landed a punch just as over clear. But like my job was a dodge, right? You know what I'm saying? Like, I'm just like it became like if I take that and like think about the the symbolism of that, like how many things can I come up with so that you are constantly on your toes? Like, how do I get you to keep looking at the world because nothing out here has to stop you, You know what I mean? And I think that's so huge. And so everything is a puzzle. And so he would create these puzzles. Or like he was my coach for a little bit in soccer. And the way that he taught me to play center mid is kind of the way that I look at the world right now. It's like how do you create an opportunity for somebody else to come up with you? It's very constant like you're you're always scanning that field. So that was how I entered my workplace was how do I always scan the field. So in doing so some of the things that I'm most proud of I think was against student network services. I created a mentor program there from scratch. It was awful the 1st. Year Awful, right? And So what did I learn? I look for opportunities, I look for voices. And then with the students that we had a rather terrible first year, we built up the program and that program still exists today. I mean, that's like decades old now, of course with multiple upgrades. But I think about going into the registration office at Walkcom and when I got there knowing that the feel of that office had set everybody back, like nobody wanted to come in. So what do we do? Like all of a sudden, and I thought I was going to get out of doing equity work, right, because I was tired, I was burned out. But I was like, but there's so many ways to bring people in. And so we did that. Like we opened up the office in a way that everybody's now having a better conversation. You know, we did our own in office trainings, but then also bringing other people and trying to grasp on like how do we continuously connect as opposed to how do we keep people outside the office that we can do our work. Because that's what everybody felt like, right? And most registration offices I think have that a similar stereotype and we became the fun office and Mike Singletary was a huge part of that. Like he got to really be exactly the leader that he was. He got to. He's a great personality that people gravitate towards and he got to be that person. And in addition, we were the ones that were leading the charge on many equity initiatives before in terms of like process and systems and letting this college know like what wasn't working when essentially we were the hub of the process for every student, right? And I think that was huge here in the district, just trying to figure out how do we make sure that every student has a voice. And while I think that's impossible, it's a huge undertaking and probably impossible. We're trying. We're trying to make sure that whether students have a great experience or a bad experience, they get represented. So I'm constantly asking the questions, like, OK, well, who's in this publication? Tell me what you see here. And so I think there's lots of opportunities to celebrate and feel like, especially in the community right now. I used to do consulting work and I've stopped doing that because I just feel like right now is the time to open up this conversation. So you shouldn't have to, like be able to afford a consultant to have that conversation. And so if they call me, ask me or meet me in some way, I just go out and do it because, you know, if I met, I did this for a Realty company. If we all can have this conversation that all that benefits all of our kids, right? And so I think that's another thing that I think is hugely part of something to be proud of, is that many of us are out there having these conversations and it's just opening up in the community. Even though there's a lot of pushback, there's still more people having this conversation today than ever before. Speaker 1 Yeah, thinking about, thinking about that pushback. It's interesting to me when you talk about what inclusion work look like in the registrations office and and having everyone heard. It boggles my mind that folks would be pushing back against DEI work when the end result is warmth and like caring for everyone. You know there's and creativity. You know, there's all these things that have been cut out and everything has been. Linearized. I don't think that's a word. It is now and just made in this, yeah, just like the most efficient manner to the point where like that human connection is always what's tossed out. And so there's times where I've been working in different school environments and they talk about the conversation of community always comes up. And I remember at one time sitting around a table, the conversation was community. And I knew that my definition, like my deep down understanding of community, was completely different from the people that were sitting around. Yeah, you think about community, being like 13 people living in our house and 25 in over the 18 years I was at home and everyone being auntie and uncle, you know, and that level of community. Is what I'm bringing to the table. But at that at and for those other folks at the table, it is not that understanding. And so I feel like a lot of the conversations, it's it's missing each other because we have our own definitions. And it's not until we take the time and say listen to each other's definitions first, you know, can we understand what we mean by XY&Z. Before we try to bring this aspect into our work environment, like we're all on different