A Conversation with Mandie Dunn

Dr. Mandie Bevels Dunn is known for her work in the area of teacher wellness. In particular, she studies how teachers who were grieving a death managed their emotions in the context of teaching in English language arts classrooms. In studying teachers’ grief-related emotions, she focuses on how power dynamics between teachers and students influence what teachers disclose or hide about loss experiences when they talk, read, or write with students, and how these power dynamics are further influenced by identity positions such as race, class, and gender.  Her article Teaching Literature Following Loss: Teachers’ Adherence to Emotional Rules, published in English Teaching: Practice and Critique in August 2021, won the 2022 Literati Outstanding Paper award from Emerald Publishing. 

To cite this episode: Persohn, L. (Host). (2022, Nov. 22). A conversation with Mandie Dunn. (Season 3, No. 12) [Audio podcast episode]. In Classroom Caffeine Podcast series. https://www.classroomcaffeine.com/guests. DOI: 10.5240/A984-8A74-8A84-715E-DAE8-A

Connect with Classroom Caffeine at www.classroomcaffeine.com or on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

Transcript

Lindsay Persohn: 0:10

Education research has a problem. The work of brilliant education researchers often doesn't reach the practice of brilliant teachers. Classroom caffeine is here to help. In each episode I talk with a top education researcher or an expert educator about what they have learned from years of research and experiences. In this episode, Dr. Mandie Dunn talks to us about grief, loss, and the emotional fabric of the classroom. Mandie is known for her work in the area of teacher wellness. In particular, she studies how teachers who were grieving a death manage their emotions in the context of teaching in English language arts classrooms. Her article teaching literature following loss teachers adherence to emotional rules published in English teaching practice and critique, In August 2021, won the 2022 literati outstanding paper award from Emerald publishing. For more information about our guest, stay tuned to the end of this episode. So pour a cup of your favorite drink. And join me your host, Lindsay Persohn. For classroom caffeine research to energize your teaching practice. Mandie, thank you for joining me, welcome to the show.

Mandie Dunn: 1:30

Thank you for having me.

Lindsay Persohn: 1:32

So from your own experiences and education, will you share with us one or two moments that inform your thinking now?

Mandie Dunn: 1:39

Sure. So I think a moment that really set me on the path that I'm on now in terms of my research was actually while I was in graduate school at Michigan State, and also teaching pre service teachers as part of that work, my spouse was in a life threatening car accident. You know, it was a really difficult experience. For me as someone who had not had a lot of traumatic experiences in my life previously, and this one was quite traumatic, I had a police officer come to my door, there was a lot of uncertainty and unknowns related to a medical situation for someone that, you know, was a loved one. And it was a challenging time for me personally. And what I also noticed was that it became a challenging time for me professionally, especially in the context of working with my students in my class. And I really began to wonder, you know, how much do I share with my students about what I have going on outside of class, because it wasn't just a one day event. For me, this was a many, many months long situation that I was in. And I felt a lot of tension around how to talk to my students about what was going on in my personal life. And I also felt a lot of guilt and judgment of myself because as a teacher, during a time when I was trying to care for a loved one, I was less patient with my students, I felt like I didn't have as much time to listen to them. I felt more harried because I was juggling a lot more outside of the classroom. And I was very lucky that at that time, I was working with some wonderful students who were very understanding of the situation that I was in. But it didn't make it easy for me to navigate that particular space. And so that experience happened in my personal life. And, you know, sometimes people ask, you know, how's your spouse now, and he's okay. But it was a really difficult experience that I went through. And during that time, I was, as I mentioned, working with some pre service teachers, and one of my students, who I had worked with for a couple of years, lost her mother in a similar timeframe. And then a teacher out in the community, whom I've been working with, on some research, lost a student who died by suicide. And because these two losses happened in close timing to a trial in my own life, I think I was paying extra attention to how difficult it was for them in their classrooms. And I felt, you know, maybe ill prepared as an educator to support them as they were working to be teachers in the classroom. And yet, I also deeply understood some of the conflict and challenges that they were experiencing. And that really has informed how I've undertaken work on teachers lives because I realized that these are really formative experiences that shaped teaching and I wanted to shed more light on those experiences. The event that happened in those two teachers lives also made me think back to my own teaching in the K 12 classroom. I taught ninth and 10th Grade English and, you know, my lived experience and in the pre service teachers experiences reminded me of some similar tensions I had when I was working with ninth graders. I remember, you know, a moment where a class I was teaching kind of pushed me to tears. And I immediately left the room. And I've, you know, now that I've had these new experiences, I kind of reflect back on that moment and think to myself, well, why did I leave the room? Why was that my impulse to hide that emotion from my students. And what was happening in that moment was actually that I had had a family member pass away, but I hadn't told my students about that. And so you know, they were really concerned about a quiz that they were going to be taking, and I was trying to support them in that. But I felt, as I mentioned before, impatient in that moment, and like, it wasn't the biggest issue that I was tackling. And so I think when, you know, that pushed me to the point of tears, I just wanted to hide that tension that I was experiencing, rather than share it with my students. So you know, those later experiences while I was in graduate school, were not all that different from what I experienced as a K 12 Teacher, however, I had kind of a new perspective, in terms of the intensity of the experience.

