Tracey Carpenter Transcript

8/9/2019 Tracey Carpenter Transcript

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Tracey Carpenter Transcript

[CHRIS FINLAY]: That’s exciting. So, part of what you see, it soundslike you’re setting what you see is a different expectation, even

coming into the program from what you feel like there’s normally set?

[TRACEY CARPENTER: Because the expectation that high schoolstudents will move to a higher intellectual level, more critical thinking,more analytical skills that they’ll develop those as part of the collegeprogram. And so, you know, usually those expectations are set up in acollege orientation process, right? Through various entities becausewe’re such a small entity and because they already have an affiliationwith a big picture which are over arching corporations that’s managingtheir high school as well as this college program. It’s really importantfor me as, you know, the one academic person -- well, not the one

academic person but you know, the lead faculty to set that tone forthem. So, I have been really emphasizing that with them.

[TRACEY CARPENTER: It’s helping them understand that college isabout exploration and taking risk and having fun, but it’s also aboutintellectualism, right? Developing into an analytical person, right? It’sa little arts education is designed to do.

[CHRIS FINLAY]: So, how do you see that being different orapproached at the college unbound?

[TRACEY CARPENTER: Well, it’s different in several respects likefirst, there are no grades, right? We do know that the reports for thestudents and it’s funny because my advisor, my PhD advisor went to aschool that had no grades too, similar kind of setup, right? Except thatit was totally academic, it didn’t have the internship component andyou know, she talked to me about how she was able to take risk andhow her learning was deeper and more real for her because it wasn’tconnected to the grades, right? Because she didn’t have to worryabout grades as the final outcome, but instead she was able to grabonto learning as a final outcome. And so, I think that grades that this,you know, this approach to learning as a process, right? And learningas an outcome itself is different. Also different is the connection to thereal world, you know, when I would teach at Ohio State, I would startoff by saying my job is to prepare you for -- to become a worker, right? You know, I’m going to give you these assignments, you ‘re going to dothe assignments, I’m going to give you an evaluation on the end andyou have to figure out what I want, you know, just like you have tofigure out what your boss wants, right? And in college unbound, I’m

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teaching them how to be thinkers, right, instead of workers. And Ithink that by introducing them to situations, to places, to people thatthey would normally not come in contact with and as well as bringingthem into an environment where risk taking is rewarded that they’re

going to become amazing, amazing people, you know, like movers andshakers in the world. Another difference is, you know, the connectionsthat they have outside of the classroom, right, community basedlearning, live learning as a model and so they can learn that they’re --they will know that their learning has some relevance, right, to theirfuture instead of saying well, how is that, you know, A² + B² = C²relevant to my life, right, instead of having that argument and metrying to explain it to them they’ll see it. They will be doing it and theywill be practicing the relevance in their lives and I think that’s going tobe a huge difference for them also, as well as them being prepared forentering the workforce and knowing what they want to do, right,

instead of coming to college with these degrees, they don’t know whatthey’re going to do with.

[CHRIS FINLAY]: It sounds like you’re trying to create doers that alsocan think?

[TRACEY CARPENTER: Right, right.

[TRACEY CARPENTER: Right, yeah. I found that in a lot of professions people aren’t rewarded for thinking right like you havesome professions where people are rewarded and then you have

others where and vocational positions are often that way, right, wherepeople are rewarded for doing, they come there, they will have a job todo and they expected to do the job and think creatively right aboutways to approach the job different or things that you try differently. Iwas actually -- I was writing my dissertation, I was working -- I was in amedical volunteer for emergency services in Delaware and so, I’mworking for like the fire chief on one end and I’m working forEmergency Services Management office on the other end. And youknow, it’s just really interesting to see, you know, that creativethinking was not even a concern, right? And me being a creativethinker, right, I’m coming in and you’re not having experience of --