pages, so how are we supposed to know? Speaker 2 You know, I think, well, I think community comes from your guts, right? Like it's part of you. Community for others, it's learned. It's a learned experience because they were they grew up in a space that was more individualistic And so community sounds scary. Like when you said it's hard to think that people would push back. I think what I've come to to know better is that there's such a sense of loss and I don't know why. I mean, I can't tell you the why behind it, but they push back because there's such a sense of loss. Like if we bring up all of these others, I must have something to lose because we can't equal out if I don't give something right. That's that is the mentality that I've experienced or even like I've had to assure white members of our community that I will not leave out their children when talking about equity. And and I just wanted to like shake them a little and be like that's what equity is. It's making sure that all of our kids have the same access. It's making sure that all and you know some it's hard to use the word all because it'll never be all. But at the same time, that's the goal of equity, is that all kids have access, all kids have opportunities, but they really feel that there's a sense of loss. And so managing loss is hard because then there's a grieving process, you know, and then there's anger and there's sadness and there's all these different pieces. So if you think of it like that and you think about how community it for us was, again, everybody's an auntie or an uncle. I have had to learn in this community that all of our brown folks are auntie and uncle, and our white folks can be if they're okay with it. Speaker 1 Yeah, right. Because in. Westerns culture. Often times it's like, oh, just call me by my first name. And so it's not just this assumed you are an elder and so I'm going to treat you this way. Yeah, that's so coming. My myself having a mixed race family, that's something that yeah, we run run into constantly is that is that Culture class. We actually talk about the culture class that. Many culture, culture classes. In my class, I kind of, I opened myself to be sort of this, I want to say specimen, but that sounds terrible, but it's just like, listen, I was brought up in a different culture, Yeah. And so I'm going to take this time to share it with you, a different way of being, essentially. And we have a whole talk about binary thinking where it's like OK. We go through this paper. It's called The Weirdest People in the World, Weirdest people Standing for Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic society. So it's saying, the paper says that in 90 plus percent of behavioral science and psychology journals, the subjects studied come from a very thin slice of the global population. That thin slice being Western, educated, industrialized, rich democratic societies. And that those findings. Have been normalized or universalized and I know you know this universalized for the standard of human behavior. And so the papers like, can we do that like is that accurate? Because what the papers finding is that this the behaviors within this thin slice are actually outliers when you consider it globally. Yeah. So in the paper there's contrast sharing. What is generally acceptable in the West and in the East, in smallscale societies, industrialized societies, so on and so forth. And the whole process in the in the class is me telling the students, I don't want you to think about this in a binary way. I don't want you to think, I don't want. I am not going to ask you which one of these is right. All I'm asking you to do is recognize which which culture you were brought up in. And can you include this other way of being in your perspective, in your worldview? It's not a matter of okay, which one is going to get you better, like further in the system. It's just inclusion. Can you include it? And so going back to what you're saying about the people that feel like they're losing out if equity work is being done. It is precisely that mindset of binary thinking. Oh, then I lose. Speaker 2 No, right? No, there's no loser in the process. Just include and maybe there can be a community that comes together right? And it also, I mean, I don't usually say this, but I have 5 degrees right now. We didn't. Even talk about your doctor, about that. None of them say equity, diversity and inclusion and I think that's what that's the big take away for me and or not take away, but like it's one of the things that I talk about with my classes or with a workshop or anything that I'm facilitating because we can all get to this understanding together, right. So you don't have to be black or brown to get it. Also, you could have grown up in an individualistic household and now you can be really community oriented because you're, you know, everything that you're saying. It's all pieces of that, right. So I think that's a huge, I usually only share my degrees when I have to say that, right. Because people kind of, you know, when people are like, yeah, but you get it because, you know, like I do not have a doctorate in EDI, you know, so it's like everything feeds each other. And if we would just stop ourselves from thinking that it we're so disconnected, there's so many opportunities to pull in some great thinking all across the board. Speaker 1 Yeah, for sure. Yeah. A lot of the things that come up in, in class in that portion of the quarter, we really try to emphasize the fact that these different ways of being are all a part of the human experience and that we