Try to Love the Questions: From Debate to Dialogue in Classrooms and Life

Summary

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Podcast Episode Summary

Podcast: New Books Network

Host: Dr. Christina Gessler
Guest: Professor Lara Hope Schwartz
Episode: Try to Love the Questions: From Debate to Dialogue in Classrooms and Life
Date: December 18, 2025

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Brief Overview

This episode features Professor Lara Hope Schwartz, author of Try to Love the Questions: From Debate to Dialogue in Classrooms and Life. The discussion explores how college classrooms can shift from adversarial debate toward constructive dialogue, the skills necessary to foster thoughtful inquiry, the importance of explicit classroom norms, and how these skills translate to life beyond academia. The episode highlights both systemic challenges and actionable strategies for educators and students alike, centered on the transformative power of questions and empathetic engagement.

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Guest Introduction and Background

• [03:05] Professor Schwartz teaches at American University, with a background in law, civil rights advocacy, and justice work. She founded the Project on Civic Dialogue.
  • “I’m a lawyer by training. I come to my teaching from life in advocacy, particularly civil rights and access to justice.” — Schwartz ([03:05])
  • She emphasizes making her classes explicit, supportive, and inclusive.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Need for Explicitness in Teaching

• [06:49] Schwartz underscores being explicit with students about expectations and classroom culture.

  • Quote: “Nobody’s going to be surprised that I want to help them because I tell them. And so I think that keys into a primary piece of teaching advice that I give, which is just be explicit.” — Schwartz ([06:49])

• [07:16] She reflects on transformative encounters with professors who made students feel seen, shaping her own approach:

  • “Just tell people what it is you want and what we’re doing here … This is a conversation with students and it turns out faculty as well, about what we can do together and how we get that done.” — Schwartz ([07:16])

The Book’s Title and Its Origins

• [11:45] Inspired by Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, Schwartz frames the importance of loving uncertainty and embracing questions.
  • “The thing is to live the questions rather than looking for the answers … you'll actually live your way into the answers by loving the questions.” — Schwartz ([13:03])
  • She emphasizes the value of trying, intellectual humility, and viewing dialogue as an ongoing process.
  • “The try is key here. This idea that we’re going to be this work in progress ... much of what I want to teach and share about dialogue is this trying.” — Schwartz ([14:47])

College as a Unique Dialogue Laboratory

• [18:03] College is uniquely heterogeneous, bringing together people from diverse backgrounds, challenging assumptions about monoculture and inviting discovery.
  • “Any room that includes multiple people will involve multiple perspectives … you’re only going to do that if you look for it and if you design conversations in the ways that find it.” — Schwartz ([18:49], [20:58])

From Debate to Dialogue: Skills for Good Faith Conversation

• [21:42] Schwartz articulates that productive dialogue is a skill, not an innate ability:
  • “What we do together when we’re communicating, listening, writing, engaging in dialogue ... is a skill to be learned, and it’s a skill that can be taught.” — Schwartz ([21:59])
• Such dialogue requires discipline and humility:
  • “There are pieces of our dialogue that reflect that we’re human and we’re working with other humans ... and we’re going to learn from them what works for them, what doesn’t work for them and why.” — Schwartz ([25:21], [25:43])

Expressive Liberty: Rights, Responsibilities, and Campus Culture

• [26:32] Schwartz draws on Jurassic Park’s “could” versus “should,” cautioning that legal rights do not guarantee wise or productive use of speech.
  • “Please stop to think if you should. I don’t think we make a campus better by inviting some jerk who has a radio show to spew insults about other people.” — Schwartz ([28:59], [29:09])
• She notes recent events where excessive administrative crackdowns on speech are as problematic as unchecked provocation ([29:16]–[31:46]).
• “When you’ve put your thumb on the scale and made it very clear to a whole community that some topics are completely verboten ... think if you should.” — Schwartz ([31:35], [31:46])

Safety, Disagreement, and Misconceptions

• [34:08] Schwartz rebuts the tendency to conflate disagreement with lack of safety:
  • “Disagreement and lack of safety are not the same ... when we describe discomfort with being disagreed with ... in the language of safety, we really do ourselves an enormous disservice.” — Schwartz ([34:12], [34:56])
• She urges that preserving the capacity for open engagement is essential:
  • “My hope would be that people across the spectrum of ideology ... could together agree that we need to preserve our capacity to hear one another and have our ideas engaged with in good faith.” ([36:46])

Critique of “Intellectual Diversity” Theory

• [37:15] Schwartz challenges red/blue, liberal/conservative binaries as oversimplified and destructive in higher ed:
  • “I don’t believe that humans have preset identities of liberal and conservative … these categories are completely undefined in intellectual diversity discussions and … just don’t hold up.” — Schwartz ([38:29], [38:47])
  • She provides the example of vaccine politics’ shifting associations ([39:00]–[39:44]).
• Instead, she advocates building inquiry around meaningful, complex questions, not static ideological camps:
  • “What I propose we do instead ... is to look at questions from a much more expansive and inquiring lens rather than the polarized lens of red and blue, black and white, yes or no.” ([41:39])

Developing the Mindset of Inquiry

• [43:37] Five key skills for inquiry:
  1. Learn to love the questions.
  2. Understand rules and norms of conversations.
  3. Listen and read with generosity and grace.
  4. Communicate to be understood.
  5. Engage in self-reflection.
  • Professors aren’t grading ideology—what’s assessed is inquiry and mastery of material, not belief ([43:37]–[44:57]).

Why Most Students Aren’t Prepared for True Dialogue

• [46:04] High school settings restrict speech, reward right answers, and rarely scaffold collaborative inquiry or disagreement.

  • “The primary modality of showing that you are academically competent ... doesn’t consist of showing humility.” — Schwartz ([49:16])

• [50:30] Key Supreme Court cases (e.g., Mahoney) illustrate the uncertainty and limitations surrounding student speech and underscore why students enter college unpracticed in dialogue ([50:30]–[53:55]).