having the experience of running my own class and managing and thatkind of thing and coming in as you know, the bottom of the wrong,right? And then having this expectation that I’m going to treat themlike you know, superiors and they have this protocol and you know,titles, lieutenant, you know, chief and where you are in the rankdetermines how you interact with other people and so, you know, itwas funny because I would go into the chief’s office and just tell him




how it is and people look at me like, you just talk to the chief like that.But they, you know, there wasn’t a question, they had to do what theywere told to do and it’s understandable, it’s totally understandablebecause when you’re in a fire or an emergency, no, you need to have

one boss and that’s it. But you know, I was able to see like really how Iwas being brought in as this creative thinker, right, who wasn’t a partof the system and how the system was and even to accommodate me,right? So, it was so rigid that I was kind of cut off and the chief, the firechief happen to be really open-minded, right? But the emergencyservices management was not at all.

[CHRIS FINLAY]: So, that’s a good question. That brings up a goodquestion of should everybody have this kind of creative education orthis thinking education, like, everyone should have it?

[TRACEY CARPENTER: No, I don’t know. That is a good question. Ithink the people, there are certain people who really need that kind of structure and rigidity, right, and respond to that. People who, youknow, go in that direction and love it and thrive in that direction and Ithink there are other people who just yearning for something else andneed like this kind of connection to a reality but also this ability tothink through, you know, all the possibilities and in the case of firstyear college students, I think this is a especially relevant, right,because they haven’t been exposed to you know, things that youknow, second generation, third generation, people of generations andgenerations of thinkers in their families, right? They haven’t been

exposed to that, right, the possibilities, right, and where life and whereeducation can lead them.

[CHRIS FINLAY]: So, you just sort of touched on the culture of students coming in and not necessarily having the generational historyor knowledge of what school really is, what thinking is all about, thosesort of thing.

[CHRIS FINLAY]: How else are you supporting that cultural shift forsome of the students who may not have that family history of education?

[TRACEY CARPENTER: Well, the program is incorporating a numberof components, right, to accommodate that. First, they live together ina learning environment and they have sort of were in the housetogether, they have meals, share meals together, they have a facultyin residents who’s working with them and he’s actually a phenomenalintellectual, he is amazing, he’s like he comes from HisCon, HistoricalConsciousness at Santa Cruz. And so, they’re just this deep thinker.




His -- one of his community members is Angelo Davis, right. So, he is just a phenomenal guy who will actually create this learningenvironment as well as a first year -- first generation college graduate,right? The first generation, not just undergrads with BA bachelor’s

degree graduate, but the first generation PhD, right, who or has raisedchildren to be college students, right? So, who was able to breach thatfor them? They also have you know, the internships, right, wherethey’re going into work environment. So, people who are educated,they have thought partners in the community that they’re in contactwith who are also, you know, college educated, right, and who will passon information to them. They -- we’re going to have our seminarsaround the community, in the community and I’m going to focus a loton you know, taking advantage of the college environments andprovidence, it’s amazing all these colleges that are here, theopportunities, right, the intellectual and social opportunities that are

available, so. Part of what I’m doing is taking advantage of that andexposing then to the services that are available but the collegeenvironment, right? One place I want to have seminar is, you know,it’s just unbelievable, it’s so beautiful and you know, to walk in thereand see that there are college students living here, you know, in thisdorm and you know, the signs that are around the conversationspeople have and the resources that are available at the libraries. Andso, we’ll move around to different locations at different universitiesaround providence as well as Roger Williams University. They’re goingto take summer abroad or summer study trips. We’re trying toworkout study abroad trips for them, each summer. Well, it take two

weeks school, study abroad and get involved on service project of some kind and that will also expose them to different things that theywouldn’t be exposed to different ways of learning. They’ve takenacross country tour that they started last week Friday and they’regoing from LA to Rhode Island, stopping along the way at variouslocations, you know, some of them universities and participating inintellectual conversations, scholarly conversations, reading andmeeting authors of some of the things that they’re reading, doing toursof their cities and making those tours academic tours. So, I think thosetypes of experience will bring them in contact with expanding their --the base of connection in a way that they otherwise wouldn’t

experienced.