actually have access to that collective thinking or to that individualized thinking or to that holistic thinking or that analytical thinking. That, that ability to be able to access all of that is what I what I'm trying to bring to the surface is that that's a fuller human experience. Yeah, we're being brought up. If we are brought up in a K through 12 experience in which creativity is being stifled and not developed, then we're get only having certain muscles. Those analytical, logical, rational muscles worked out. And so if we recognize that perhaps a holistic thinking, which is by way of the paper defined by seeing the field you were talking earlier about, seeing the field and not focusing in on the sub, the object, seeing the big picture, then exercising that muscle of seeing the big picture is going to have you have a fuller perspective. In a similar way, I challenge the students, check yourself, check how many times in the day you're talking about I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I I because that is individualized. That's a very individualized perspective. Notice when you're using we, you're thinking about the collective and probably that's going to be the minority of the time. And so if I go about it saying oh, if you think of I that's going to better, that's going to benefit you and you're going to go further into the system. Then I'm going to I'm not helping the students expand themselves. Notice how many times you're saying I in space and ask the question what might it look like to consider the we more so than the I, or in a balanced fashion. Speaker 2 Yeah, and how much more fun are you going to have when you think about the we? Alright, it's it's really more enjoyable. I mean, there's so much joy to be had, which is hard sometimes for me to say as I deal with hate all day, every day. But there's so much joy to be had when we think in terms of the we. Speaker 1 There's a book out. I'm going to use it in one of my future classes, The Myth of Normal by Dr. Gabor Mattei. And in it, he talks about research that's pulling, that's bringing to the surface the fact that loneliness is as detrimental to our health as smoking, cigarettes and. Thinking about that, I versus we mentality and how folks are in the individualists, individualized society are so focused on just themselves that's actually has negative health benefits when you're exiling yourself or disconnecting from the community. So we all have heard how? In indigenous languages in Alaska that there's multiple words for snow, yeah. And for what I'm finding because I'm taking beside lessons. I was taking beside lessons and I need to start them up again. But there's multiple forms of we. There's all inclusive we in beside and then there's like a like a. Segmented we is Kita and kami. Kita is like everyone, like all of us and then Kami like this the smaller circle so you have it's the most efficient way to organize folks. And I I feel like I could have used that in English because there is there is I remember a time having people over and I said. Oh yeah, we're family. And then somebody said, Oh yeah, we're family. And I was like, Oh no, I was not. I was meaning this small circle. Anyways, all that to say, just thinking about, yeah, the system spends so much time conditioning us to think about about ourselves and thereby isolating ourselves from a larger group. And we're now finding that that self isolation is detrimental to our health. So if we're thinking about inclusion, we're thinking about bringing in different ways of being. There ought not to be so much pushback from the idea of thinking collectively, thinking as the whole. But it's so we're so conditioned just to focus on me and mine that you feel like you're losing. Speaker 2 People feel like they're losing. And I think part of that is this idea that we're also striving for perfection in that individualistic thinking. Speaker 1 Wait, talk about that. Speaker 2 Well, I think you know we're being conditioned in their schools, and each kid is being conditioned to strive for perfection in every way. So you're striving for the A's and across the board A's. You're striving for a perfect test and therefore competition wise, like that's all individualistic thinking. Because in reality, if you look at many cultures, there's no such thing as perfection, right? And so the mentality that we're constantly being driven into is this idea that like to be perfect, it means these things have to line up. And so if our kids are being told that they must strive for perfection, and that's what they continue to do, then that makes competition. When we're all competing against each other now, we're completely immersed in individualistic thinking, and so are the parents, right? So our parents have already been through this process, and now we're raising kids to also be perfect. Like everybody's striving for this thing called perfection. It also means that it's a lot harder to find joy in the things that we're doing. Where is the joy in learning if you are striving for perfection? And so now I think about like you're working with undergrads and I'm working with master's level students, and to not tell a student here's exactly how you will be perfect in this class is really hard on students, right? Or to say you can turn that in however you'd like to is really more stressful than it should be. But it's because we've been told that perfection means I must accomplish A/B and C, even as an instructor. To be a perfect instructor, I need you to accomplish a B&C. And right now in my class I'm asking students what is