Creating Dialogue-Ready College Environments

• It’s essential for faculty to scaffold dialogue, make expectations explicit, and avoid assuming prior knowledge.
• Reflection and transparency benefit both students and professors: “When I tell people ... here’s how it’s going to go—people rise to the occasion ... I teach it better, I scaffold it better.” — Schwartz ([57:11], [57:30])
• Continual self-reflection and feedback fuel improvement and transformative learning.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Intellectual humility is very hard. And one of the hardest things that we can do ... is just listen, just making space for other people, making space for what’s to come.” — Schwartz ([15:19], [15:29])
• “College brings together people in conversation like nowhere else ... and that fact gives you a lot of hope for humanity.” — Gessler ([17:59])
• “We’re only going to [find diversity of thought] if we look for it and design conversations that find it.” — Schwartz ([20:58])
• “What we do together ... is a skill to be learned, and it’s a skill that can be taught.” — Schwartz ([21:59])
• “If you’re a student group and you want to invite a speaker, you should really think, if you should.” — Schwartz ([30:56])

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Episode Conclusion

The Joy and Importance of Dialogue

• Schwartz describes the joy of watching students grow through scaffolded, explicit dialogue, emphasizing the reciprocal nature of teaching and learning.
• She underscores that focusing on how we teach, not just what, yields "magical" results ([59:22]–[59:28]).
• Personal growth as a feedback recipient and facilitator shaped her understanding of dialogue as both generous and transformative.

Final Hopeful Note

• [60:10] Schwartz hopes for listeners to find "a little bit of hope," recognizing the unique, truth-seeking endeavor of higher education amid attacks and crises.
  • “What we do is special because it’s a truth-seeking endeavor ... Many of the part of the reason we’re under attack is that we are unafraid and we are tasked with facing the kinds of truths that people in power often find inconvenient. And so we need to keep doing that.” — Schwartz ([60:50]–[61:16])

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Timestamps by Segment

| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|-----------------------------------------------------| | 02:26 | Guest introduction and background | | 06:49 | Be explicit as a teacher | | 11:45 | Title inspiration: Rilke and "loving the questions" | | 18:03 | College as a heterogeneous dialogue space | | 21:42 | Defining & teaching good faith dialogue | | 26:32 | Free speech: can vs. should | | 34:08 | Disagreement is not the same as lack of safety | | 37:15 | Critique of monocultural "intellectual diversity" | | 43:37 | Mindset of inquiry: five essential skills | | 46:04 | Why students lack dialogue skills on arrival | | 50:30 | Student speech court cases & their implications | | 56:02 | Schwartz's growth through feedback and teaching | | 60:10 | Hopes for higher ed and listeners |

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For New Listeners

This episode offers an accessible yet profound guide for anyone invested in education, dialogue, or social engagement. It’s especially valuable for educators seeking to foster transformative, inclusive classrooms and for students & citizens aiming to become better questioners and listeners, both inside and beyond academia.

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Transcript

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[Marshall Poe]

Welcome to the New Books Network.

[Dr. Christina Gessler]

Hello everyone and welcome to Academic Life. This is a podcast for your academic journey and beyond. I'm the producer and your host, Dr. Christina Gessler. And today I am so pleased to be joined by Professor Schwartz, who is the author of Try to Love the Questions From Debate to Dialogue in Classrooms and Life. Welcome to the show, Professor Schwartz.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Thanks for having me.

[Dr. Christina Gessler]

I am so glad that you're here and that we get to talk about this book that I was up late reading. There's so much in it and I know we won't get to all of it. But I'm excited for what we can do in this time together. And before we do that, will you please tell us about yourself?

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Sure. So I now I'm thinking, actually, what's the first most important thing? I teach at American University. I'm a lawyer by training. I come to my teaching from life.

[Interviewer/Host]

In advocacy, particularly civil rights and access to justice.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And I run a program I founded.

[Interviewer/Host]

On dialogue across differences called the Project on Civic Dialogue.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

As a person, I am originally from.

[Interviewer/Host]

New York and I've been living in Washington, D.C. for most of my adult life, such as it is. I have a son in college and.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

I living in this world in higher.

[Interviewer/Host]

Ed right now, experiencing tectonic changes and doing my best every day to keep keep the endeavor meaningful and productive and vital for myself and my students and my colleagues.

[Dr. Christina Gessler]

Usually I ask people to tell us a bit about their own journey through higher education. But instead I would like to ask you a question from your appendix, which is looking back on your own college, graduate school, apprenticeship or training experience, were you ever surprised or confused about what was expected of you?

[Interviewer/Host]

Yes.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

I didn't really know what was.

[Interviewer/Host]

Expected of me in law school.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And it's a strange thing to think about now because I was a high achieving college student. I earned high grades and honors.

[Interviewer/Host]

I was very involved. I served as a student writing fellow, which was an honor and a real.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Joy that helps me now. And so I think in a lot of ways I was very prepared for law school and I was certainly prepared.

[Interviewer/Host]

To read long books because I had been an English major and so I was great at critical reading.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

But I, I didn't really know that.

[Interviewer/Host]

I was welcome to take up space.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And seek some kind of support in.

[Interviewer/Host]

Becoming who I was going to be with my professors.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And it's an interesting question to get today. I got up this morning and LinkedIn was open on my browser when I turned on my computer. And so I read the news that.

[Interviewer/Host]

My favorite law school professor had passed.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And one of the things that stood.

[Interviewer/Host]

Out to him and made him my favorite law school professor was he did an extraordinary job of making students feel seen.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

I had sheepishly asked him for a.

[Interviewer/Host]

Recommendation letter because I had done reasonably well in his class and really, really liked his teaching a lot.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And he was delighted and he acted like this was just a wonderful idea. And then he showed me a little.

[Interviewer/Host]

Excerpt that really spoke to me, like.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

This guy knows more about me than.

[Interviewer/Host]

Just, you know, wrote a decent exam.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And I was thinking about it today.

[Interviewer/Host]

Processing what a Huge impact he had.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

On me, but also realizing he was able to have this impact in part because I had no earthly idea that I had a right or it would.

[Interviewer/Host]

Be a good idea to go and engage with these faculty, try and find.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Out what they have to offer, try.

[Interviewer/Host]

And find out how my life trajectory.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Could be helped or shaped by what they knew.

[Interviewer/Host]

And honestly, my entire career is really about very explicitly being that professor and that resource and letting people know. Nobody's going to be surprised that I want to help them because I tell them. And so I think that keys into a primary piece of teaching advice that I give, which is just be explicit.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Just tell people what it is you.