Lindsay Persohn: 6:17

Well, I really appreciate you sharing that with us, Mandie, and I feel like this is a topic that is not often talked about in schools in teacher preparation programs, or, as you mentioned, in the K 12. Setting. But I also think these are, unfortunately, really common experiences. I mean, as you were describing this, I actually thought of my own experience related to this, when I was also a grad student, teaching pre service teachers, my dad got sick, and unfortunately passed away. And of course, the day he passed away, I was scheduled to teach, you know, he died early in the morning, and the only thing I knew to do was to keep going. So I went to class that day. And coincidentally, the read aloud I was doing with my pre service teachers. At that point in the story, someone died. Yeah. And I knew that was coming, I wasn't really sure how to prepare for that other than to say to my class, guys, my dad died this morning. So you may have to help me through this part. And of course, immediately, they said, What are you doing here, and I just don't know what else to do. There's nothing I can do for him at this point. And I wasn't going to, you know, like, like you were talking about, there's a quiz to be done. And like all of these things that have a sense of urgency within the classroom, like, I thought, well, I don't want to have to reschedule and regroup to try to crunch today's class into the next one. So I just kept moving. And I think for me, that was probably the best thing to do. But I can envision that that's not the best thing for everyone to do. So I'm hoping that in response to this next question, you'll help us to kind of navigate what we do with those sorts of moments when we come to them in our teaching career. So what do you want listeners to know about your work?

Mandie Dunn: 8:07

I think what I'd like for people to know is that I want my work to communicate that the work that teachers do to build relationships with students is part of their expertise. So sometimes in public discourse about teaching and teachers, there's a lot of focus on students, and we hear these kind of narratives that teachers are in it for the students, not the paycheck. And I do think that that's true, I do. However, I think that the narrative can also get warped a little bit into discourses that teachers should be martyrs, that teachers themselves don't get to matter as much that they have to, you know, put themselves aside for students. And I'm not suggesting that anyone be inconsiderate of students in any way. But what I want to suggest is that if building relationships with students is part of a teacher's expertise, meaning it's done in the professional context of teaching and learning, and you know, students and teachers are in a compulsory relationship, students are required to go to school teachers are required in their job to teach students. So if relationship building is part of expertise and teaching, then there are potentially times when that work is more challenging. And I think a period of bereavement is a time when it's more challenging. And I think like you suggested, it could go a couple different ways. It might be more challenging, because, you know, a teacher is dealing with something in their personal life, like what you shared, and they kind of feel this need to to keep going. And there's kind of this moment where students are like, What are you doing here? And so you're navigating a little bit of tension about your decisions. For other teachers. It may be that I'm feeling drained, I'm feeling so overcome with grief that it's hard for me to get out of bed and get to school. And then I have to be on. And I have to build these positive relationships with sometimes hundreds of students. And it's not always easy to do that when you're drained in your personal life because it takes energy to build relationships. So I want teachers who have maybe felt that to know that you're not alone, like, it's not something that necessarily comes naturally to us, because it's happening in a professional context. So I just, you know, I hope that my work communicates that building relationships is part of the skill of teaching, and that my work can highlight how complex that can sometimes be, and how amazing teachers are for navigating and balancing a lot of those tensions on a daily basis, but especially during a period of grief.

Lindsay Persohn: 10:46

So in your own words, I'm hoping that if there is anyone out there listening, who is experiencing these extended periods of of grief or bereavement, what have you learned from your work that might support their thinking, or even to help them know that they're not alone in these kinds of situations?

Mandie Dunn: 11:05

Well, one of the things that I've learned because I've worked extensively with English teachers in particular is that we can't really separate curriculum from from our identities or from our relationships. So as you shared, when we read texts, or poems, or we write together, these experiences with death and loss are going to come up whether or not we explicitly disclose them or not, those experiences are part of the emotional fabric of the classroom. So what I want teachers to know is that one, it's okay to have emotions. And it's okay to decide not to share something with students, if that's not something that you are comfortable doing. And so what I sometimes say to teachers is, you know, if you're going through a period of grief, maybe spend some time being gentle with yourself and really reflecting on where you're at personally, you know, some questions you might ask yourself, could be something like, Am I ready to share this with my students? How do I want to share it with my students? What is my motivation for sharing it with my students? And there are no right or wrong answers to these questions. But I think just checking in with yourself around where you're at, and what you need can be helpful when we step into the classroom. Because, you know, classrooms are vibrant places full of human life, we don't know what's going to happen when we step in there. So having this, this chance to check in with ourselves can be really helpful, because you're going to be responding to comments, or texts, or students in unpredictable ways. So kind of knowing where you're at is a good first step. I think another thing to think about is teaching following a death is going to be a time that requires kind of more relational work, or at least more attention to your emotions while you're in those relationships with students. And it's okay, if you're tired or feeling drained, and thinking about, you know, what are some ways that I can make space for myself? How do I need to support myself now, some teachers, they may do kind of what you did in the story you shared, like, let their students know that they might not be able to get through a particular text, or they might need some help. For other teachers that might be modifying, you know, some activities that are routines to make things easier for that teacher. So some teachers have shared, you know, I had students do more group work so that I wasn't up in front of the class so much, and that I could kind of visit with them in smaller groups. So you know, just thinking of ways to be gentle with yourself, I think is the most important thing.