your learning along the way? Like they have to do a field experience. And what I've told them is I don't care what the project is. The goal is going to be for you to tell me what you learned along the way. That means you have to interact with people because in past classes of this course. A lot of times they would be like, I'm going to create a manual and they would go off for a whole summer and do it and then come back at the end and present it. And I'm thinking, well, how does a adult learning take place if you've gone off and done that all by yourself. So even just to have to learn in community, So every single post is public and we all comment or I'll comment publicly so that not only are you going to learn on your project, but if you were to read my comments on this other project, you might get something from that too. Right. And same thing like we're I'm not doing the whole everybody comments thing. But I think it's important to know that like when we continuously strive for perfection, there's also like a point at which you realize you're never going to be perfect, which we should all know that we're not going to be perfect, but that's scary for people, right. And so then how do you live up to that? Now you've got parents who need you to be perfect. Now you've got a system that needs you to be perfect, And so how do we Where do you find joy in a system that's constantly asking people to strive for perfection? Speaker 1 Yeah, that's a very good question. Can I ask this question? I feel like this is something that I've pondered. I've never actually said out loud. Outside of very safe spaces, is perfectionism cloaked supremacy? Speaker 2 Well, I think when you connect everything back together, it absolutely leads right into supremacy, right? Because perfectionism, competition, individualism, I mean, without those things, there's not supremacy. I would say also part of that idea of supremacy and perfectionism is also absorbed into like black and brown folks that are starting to do the work of supremacy, right? And I think that that's where we also find ourselves in really strained communities. So you might have some black and brown folks that are striving for perfection, not realizing that they're also doing the work of supremacy. I mean, there's there's we could do this all day long first. Of all but but yeah, I mean, I think, I mean you can take it all the way into away from like academics and competition and like what's body image look like. I mean, what is happening to our young people right now who again are striving for perfection because they have been shown how perfection in terms of what body image looks like is valued, right? And and health is not valued. This image of perfection that has been constructed over time is valued and we show that by in lots of different ways, right. And so I just think there's so many things that and now we can go back to like the K12 system, there's so many things that are pressing down upon our kids. And it's becoming harder and harder to create equity because supremacy, perfectionism, individualism is always the the driving force, you know, and as many I can go out there and do a workshop three times a day and I will never be as powerful as social media. So I mean there, there's so much out there right now and it's still I think that there's the joy and learning and if we can increase the joy and learning, I think that is the going to be the most powerful anti supremacy opportunity. Speaker 1 Yeah, and I think, yeah, just riffing on the concept, just riffing on joint joy and learning. I often wonder what it would look like for a classroom that doesn't have an attendance policy That. The students just want to be at. They just want to be in the space, you know, what would that look like? Probably the students feel safe. They feel seen. Yeah. They feel heard. They feel like what they have to contribute to the class is welcomed. You know, rather than there's so much force energy in education. Yeah, you have to be here, you know. In fact, if you get. 10 absences you get Becca build and we got some issues. You know you have to be here. And from the jump it's forced. Maybe this is all like, very not euphoric, not what's the term utopian thinking, but what it what would it look like for students to yeah, I don't want to miss that class. Feel like the learning would be joyful. Speaker 2 I mean, it would start getting us there. But that is the system. Without, without required attendance, there's no system. And without required attendance, that would mean that all of our kids could come and go, Oh my gosh, what would we do then, right? Speaker 1 Those little rascals are going to be out smoking weed in the woods. Speaker 2 They're out there right now. They're out there. Anyway, I remember there used to be a sign up at my kids elementary school that they would put like this week there was only 30 tardies or something like that. And I remember like thinking like, oh, that's weird. And I said it to somebody else and they said they're tardy, shaming. And I. Speaker 1 Thought just a look at the parents, right? Speaker 2 Totally. And then I was like, wait a minute. Then when I think about it, like, what if you don't have the opportunity? Like, what if you just got off work and you can't get your kid there any faster? Like, there's so many things. And then I was told to look at, like, by just saying something. It was kind of funny at the time, but tardy shaming it forced me to look at like, what's the bigger picture? So, you know, like on cameras when you can focus far, you can focus close. Well, if we could only focus close, would that be a great camera or do we want the ability to keep going in and out and thinking like what's the big picture, what's right in front of me, what's the big picture, what's right in front of me? And are we comfortable with that like we've been taught to believe we only need that one focal point? 