[Interviewer/Host]

Want and what we're doing here.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And if you're not sure, think about it. And if you think it depends, have.

[Interviewer/Host]

That conversation with students and kind of.

[Dr. Christina Gessler]

Co generate that your book is called Try to love the questions. And it's going to invite us to sit with discomfort of not knowing and being in questioning spaces. You have a number of exercises that you invite students to do that you invite to be held in classrooms. There are thought questions. We opened with an example of one that's in an appendix at the back, but they're sprinkled throughout every chapter. And I'm curious what inspired you to write this book?

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

I get a lot of calls and.

[Interviewer/Host]

Emails asking for support and guidance in creating the kind of dialogue programming that I'm able to create over at AU where I, where I work. And I find that I'm saying a bunch of things again and again and.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

I can't be everywhere for everyone. And I found that, you know, if I can assemble this into a text.

[Interviewer/Host]

It'S, it's going to be enormously useful to people.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

But also back on that, that kind of core idea of my teaching, which is be explicit.

[Interviewer/Host]

If nothing else, be explicit. What are we doing here? You know, you think about big life events.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Start with we are gathered here today too. The part of school, the part that.

[Interviewer/Host]

I think is magic, the part of.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

School that couldn't be an email is so vitally important. I think it's the part that keeps.

[Interviewer/Host]

A lot of us teachers excited to be teachers, right? Because that part certainly isn't, you know, grading or faculty meetings or.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

It'S really, really important. Important, but nobody teaches it. There isn't. We have writing classes, we have research methods classes.

[Interviewer/Host]

We don't have participation and engagement courses.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And one of the things that I think this does is leads to that.

[Interviewer/Host]

Question you asked if, you know, have.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

You ever been surprised? And I Think that appendix was my.

[Interviewer/Host]

Appendix for faculty, where I'm asking faculty.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Some questions about how ready they are.

[Interviewer/Host]

To get into the classroom and teach and do dialogue.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And if you've ever been surprised about.

[Interviewer/Host]

What was expected of you, this should give you a space of empathy and say, okay, how can I make it explicit to my students what's expected of them, what we expect together?

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

I found that very few people have.

[Interviewer/Host]

Conversations about what we expect of our time together.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And it's one of the areas where the gap between what it is we faculty would really like to achieve in the classroom and achieve in the higher ed experience generally, and what a new participant might guess success looks like is.

[Interviewer/Host]

Wider than maybe anywhere else.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And so follow my own advice, be explicit. This is a conversation with students and.

[Interviewer/Host]

It turns out faculty as well, about what we can do together and how we get that done and what norms and expectations and boundaries might inform and bound that.

[Dr. Christina Gessler]

And you make explicit in the book that students don't arrive at college prepared for how a college classroom is structured. And they don't arrive having spent much time practicing good faith dialogue. And that's something that you, you really dig into in the beginning. And then, and then we dig into more granularly in chapter three, which is called Understand the Rules and Norms of College Discourse. Before we do that, though, I'd like to talk about what inspired the title of the book. You tell us that when you were a college student, you are given a book called Letters to Young Poet. And one particular poet that you read in there led to the inspiration for that title. And there's a passage when we open the book from that poet as well. Can you talk to us about that?

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Sure. And actually, a teacher of mine, a former teacher of mine, gave me this.

[Interviewer/Host]

Book, Letters to a Young Poet.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And as someone who teaches now this.

[Interviewer/Host]

Book, a young poet reached out to the poet Rilke and asked him questions how.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And he asked about becoming a poet.

[Interviewer/Host]

But he asked about life as well. And this book is those letter to Hospance.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And so I think there's something really.

[Interviewer/Host]

Beautiful about this book's existence in a sense, because it's a conversation between people, someone young and wondering and inquiring and curious and someone more established and really lovingly offering attention.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

But the, the passage that inspires the.

[Interviewer/Host]

The book is, you know, it tells.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

The poet that, that he's, he's so young and, and, and right at the.

[Interviewer/Host]

Beginning, before all beginning of his life, that, that he needs to sit in the questions. He needs to try to love the Questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And the thing is to live the.

[Interviewer/Host]

Questions rather than looking for the answers, to live the questions. And you'll actually live your way into the answers by loving the questions.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

So I've always thought that this was very inspiring. I actually, for a long time I used to keep that excerpt in a word doc in the desktop of my computer as a little word doc. And when I'd have students come in, and It's I think 21st century college.

[Interviewer/Host]

Students, they're very driven to make good on their investment in education. They're very concerned about their future, about paying for their education.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And I get students, you know, who.

[Interviewer/Host]

Are young people, first year students, you know, saying, you know, I, I'm worried.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Because I don't, I don't know if I want to be, you know, this kind of intellectual property lawyer or this.

[Interviewer/Host]

Other kind of intellectual property lawyer.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And they're like 19. And I would, I would thoughtfully sort of scratch my chin, print out the Rilke passage, go grab it off the printer, bring it back to them and.

[Interviewer/Host]

Say, no, I want you to sit with me.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

This. And so it had been a part of my mentoring for some time. When I thought about and we can talk about the book's core idea is.

[Interviewer/Host]

About questions and how we design them and how we approach them.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

When I started with the working thinking about including it in a working title.

[Interviewer/Host]

I was really happy.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

But I was saying love the questions.

[Interviewer/Host]

And not try to love the questions. And as I got writing, I thought.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

The try is key here. This idea that we're going to be this work in progress and that so.

[Interviewer/Host]

Much of what I want to teach.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And share about dialogue is this trying.

[Interviewer/Host]

This idea of moving toward and including.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Failing, falling short, being at a low.

[Interviewer/Host]

Level, of, of attainment, you know, on.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

On our journey, this idea of trying.

[Interviewer/Host]

And not just loving the questions felt really important.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And it also felt really important because intellectual humility is very hard. And one of the hardest things that we can do, which your podcast audience.

[Interviewer/Host]

Is doing right now, and I applaud.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

It, is just listen, just making space for other people, making space for what's.

[Interviewer/Host]

To come.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Is very hard. And I think understanding that the world that we're in isn't divided among sort of virtuous people who are open minded.