[CHRIS FINLAY]: That’s cool. Maybe you could just tell me what youexpect a day in life of a student at college inbound to look like?

[TRACEY CARPENTER: Well, each day is going to be different, threedays of the week they’re going to internships and basically there aredays like do intern, you know, they wake up in the morning, I think




they’re going to have breakfast together. They’re going to, you know,go to the internships, have dinner together and do some kind of activity in the house in the evening. I don’t know how much they’regoing to do on those evenings but they’ll be studying also. I have

them on Mondays and Fridays for seminar. So, we’ll meet at someplace one day a week, I think Fridays we’re going to have seminar atsome community location, they’ll meet with a representative from thelocation, he’ll give us a short tour and explain the history of the placethat we’re going to meet at. We’ll sit down and have seminar andthey’ll all sit around the table and engage in discussion about whateverour topic is, we’ll start out with some grammar and you know, basicwriting, time management type things in the beginning. Buteventually we’ll be talking about the projects and we’ll be engagingwith each other about their projects and after seminar in the morningand the afternoons, I’ll meet with them one on one and talk about

where they are and their internships on their individualize learningplans and how their work is progressing and their projects and so forth.Have dinner at 6:00, once a week I think or maybe twice a month. They have a scholar who comes in, who will have dinner with them. They’re going to have dinner guests at least once a week. So, they willbe having dinner conversations with people. Sometimes they’re goingto have movie nights, watch a movie and have a discussion about themovie, some nights they’re going to take trips. They’ll have chefs whocome in who teach them how to cook certain meals, guest chefs,they’ll -- some evenings they’re going to do shopping together as agroup and plan, you know, their shopping trips, plan what they’re

going to purchase and their meals together. They will have housemeetings where they will discuss how they’re not -- they are notgetting along. Problems at the house. So, everyday is going to bedifferent you know, it’s not like, you know, Monday wasn’t Friday. Ihave met from 11:00, you know, 11:00 and 12:30. It’s going to be adifferent day for them.

[CHRIS FINLAY]: Sounds great. So, if this is a wild success andhopefully it will be.

[CHRIS FINLAY]: Certainly this group will have a great experience,

what do you think about scaling then? Sounds like a lot of richengagement that really takes a lot of -- really time, money and energy.

[TRACEY CARPENTER: It does.

[CHRIS FINLAY]: Do you think this is scalable or do you feel like thisis a testing a bunch of different types of inputs and then see what




really works and then moving forward?

[TRACEY CARPENTER: Well, what I’m hoping to do is, you know,when I told people that I was going out to this job and talk to him about

-- everyone talked about in the 70’s how they had these, you know,alternative learning communities, right, and they had these colleges,great list colleges, individualized learning, you know, models thatpeople were instituted to and how the organizational systems andwithin the colleges created their demise, right, in Ohio -- what’s thename of that school that just folded? It was one of the last of those,right, of those schools, those great list, you know, free learning typesof environment that and part of what they said, the issue was, was notbeing able to make a decision, right, having committees aftercommittees after committees that have just became caught up in andnot being able to interpret the grading or the system for outside

entities, not being able to correlate. And so what I’m hoping is thatafter we complete this model that we can avoid some of thosemistakes, right, to create a model that’s more sustainable and they’rehoping to spread it to all the universities, I know that New Hampshire islooking at it. And so, they’re in conversation with different universitiesor interested in incorporating the model. But how will it happen? Is itmanageable? I think it is manageable because you don’t have toaccommodate students in the same way as you would in a traditionallearning environment, right? You don’t need the time that it takes,right, to sit in a classroom. They’re able to come out of the school,well prepared and you have so many people who are involved and