100% it is the supreme focal point, the supreme focal point. And you are hyper focused on that from the second you enter our schools. I was in a in a high school classroom Monday and the kids were trying to be funny. And so I just kept going with whatever they were saying. And eventually I just said, you know, think about this for a minute. If you came into this classroom Monday and there were no desks, what would you all do? Would you run around the room having no idea how to learn? Or would you all just, I don't know, sit on the floor? And they're like, we'd sit on the floor and I was like, or you'd find, like, grab a chair from the hallway or whatever you needed to do. But, like, just know that you have the ability to think creatively within yourself, that just because there's desks here doesn't mean that that's the only way your teacher can teach you. And they were mindblown. Now that is not a mindblowing statement. Speaker 1 Wait, wait wait. Speaker 2 But in that context, in that moment, they were just like, whoa, you know, it was a much bigger conversation, just that we're clear. But for them to even have to think about that, and even the teacher said, you've really changed the way I'm looking at, like how I teach. But it was not mind blowing stuff. It's just that we have been told how to think about what school's supposed to look like. Yeah, All the way through college. All the way through a master's degree, All the way through a PhD? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, in one of in one of my PhD classes, we had to do a whole study on alternative dissertations, and the author of the book was one of our instructors, and we could use none of those examples to turn in our dissertations. Wait. Speaker 1 Wait, wait wait, wait. Wait. Speaker 2 Explain what? Oh, so this research that this instructor professor had done was all about alternative ways of learning. Knowing indigenous ways of knowing alternative dissertations. People had created videos. They had done big projects to be to do their dissertation. So we take this as a class, and we still had to turn in a formal dissertation. Speaker 1 Wait, what? Speaker 2 I was like, yeah, but right. I feel like there's an opportunity missed here or like bait and switch or something. Like don't give me the ideas and tell me I can't do them. So like where they're saying like we've learned this great stuff, we don't know how to do it yet because they are all still very stuck in their way. Oh. Speaker 1 Interesting. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. This is how you be outside the box. Speaker 2 Now for your final, you are going to get in the box, in the box. We're going to tape it up and. Speaker 1 This is my job. Yeah. Speaker 2 Isn't that fascinating? Speaker 1 Yes, yes, 100 percent. Speaker 2 Like that's a dissertation in itself. Speaker 1 There's there's a point in the quarter where OK and Bisyan speakers, y'all can call me out because I am just. Let me share this story I was taking beside, I was learning beside it. And I was finding that, yeah, there's obviously a lot of Spanish used, but that Spanish are additives to the original language that was like, evolved since time, immemorial, since forever. And so these Spanish words, in my mind, became indicators of things that were added to the culture. Yeah. We'll use Dinador, Cuchara, Pantalones, Zapatos. All those things were not necessarily part of the original culture. I know we eat with our hands. These utensils are new. They're they're added. I asked my teacher what's the word for late? Because when she was speaking, she used the word late. I was like, hold up. What? How you say that in Besiah? She's like it's just late. Like, hold up. OK, so there's no concept for lateness in the original culture, which makes a whole lot of sense, right? I told the story in the in my class where one of our family friends got married to a Korean dude. On the invite to the Koreans, they told them to show up at 6:30 on the invite to the Filipinos. They told them to show up at 6:00. And we all showed up at the same time. Yeah, and so. I tell the students in class at some point in the quarter. I'll tell them this, and usually not at the start, but I'll say, listen, my job is to bring diversity into this space. I did not even have the grades to get into Western, so I'm going to do things different, I said. As far as I know, in my family's language, there is no word for late, so you will notice. If you show up late, I will throw no shade at you. I'll welcome you because honestly, I'm just happy you're here. Yeah, I told my winter quarter class that and it got to the point where students would show up 1015 minutes late. I'll be like, hey, good to see you. And it got to the point where if you showed up because at the end of the day, it's winter quarter, you made it, it's at 8:30 class. I should clarify, it's at 8:30 in the morning class by the end of the quarter if somebody showed up late. The class would give them a round of applause. Like, you did it. Yeah, you almost didn't make it, but you did it, you know? And usually I tell that story and then more often than not, there'll be a couple of students that show up late just trying to figure out if it's true. And those people, I know, I