[Interviewer/Host]

Enough to, to, to withhold judgment and kind of close minded radicals or something, that's, that's not really how the world works.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

How every conversation works is, you know, we put in the effort that we.

[Interviewer/Host]

Can we try to put in the effort that we can? And so I actually, I think my.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Title, the title is one of my favorite things about the book, but I think a lot about how every word.

[Interviewer/Host]

Of it really reflects what I'm hoping to get across.

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[Dr. Christina Gessler]

The prologue is called On Trying, and it shares much of what we shared with us here. You say in it, this book is for those who are interested in trying at other places. In the book, you remind us that not all questions are lovable, which I appreciated very much. But one of the things that you're setting up for us in the prologue is that college brings together people in conversation like nowhere else. College is a place where people from all over the world, from corners of your country that you've never visited, from all kinds of backgrounds, come, and they can end up in the same classroom together. And that's a rare experience. Most people who arrive at college have never had that kind of experience before, and few will be able to reproduce it after they've finished their higher ed journey. But you talk about how this can be an important model for life beyond college, and that fact gives you a lot of hope for humanity. Can you talk about that a little bit?

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Yes. And I think, you know, college can.

[Interviewer/Host]

Be more heterogeneous than most spaces that people are in.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And so I do think the idea of bringing people together in a room to be in discussion with one another, to learn with one another, and in the case of residential college, which is.

[Interviewer/Host]

You know, a bit under half of our higher ed world, it's about 40%, you know, sometimes to live together, to be almost like a little city.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

One thing that I think that I've come to appreciate more since writing the book and maybe just over the course of doing a lot of talks on.

[Interviewer/Host]

It and teaching in a lot of.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Spaces, is that truly any room that.

[Interviewer/Host]

Includes multiple people will involve multiple perspectives.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And so one of the things That I think we need to do is not be too hasty to assign perspectives.

[Interviewer/Host]

To people based on their experiences or.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Identity and not be too hasty to.

[Interviewer/Host]

Declare, declare a space inadequately heterogeneous based on guessing what the people in the room think.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And I've seen this a lot at my own university, which falls into the.

[Interviewer/Host]

Stereotype of a university that supposedly got like a liberal monoculture or the majority of people are described as liberal or described as Democrats.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And I think if you take people's voting records, you will find that it's lopsided. But the heterogeneity of positions that people.

[Interviewer/Host]

Hold or interests that they have or.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Concerns that they have about literally every.

[Interviewer/Host]

Topic I've ever introduced into conversation or witnessed happening in conversation is mind blowing.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

So at the same time as I think I applaud and I want to save from unprecedented threats the idea of.

[Interviewer/Host]

A college as a place that actually brings together a more heterogeneous group in a lot of ways than most of our institutions, most of our civic and social institutions in this country.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

I also want to explode the idea.

[Interviewer/Host]

The, I would say unfounded, an unsupported.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Idea, that even when you get a group of people that whether you know that their sort of census data could.

[Interviewer/Host]

Tag them as kind of a monoculture, you're actually going to find just extraordinary diversity of viewpoint.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

But you're only going to do that if you look for it and if you design conversations in the ways that find it.

[Dr. Christina Gessler]

Chapter one is called Think if youf Should Paradigm Shifts on Campus Discourse. And that chapter is really taking us into the skill of good faith dialogue. You talk about expressive freedom, also known as free speech. And you talk about the fact that having a right does not let us know exactly how to use it, and it doesn't let us know what the consequences could be. Just because something's legal doesn't mean you face no consequences in the real world. Can you talk about what you mean by the skill of good faith dialogue?

[Interviewer/Host]

Sure.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

So my teaching, my writing, the work that I do, is motivated by the.

[Interviewer/Host]

Idea that what we do together when we're communicating, listening, writing, engaging in dialogue, engaging in that back and forth.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Is.

[Interviewer/Host]

Is a skill.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

It's a skill to be learned, and it's a skill that can be taught.

[Interviewer/Host]

And so we know that's the case with writing.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

We know that's the case with a number of other college level skills such.

[Interviewer/Host]

As time management, research methods, scientific method, et cetera, academic integrity.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And so this is one of them, good faith dialogue, and particularly productive Academic dialogue, I would say, is what we.

[Interviewer/Host]

Would do if we wanted to understand.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And the skill involved in doing what we would do if we wanted to.

[Interviewer/Host]

Understand.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Consists of recognizing some kind of.

[Interviewer/Host]

Neutral standard of quality. So if I'm proposing to you my idea about how the flu spreads, I'm going to use the language and methods.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Of science to, to say that to you, to inquire about it and to.

[Interviewer/Host]

And to show you that I, that I've proven this in some way. And our dialogue is going to take the form of biology and public health science.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

So there are, there are skills and, and the skills that we have, if.

[Interviewer/Host]

We'Re lawyers or psychologists or philosophers, they all fall into. There's some kind of agreed upon norm.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

That we might use. And, and one of the skills, particularly.

[Interviewer/Host]

In critical studies or in studies like philosophy is, is questioning the norms we have and inquiring about them and saying, do it. Do these even pertain? The good faith component is, you know.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Am I in this dialogue because I want to understand or I want you.

[Interviewer/Host]

To understand, I want to be understood.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

We, we have an assumption going into a classroom that everybody going into the.

[Interviewer/Host]

Classroom wants to become more knowledgeable about the subject matter.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

They want to, when they're offering their own perspectives, they're doing so from a.

[Interviewer/Host]

Place you know of. They're not being dishonest. They're trying not to infuse dishonesty in the form of disinformation.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And their intention is not to hurt.

[Interviewer/Host]

Anyone or, although that is not a guarantee, because lots of the time we can intend one thing and have another outcome.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And so the practice of good faith.

[Interviewer/Host]

Dialogue is what we do if we're.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Trying together to do something together to.

[Interviewer/Host]

Increase our understanding in some way.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And the skill of it is using the skills that make it worthwhile for a class. So this is like, do the reading, check your sources. And we're also doing it in ways such that our presence with others, we're.

[Interviewer/Host]

Really engaging in the skill of being together.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

So if I'm in a good faith.

[Interviewer/Host]

Dialogue with someone and I mispronounce their name.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

One of the skills that I'm.