Lindsay Persohn: 13:56

Thank you for that kind of considerations for how we might modify the day in order. They're really coping strategies, right? Whenever we think about, you know, maybe giving more group work, or potentially even asking a student who is, you know, kind of ahead of the class to lead a particular part of it. You know, I think that all of those things can be really helpful tools, particularly if we are just trying to get through the day, get through the week. So I really appreciate that. So Mandie, given the challenges of today's educational climate, what message do you want teachers to hear?

Mandie Dunn: 14:31

I think the message that I most want teachers to hear is that I see you, I mean, I know it sounds maybe sentimental to say, but over the course of working with so many teachers in my work, what I can say is that it has been an enormous learning experience for me, and I'm moved by the number of teachers that I've been able to talk with about their lives and their loved ones. And what I always just want teachers to know is that I see all of this amazing work that you are doing in your classrooms, and you're doing it while you're managing these complex relationships that become more complex, when we have personal loss that we are processing. And I know too, that in the past two and a half years during the pandemic, loss has been even more at the forefront of our lives. And I know that that has resulted in many teachers feeling even more drained than normal because Leigh Patel has this article in the truth, where she says that from the perspective of racial capitalism, in which there can never be too big of a profit, grieving is simply time not working. And that really stuck out to me because I do feel like sometimes teachers feel that very viscerally in their bodies when they're at work, what they feel is that I am here, as a professional, and my grieving is getting in the way of a job that I'm supposed to be doing. And I know that that has been magnified during the pandemic, because there's been more losses. And there's also crisis management that teachers are undertaking as they try to, you know, reconfigure their classes and take care of students and, you know, do do all of this safely and with health in mind. And I feel like what has happened is a lot of grief has just been skipped over, as we've tried to return to normal, whatever that means. And I think that has happened for students, but I think maybe even more so for teachers, who are tasked with being responsible for students to the point where their losses have just been ignored. And so what I want teachers to know is, I have seen you all, you know, going through this, and it breaks my heart and also in inspires me in the sense that teachers are amazing people in my mind, and they are doing work that is so heavily reliant on being with other human beings. And I'm always just so moved, by the way that teachers take care of their students. And what I would hope is that we can start taking care of our teachers a little bit better, too.

Lindsay Persohn: 17:20

Yeah, thank you so much for that message, because it is so important. And as you're talking about that, as you're describing that, it does feel as though we've been encouraged to just sort of fast forward through the chaos and the grief that comes along with COVID. Right? We were supposed to just keep on keepin on, press on do the best we can, without acknowledging how much life has changed in so many ways for for really all of us, no matter how COVID has touched your life, I think. And I think also particularly in in the area where we live with deadly hurricanes that have come through recently. It's a whole new layer of grief and chaos, and kind of regrouping to see how we move forward. And you're right. Teachers have done that in some really beautiful ways that I don't think we are always acknowledging, so I really appreciate that message. So Mandie, I thank you for your time today and I thank you for your contributions to the world of education.

Mandie Dunn: 18:19

Thank you.

Lindsay Persohn: 18:20

Dr. Mandie Bevels Dunn is known for her work in the area of teacher wellness. In particular, she studies how teachers who are grieving a death manage their emotions in the context of teaching in English language arts classrooms. In studying teachers grief related emotions, she focuses on how power dynamics between teachers and students influence what teachers disclose or hide about loss experiences when they talk, read or write with students, and how these power dynamics are further influenced by identity positions such as race, class and gender. Her research has been published in Reading Research Quarterly, English Teaching: Practice and Critique and Written Communication among other scholarly outlets and her research has been funded by Research Initiative Grant from English language arts teacher educators. Her article teaching literature following loss teachers adherence to emotional rules published in English Teaching Practice and Critique. In August 2021 won the 2022 literati outstanding paper award from Emerald publishing. From 2020 to 2022. She chaired the early career cohort of the National Council of Teachers of English assembly for research and organization she proposed, found it and secured funding for that now supports early career literacy scholars nationwide, including many who have been continuously disadvantaged without institutional structures. She earned her bachelor's degree and master's degree in English and English education from the University of Georgia and a PhD in curriculum instruction and teacher education from Michigan State University. Dr. Dunn is an assistant professor of English Education at the University of South Florida in Tampa. For the good of all students classroom caffeine aims to energize education research and practice. If this show provides you with things to think about, don't keep it a secret. Subscribe, like and review this podcast through your preferred podcast provider. I also invite you to connect with the show through our website at WWW dot classroom caffeine.com where you can learn more about each guest. Find transcripts for many episodes, explore episode topics using our tagging feature, support podcast, research through our survey, request an episode topic or a potential guest or share your own questions that we might respond to through the show. You could also leave us a voice message or a text message at 1-941-212-0949. We would love to hear from you. As always, I raised my mug to you teachers. Thanks for joining me