know that they're just testing it. But that's for me, that's the joy of bringing diversity into the space. It's like there's other ways of being. Speaker 2 And EDI work is allowing for that other way of being to be, so I will be well. And the stories are so powerful, right? I mean, I love that because now I will use that from now on. It doesn't have to go. Speaker 1 Away I do. I have to Fact Check it though. Speaker 2 Once it's OK now we go with it. Once Josh says it, It is a law. My friend from Hawaii said that, you know when the plantation owners took the land in Hawaii, they would consider all of the indigenous people is to be super lazy because they would come out there at the time that they would wake up and come out. You know, they fed their chickens whatever they did. I'm imagining like Little House on the Prairie and then the the native people were out in the water surfing and they were like they're so lazy, but but they don't know is that the native people get up with the sun and they do all their work so that then they can be out on the water, right? And so their work was done. But the stories that they tell then you know, you can tell one version or you can tell the other. And I think it's important for us to know that we're going to go with your version when I'm late, not the other. Speaker 1 For sure. The I just feel like I have to share. There's a there's a term that my family uses is ligged, ligged. Liggin is the beside word for rolling and liggin. Liggin is the state of being where you're so relaxed that if you're like laying down on the floor, because we'll do that and you have to go to the bathroom, you will roll there. This is like a state of being that my family is familiar with, you know, and. Some folks might think that that's lazy. I would argue that that's relaxed. And the last thing, the last thing that I had last podcast, I shared a little aphorism. It's a creativity is us set to manual. There's another thing I wrote where I said relaxness is the only thing that I'm done with America culturally appropriating. We can all relax a little bit. It's Okay. We don't need to be striving, though, for that perfectionism standard. If we can just accept that's where where we're at, then I believe we can. The joy of learning can be retained. It's just recognize where you at and recognizing what you don't know. And then inching yourself out and and acquiring knowledge, acquiring wisdom. That's like the name of the game when it comes to education. I told my students, what's the difference between schooling and education? And we have a whole conversation. We have the schooling, the system. Education is the expansion of your mind. You know, it's it's you developing A broader perspective. Like that's what we're going for here. The structure has been, they've told us that this is the one way to do it. It's not true, right? We don't have to do it that way. Speaker 2 We don't have to do it that way. That's huge. Speaker 1 Yes. Are there any other thoughts, closing thoughts? Speaker 2 This has been So are we closing already? Well, I don't even did we even talk about anything yet? I feel like there we needed to have like a pre talk and then like try to like figure out. Speaker 1 So this will not be the only time I feel like we've There's so many things to talk about. I'm a fan of these long form podcasts. There's this podcast that I that I saw. I was scrolling through their feet and. One episode is 3 hours and 330 minutes and then it's it's a part one. I was like, what? And then the next one was like 2 1/2 hours. I say OK, I'm gonna, I'm gonna have to do one of those. But I'm wondering maybe maybe we just chop it here and we say this is part one. There's a million other things to talk about. Speaker 2 There's a million other things. And actually Part 2, let's start with this because I think it's so interesting that you just ended on relaxation. I feel like one of the things that I've discovered most about especially Filipino women, well, Filipino women, Filipina, same thing, same thing is just the opposite of that. Like I in my, in my research actually, I've looked at how Asian women are in a constant state of motion and it's part of their survival tactic. And so I love the idea of, like, there's what do you call it? Like when you got a roll because you're so relaxed even though you got to pee, but you know you're so relaxed. But like, for the woman who has never stopped moving, how? How does she get to that joy? Where does she find that inner peace to be able to lay on the floor and roll, you know what I mean? And like, so I talked about that a little bit at a recent event and I think I'm just scratching the surface on that. So maybe one day we could talk about that. Speaker 1 Yes, 100%. Sometimes my pops will text me. What are you doing? Yeah, I like it. He knows. He's like, OK, good. OK, Janice, thank you for your time. Of course, this is part one of multiple with Doctor. Speaker 2 Oh man. Speaker 1 Janice Velasquez Farmer That was Doctor Janice Velasquez Farmer, You are listening to the Summer Quarter Podcast. If you haven't yet, check out the other episodes and the other conversations with all the other guests and make sure you're caught up with all of the good content that we're putting out there for you. You can follow us on Instagram at the Summer Quarter dot Podcast. And make sure you have some ligged, ligged time between now and the next podcast. In fact, this podcast should be your ligged, ligged time. Maybe I'll change the name of it. Ligged, ligged summer. Ligged ligged time. I'll have to work on it. Peace.