[Interviewer/Host]

Going to need is humility and gratitude when they correct me.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

So there are pieces of our dialogue that are what I think academics would recognize as those neutral disciplinary standards and norms. And there are pieces of our dialogue that reflect or the pieces of our dialogue skills that reflect that we're human and we're working with other humans, and.

[Interviewer/Host]

We'Re going to learn from them what works for them, what doesn't.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Work for them and why and what.

[Interviewer/Host]

Their perspective is, not only on the.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Material that we're discussing, but on our.

[Interviewer/Host]

Own contributions and our own ways of engaging with them.

[Dr. Christina Gessler]

You tell us in that section that there is no law on how to be kind. You remind us that rules aren't a how to guide. And you go through a number of things that you see as key components of dialogue skills, liberty, personal responsibility and accountability. Accept possibilities that we could be wrong. Commit to try again tomorrow. Where we fall short today. The liberty piece, I think, is more timely perhaps than when you first wrote this book, because without that ability to know that we can speak, we're silenced at God.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yes.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

In the book, I refer to. I refer to a scene from Jurassic park, which for listeners who haven't seen.

[Interviewer/Host]

This movie, the premise is, you know.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Someone figures out a way to create.

[Interviewer/Host]

Dinosaurs using ancient DNA, like preserved in amber.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And so they make an amusement park full of dinosaurs and it works out.

[Interviewer/Host]

Not to be a great idea.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And in the book they have this.

[Interviewer/Host]

Chaos theory mathematician visit the park and.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Give his feedback, which seems like his.

[Interviewer/Host]

Feedback would have been much more useful in advance, but you know, be a less exciting movie about a proposal that failed to get funded.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And he says about this amusement park.

[Interviewer/Host]

Full of carnivorous giant things.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Your scientists were so preoccupied with figuring.

[Interviewer/Host]

Out if they they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And when I wrote the book, when I was draft, you know, envisioning the.

[Interviewer/Host]

Book and drafting the book and editing.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

The book, I thought about that scene a lot as it connects to the way that people in higher ed were.

[Interviewer/Host]

Talking about free speech before late 2023. And it was basically, I was hearing.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

A lot, a lot of heat about concerns about self censorship being a crisis, concerns about students objecting to speakers coming to campus. And there was some truth to. I actually believe that we really need a lot of freedom to invite and have speakers and say stuff, including when it offends somebody. But it felt like the wrong conversation because here we are in higher ed, which is what we do if we want to understand, right?

[Interviewer/Host]

Higher ed is just like dialogue.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

It's what you do if you want to understand. And we're having these arguments about like provocateurs who are talk show hosts or news personalities or people whose entire career is based on just showing up at colleges at the invitation of one group and then making a whole news cycle or many of them about how another group of different objected to them. And I felt like my message was, yes, I'm always going to protect what you your right to say things, but.

[Interviewer/Host]

Please stop to think if you should.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

I don't think we make a campus better by inviting some jerk who has.

[Interviewer/Host]

A radio show to spew insults about other people.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And I think we want to use that responsibility, use the responsibilities that come.

[Interviewer/Host]

With our rights wisely.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

What happened in the last couple of years is I really feel like I'm.

[Interviewer/Host]

Seeing the flip side.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Of that idea. Stop to think if you should. What starts happening after October of 2023 is institutions start cracking down on tons of speech, including speech that is manifestly protected by the First Amendment, and using their regulatory power like a cudgel in a way that technically, like legalistically, like, yes, you can say people can't hold.

[Interviewer/Host]

A sign in an assembly, it's a time place manner restriction.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

But overall, the level of crackdown on a specific kind of speech really shows that these institutions, at the behest of.

[Interviewer/Host]

The federal government and some other people.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Are using their regulatory power in a manner that's often coloring within the lines of their legal authority, but is really, really making a bad situation on campus where the people on campus simply don't.

[Interviewer/Host]

Have equal access to share their ideas.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

In a way that is vital to.

[Interviewer/Host]

Our mission of understanding one another.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And so now I think of that scene and that quotation from both sides. I think, you know, if you're a student group and you want to invite a speaker, you should really think, if.

[Interviewer/Host]

You should, and you should be thinking.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

About, can that person help this learning community understand something important that they need to understand?

[Interviewer/Host]

Which is usually not the case with some provocateur.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

But then to administrators, you know, you can, if you're a private institution, ban people from sitting down together in the library, all with the same T shirt or laptop sticker that says the message that they want to convey. And privately studying together in solidarity, you could win a lawsuit about that if.

[Interviewer/Host]

You'Re a private university.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

But what you've done, when you've put your thumb on the scale and made it very clear to a whole community.

[Interviewer/Host]

That some topics are completely verboten, no.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Matter how civilly and non disruptively conveyed, think if you should.

[Dr. Christina Gessler]

And you talk about that in the book, the importance on reflecting what we want to communicate and why. And you point out that there are different basically sets of rules, whether you're on a private campus or a public one. And it reminded me of when I was in college, I was at a private school and we had to do a senior project that in some way was a project for the community. And I had recently lost a long time friend, two aides, and I was not able to go to say goodbye or be part of the celebration of life. And I did not know that that's what he had. He kept it really private. Even in that time period. It's still so stigmatized. So my senior project for the community was trying to figure out a way to do a fun, interactive learning project that destigmatized sexual health. And so I put together this pamphlet and this little test. And there was a fair where everybody had to sort of present what their project was. And everyone on campus came, and people from outside campus, I believe as well. And so you got this little pamphlet and you could take this little test and you'd win a prize. And the Red Cross came and they answered students questions and they gave out condoms. And I did not know that the school's official policy was abstinence because I lived in the dorms. And so you would not definitely know that from having spent time with your peers. And so more than one professor came up to me and said, you know, I really appreciate your. What you're doing here is so important and that you would risk it senior year. And that was like, what? And so I found out that, you know, I could have been disinvited to graduate. And yet they had discretion and they felt that it was something that needed to be done. It had long needed to be done. They appreciate my approach. And more than one person in authority came and said, you know what, they will do this because of you and because you made it fun. Like, if we had tried to have our health center do this or something, they wouldn't go, they wouldn't ask. And so it reminded me that it's what side of history you're on at the moment, because there's so much discretion in how these First Amendment policies. But up against official policies on private campuses.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Yes, I'm not a proponent of the.

[Interviewer/Host]

Intellectual diversity theory, and I hope we can talk about that.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

But a place where I absolutely concur with some of the free expression proponents who were sounding the alarm about higher ed, you know, some years back, who.

[Interviewer/Host]

Are a little bit silent now, is.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

That disagreement and lack of safety are not the same. When we describe discomfort with being disagreed with, when we describe discomfort with the person presence of someone's disagreement with someone's statement of an idea that we don't.

[Interviewer/Host]

Like.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

In the language of safety, we really do ourselves an enormous disservice. It is enormously painful to be in a close knit Community, be in a residential community that especially, you know, that's your entire home.

[Interviewer/Host]

If you're at a selective college, to.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Be at a school that you, you were sold as this special place that.

[Interviewer/Host]

Only a few people can be in.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And then have, and then see the.

[Interviewer/Host]

Presence of ideas that you find abhorrent.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Right. I think it's a challenge in particular.

[Interviewer/Host]

With the selective college idea because, you know, you're told, well, only special people are here. And then the school producer protects someone's ability to say something you find abhorrent. It's really jarring for people.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

But the answer to that jarring ness.

[Interviewer/Host]

The answer to that discomfort isn't to ban people's speech.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And that was true when it was efforts to shut down, bringing some conservative scholar or even some obnoxious provocateur to campus. And it's true now when people describe the existence of pro Palestine advocates or.

[Interviewer/Host]

Discussion in terms of the safety of Jewish students.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Safety and emotional comfort are both important.

[Interviewer/Host]

And they are distinctive concepts.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

When we blur the lines between them, we make it harder to do a.

[Interviewer/Host]

Lot of the things that schools are supposed to do. And I, my hope would be that people across the spectrum of ideology, of.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Political preference could together agree that we need to preserve our capacity to hear one another and have our ideas engaged with in good faith rather than wielding.

[Interviewer/Host]

Cudgels to prevent people from engaging with their ideas.

[Dr. Christina Gessler]

You mentioned that you wanted to explain the intellectual diversity theory. I'm not sure everyone's familiar with what that is.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah, thank you.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

So there's an idea that has often been in the discourse in parallel with and in kind of concert with more concerns about free expression, particularly as I.

[Interviewer/Host]

Was writing this book, the landscape has.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Shifted a little bit, which was that schools are insufficiently heterodox, that the schools, you know, who teaches in them, who goes to them, they're a monoculture and.

[Interviewer/Host]

They'Re only one kind of people.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And another kind of people aren't there.

[Interviewer/Host]

And this is hurting the schools.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And in particular the idea is there aren't enough conservatives. And that is proven and measured by how people vote or vote for president.

[Interviewer/Host]

Generally, or self identify as liberal, moderate, conservative.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And often in parallel with that, there will be varying degrees of. And we need to do something about.

[Interviewer/Host]

That by like recruiting for more people who are conservative or recruit, recruiting for more, you know, making institutes for people who are conservative.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And I really disagree with this approach.

[Interviewer/Host]

For a bunch of reasons.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

One reason is I don't believe that.

[Interviewer/Host]

Humans have preset identities of liberal and conservative.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And one of the things that we've seen over the years is that these.

[Interviewer/Host]

Categories are completely undefined in intellectual diversity discussions.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And they just don't hold up.

[Interviewer/Host]

They're so fluid.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And an example would be if you and I were doing a podcast before 2020 and we asked whether interest in.

[Interviewer/Host]

Vaccines was liberal or conservative or disagreement with vaccine science was liberal or conservative.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

The very small fringy anti vaccine.

[Interviewer/Host]

Movement.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

That we'd be able to find, we would find a bit on the left in kind of, you know, certain vegetarian, organic foods type communities that, that we would not associate with conservative America, not associate with Republicans. And that's where. That's what we'd find. We would find a completely different alignment of, of how vaccines connect to political.

[Interviewer/Host]

Ideology or ideological sort of identity formation today.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Completely switched. And it's because actually these are sort of fake categories. They're not really the kinds of categories that we have in higher ed.

[Interviewer/Host]

You know, are you a philosopher? Are you an economist?

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Are you a public health science? They're really cultural. They're really about what do people like me in my group that I feel comfortable with and feel very wedded to? What do they think about this stuff?

[Interviewer/Host]

Right?

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

So to reify the idea of conservative or liberal as a category in higher ed to me leans into a very toxic thing that happens outside of higher ed, where people evaluate ideas based on what, quote people like me think of those ideas rather than the kind of inquiry that we engage in in education. So giving those false categories more strength, it's inconsistent with how a higher ed works. I think it reinforces polarization. It says, hey, we've got this very polarized society. Let's think of this other place that has completely different norms in terms of those polarized teams that pertain outside. So I think that's a real waste of higher ed. And I think it also belies the fact that I have never in my life met a thoughtful human who holds every position that ends up being the.

[Interviewer/Host]

Sort of party line or voting position or platform plank of the party they're more likely to vote for.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

It's just not how humans are. So I think this idea of reifying.

[Interviewer/Host]

People as liberal or consistent conservative in.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

That way, which are unstable categories and.

[Interviewer/Host]

Categories that don't really align with what we do in higher ed.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

What I propose we do instead, and this is the core idea of the book, is to look at questions from a much more expansive and inquiring lens rather than the polarized lens of red.

[Interviewer/Host]

And blue, black and white, yes or.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

No, that tends to even inform questions.

[Interviewer/Host]

Like is this faculty member liberal or conservative on survey?

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[Disney Announcer]

On December 12th, Disney invites you to go behind the scenes with Taylor Swift in an exclusive six.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Episode document I wanted to give something to the fans that they didn't expect. The only thing left is to close.

[Disney Announcer]

The book the end of an era and don't miss Taylor Swift. The Eras Tour, the final show featuring for the first time the tortured poets department. Streaming December 12th only on Disney.

[Dr. Christina Gessler]

So for listeners who are wondering how you move into this space of inquiry, there's several questions that begin on page 11 and move into page 12 and we'll just quickly list those for the listeners and this is called what does It Take? And it's about developing a mindset of inquiry and building your skills as a reader, listener and communicator. And you say you will need to 1. Learn to love the questions and to seek answers with integrity. 2. Understand the rules and norms that apply to your conversations. 3. Listen and read with a mindset of informed generosity and grace. 4. Communicate to be understood. 5. Engage in self reflection. You go on to say that this book won't tell you what's okay to say and what isn't. And you also point out in several places of the book that professors aren't grading you based on your political leanings or your ideologies or your religious beliefs. You're in a class with a particular rubric and syllabus, and when they grade you, they're focused on the matters at hand, what the class was designed to do, and who you are belief wise and ideologically will not harm your grade. One of the things that you point out is that most students arrive at college without any practice in how to have this civil discourse, this good faith dialogue. What they have had instead is what you pointed out in one of your previous examples is these polarizing figures in popular culture provocateurs. And many have been trained in a debate model which takes you into a right and wrong Someone's going to win, someone's going to lose. And one of the things that your method does, that you lay out in the book is it gets rid of these binaries. You're learning to love the questions and do deep inquiry and learn how to research. And in doing that, you're not going towards a preset answer. You're instead expanding your own deep thinking skills. But why do students arrive at school without being pre trained in this? Why do they arrive not being aware of how a classroom works or even what their rights are on campus? And chapter three takes us really deeply into this. Chapter three is called Understand the Rules and Norms of College Discourse. And you point out that students in K12 schools in the US have limited freedom of expression compared to college students and other adults. So quite simply, they'd have no practice. Yeah.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And one thing that I want to make really clear, I do not see.

[Interviewer/Host]

Our today's students from a deficit lens. I think today's students are wonderful.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And also when I say that they're not coming prepared for this, I'm not critiquing K12 teachers who are some of.

[Interviewer/Host]

The most important and vital, underpaid, underappreciated and under attacked people in US society today. I'm really proud to say my son.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Is studying to be a high school teacher. So I just want to make that.

[Interviewer/Host]

Very clear for our educators who are listening.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

But as you said, the rules of K12 education, the courts have given K to 12 schools a lot more power to restrict students speech. And some of that is it's in the interest that, you know, K to 12 schools are considered to be not.

[Interviewer/Host]

Just educational institutions in the sense of conveying content, how do we do math, how do we understand social studies, but.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Places that alongside of parents are participating in the upbringing of young people. And so the rules that apply there are different. I think those of us who care.

[Interviewer/Host]

About free expression in higher ed should.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Really be thinking about Whether K to.

[Interviewer/Host]

12 speech rules have become much too restrictive as I think they had, but outside of the rules of free expression which are much more limited.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And you know, my high school students.

[Interviewer/Host]

Talk about their dress codes Talk about.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

You know, not being able to wear a hat with a political. Wear a hat at all or a T shirt with a political.

[Interviewer/Host]

Slogan on it, things like this.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

But outside of that, I think there's, there's also the way that The K to 12 schooling has really moved toward these high stakes assessments in which a lot of what students are charged with doing, are tasked with doing is, you know, demonstrating reading comprehension of short form.

[Interviewer/Host]

Form.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Short form texts in writing as opposed to engaging in deep dialogue with each.

[Interviewer/Host]

Other, with their teachers. You have large class sizes, you have these mandates to do a certain kind of focus.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And so a lot of our students, they've, they've been in a process where succeeding didn't include learning to be in.

[Interviewer/Host]

In a state of collaborative inquiry with others.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And there are some exceptions. You know, if you're a student who played a team sport or was in.

[Interviewer/Host]

A theater troupe or a musical ensemble.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Or, you know, a robotics club, you might, you might have had some really.

[Interviewer/Host]

Great experience or model UN you might have had some really great experience or collaboratively getting something done with some other people, learning something collaboratively with some other people.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

But the primary modality of showing that.

[Interviewer/Host]

You are academically competent, such that you can earn a diploma and admission to college doesn't consist of showing humility.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And then the college application process itself.

[Interviewer/Host]

You'Re supposed to show that you have this degree of attainment.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

I'm better, you know, numerically better than other people.

[Interviewer/Host]

I've.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

I'm at the top of my class. We tend to measure people and we never.

[Interviewer/Host]

We don't have a mechanism for measuring high school students, maybe other than sports.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

On how well they work together.

[Dr. Christina Gessler]

In that chapter, you take us into some interesting court cases that give us examples of freedom to speak versus freedom not to speak at all. One is Moresby Frederick, and another one is the Mahoney case, which I think people might still be familiar with because it was quite sensational at that time. Can you talk to us about how it's still a matter of unsettled opinion in some ways? I mean, if these are going to the level of the Supreme Court, people still aren't really sure how you use your First Amendment and your free speech rights and when you can.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yes.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

So for, for listeners who didn't follow.

[Interviewer/Host]

The BLV Mahano case, this was a.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

High school student who did not get.

[Interviewer/Host]

Placed on a cheerleading squad and posted.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

On Snapchat a profanity about that fact.

[Interviewer/Host]

And said, you know, f cheer in the school and f everything in a Snapchat account that was seen only by friends and vanished.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And the school disciplined her for, for this and, and defended that discipline all.

[Interviewer/Host]

The way to the Supreme Court of the United States.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

The Supreme Court did side with the student. So you can't, the, the school couldn't.

[Interviewer/Host]

Discipline her for that particular Snapchat post.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

But the court did not say what I think I would have hoped they.

[Interviewer/Host]

Would say, which is the schools can't.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Punish students for things that they do.

[Interviewer/Host]

Outside of school unless they are directly bullying or hurting, you know, a member of the school community. Right.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

So if a student is just speaking.

[Interviewer/Host]

Including about the school, it's none of the school's business.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And I actually consider this a very conservative position if we want to be real about that, because this student was not an orphan. The student was not a ward of the state. This student did not live with the.

[Interviewer/Host]

Vice principal or the principal of this school.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

This student had parents. And so if the parents are okay with them speaking profanely outside of school.

[Interviewer/Host]

Hours to their friends, as 100% of students do probably.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

About school, you know, then there, there's, there's good, good news.

[Interviewer/Host]

School district, there's nothing for you here. You can enjoy your afternoon. Afternoon. You don't have to, you don't have to go after this person.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

That's not what the court said. The court said, you know, they, they, they went out of their way to, to, to say they weren't approving of the speech, which, which was really core political speech. It was someone critiquing the government authority.

[Interviewer/Host]

That she had the most experience with and submission to.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And what they, what they said was, you know, schools are going to be able to govern out of school speech.

[Interviewer/Host]

Only in limited circumstances, including when it's deeply connected to the school. And they contemplated areas such as bullying and harassment, which I agree they have the authority to regulate. In the post BLV Mahanoi world, it.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Remains uncertain how much of out of school speech schools can regulate, which means that students have to be watching themselves. When you don't have an answer about the question of how much authority the.

[Interviewer/Host]

Authority figure in your life has, you're going to be careful and you're going to speak less.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

So I think that that case, it was a win for the student, but.

[Interviewer/Host]

There'S an enormous amount of uncertainty.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And then at the higher ed level.

[Interviewer/Host]

I'd say the uncertainty is also much higher at this time because there's been so much, there's been so much regulation of student speech in the past couple of years.

[Dr. Christina Gessler]

And you tell us in chapter three that there is also freedom not to speak. You take us into harassment and defamation and you take us into why all of this matters for college students. As you pointed out a few moments ago, this chapter is not about a deficit in the K12 experience. It's about students arriving in a brand new environment where they're supposed to level up into a new set of skills. And it's really awareness for both the students and the professors that this new environment is where they gain these skills. And the students need to be scaffolded. As you said, the professors need to make it explicit. And a lot of the appendix at the back, reflection questions for faculty is really helping faculty think more deeply about what kind of environment they have in their classroom and how explicit they are about the norms, not only in helping their students get scaffolded and level up, but in considering their own awareness of how they're presenting themselves and what they believe is just assumed knowledge. And this chapter really helps unpack that. We can't assume the knowledge because the K12 environment is designed for a different system. And in this new system, professors need to be prepared to really help students understand it and thrive. Chapter four is called Lead and Sorry, Listen and Read With a mindset of informed generosity and grace. Chapter five is Communicate to Be Understood. Chapter six is Where Do I Fit? Engage in Self Reflection. In the acknowledgments, you give us a window into who you were when you started in this field. That feedback was something that was uncomfortable for you when you would send out something to be published or. Or to be read. And you've come to understand that feedback and this kind of dialogue is a generous thing that helps us all. Can you talk a bit about your own journey in the last few minutes that we have in writing this book and coming to the awareness of why we need to try to try to love the questions.

[Interviewer/Host]

Sure.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

I mean, I think in my own teaching I kind of pull apart my.

[Interviewer/Host]

Classes and my syllabi every semester. I spend time at the end of the semester or end in semester asking people, how's it going? What's working for you?

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And over the years, the thing that's become really cool clear to me is.

[Interviewer/Host]

That we can accomplish much more together. We can have great classes if we take the time to talk together about what we want to accomplish together.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And what I found in my classes is that when I tell people like, I've assigned you to do a moot court oral argument, not because I'm mean.

[Interviewer/Host]

And I want you to sort of.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Sweat, but because I know that this exercise brings out the best in people, improves their confidence, gets them in touch.

[Interviewer/Host]

Both with the material and their own.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Abilities, better than anything else I've come up with.

[Interviewer/Host]

And here's how it's going to go.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

People rise to the occasion. And in my experience, I look at what my students are producing in my.

[Interviewer/Host]

Classes now compared to what they did the first time. I tried some of these exercises that.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

I do, and it's so much better.

[Interviewer/Host]

And it's because I teach it better, it's because I scaffold it better.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And I think it's nice that I.

[Interviewer/Host]

Have students from 2013, 14, 15 who.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Think fondly back on my classes and say so, because my classes now are so much better than those were. And so I'm really, really interested in the idea of how we take that time that we've committed to spend together in a class and make it great. And I think that's a lot of my journey. I mean, personally, I definitely believe that.

[Interviewer/Host]

Teaching fulfills something in me in terms of making it possible for, for young people to meet their potential to live their lives, to become whoever they want to be for whatever reason they want it to.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

But I think particularly the journey toward focusing on how we spend this time together, it's the most joyful part of.

[Interviewer/Host]

Being a teacher, I think, in a.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Lot of ways, but it's also, I think, understudied. And a lot of what I see out there, you know, it, it focuses.

[Interviewer/Host]

On open mindedness or it focuses on heterodoxy without, without inquiring into, without inquiring.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Into what those concepts really look like.

[Interviewer/Host]

In the context of trying to understand so that we can solve problems in our world. And higher education does concern itself not.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Just with everybody having a moment to.

[Interviewer/Host]

Speak, that's just social media. Higher education concerns itself with how do we take these processes and conversations and make them an opportunity for us to come to understand the world and each.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

Other better, such that we can make our world better. And so it has a kind of.

[Interviewer/Host]

Guardrails and a set of practices to that we, you know, that we won't find on, on YouTube or you know, just, just a simple, like social media site. We're, we're trying to do something so much more special. And I think when, when as, as faculty we focus on, focus on the, how really magical things can happen. Which is why I'm, I'm actually happy to say the next book is going, going to be very specifically geared toward, toward teachers on how we, how we make that how we create those spaces where these great things happen.

[Dr. Christina Gessler]

Finally, what do you hope this episode sparks for listeners?

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

You know, I'd like to see people have a little bit of hope. It's not a very hopeful time in higher ed in that it seems like, I mean, it is the case that there are attacks on higher ed and there's a lot of hand wringing, you know, that, that we're under attack because.

[Interviewer/Host]

We got so much wrong. And I am very, very eager to engage in self reflection and take accountability for the things that higher ed gets wrong. You know, it's too expensive. It's wildly too expensive.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And what we do is special because.

[Interviewer/Host]

It'S a truth seeking.

[Dr. Christina Gessler]

Endeavor.

[Professor Lara Hope Schwartz]

And many of the part of the reason we're under attack is that we are unafraid and we are tasked with.

[Interviewer/Host]

Facing the kinds of truths that people in power often find inconvenient. And so we need to keep doing that.

[Dr. Christina Gessler]

Thank you so much for being here today, Professor Lara Hope Schwartz, and sharing your book. Try to love the questions from debate to dialogue in classrooms and life. You've been listening to the academic life. I'm Dr. Christina Gessler inviting you to please join us again.