connected to them that they have unbelievable support systems inplace. And so, I think as time goes on, once they learn how toincorporate or to internalize the approach, like, once they learn how tocreate a learning plan, right, themselves and don’t need as muchattention that it -- they will learn -- they will kind of depend on all of thepeople that they have to support them and that it won’t be as intenseas demanding, time demanding as possible. I don’t think that it costmore money necessarily. It doesn’t -- it doesn’t appear to be. And Idon’t think that it takes more time, I think that eventually you know,because they’re responsible for their own learning that my work is somuch easier, right, because I don’t have to convinced them, right, to

be interested in something that I’m interested in or convinced themthat this is relevant to what they’re doing, you know, they have theexperience and the drive and some internalized approaches, right, thatwill give them that, and makes things so much easier for me, youknow, I will have to prove certain things where they understand it.

[CHRIS FINLAY]: So, maybe you could tell me a little bit more abouthow this learning plan works in place of traditional classes and how




that is going to bring all of the knowledge they need together.

[TRACEY CARPENTER: Well, they create a learning -- what we’regoing to do is, first, we’re going to start out with some entrance

exams, some assessments of where they are academically, what theirreading and writing math skills and interest any remediation thatmeans to work hard. And so, once we are able to identify remediationhas to occur that will be the starting point for the learning plan to youknow, to address those issues if there are any. If not, to address, youknow, basic freshman, you know, English types of issues, you know,learning how to write an essay, learn how to do research papers,learning the different genres of writing and reading and to do somematerials that will help them learn that, right? And the materialswould be driven by their personal interest. So, in the case of Alicia,right, interested in marine biology and cosmetology, right. So, I, you

know, I believe her learning plan will have a lot to do with hair and fish,right? So, she’ll, you know, build and what I’m trying to get Alicia to dois she has this interest and this interest, right, that are really justconnected from each other. So, bringing her in and connecting thoseinterests in some way, trying to think creatively outside the box abouthow she can bring those together with her. She’s really uncertainabout her writing skills. So, helping her build some esteem, you know,build confidence in her writing and in her math that will help prepareher to move forward in what she’s doing. So, that’s the first part. Thesecond part is driven by the internship. And so what we’ll do is meetwith the mentors and the students and come up with a learning project

that they’re going to do at the end of each semester. And so, theirlearning plans would be driven by what that project is as well as whatthe field is that they’re working within. So, in Alicia’s case since shewas working here a bit, she’ll be focusing on qualitative researchmethods, right? Reading about democratic research, social servicesand whatever it is that you think is important for her to know, right,about the field that she’s working within.

[CHRIS FINLAY]: Okay cool. So just a couple, we’ll ask questions. SoI guess one of the things that I am not entirely clear on, I understandthe learning plan and how it brings together disparate, sort of, fields of

study --

[CHRIS FINLAY]: But at the same time what really is replacing that --that classroom structure that ensures that, you know, the English ischecking the English paper, the math teacher checking the math and --




[CHRIS FINLAY]: -- what -- how are those things taken care of?

[TRACEY CARPENTER]: They have partners in the community, rightso I am kind of more of a facilitator of learning than the teacher, right,

so in fact like a self-contained classroom. Even though, you know, Ihave nightmares sometimes, it’s going to be that. So I think that --that wasn’t good but in the community there are professors, there areprofessionals, there are intellectuals who have agreed to work with ourstudents. And so, say, for example, we have a student who isinterested in engineering so he’s going to be working with anarchitecture -- no, a landscape architect but he may also need to buildthe foundation in engineering. So what he will do is an independentstudy with an engineering professor, probably from Roger Williams orBrown or --

[CHRIS FINLAY]: Yeah.

[TRACEY CARPENTER]: -- RISD engineering or Rhode Island or, oneof those universities, and you know, we’ll incorporate what theyplanned for their independent study into the learning plan. My job is tocheck to ensure that the student has done what he’s supposed to do,what she’s supposed to do. At the end when she does herpresentation or he does his presentation, that partner will be at thepresentation, kind of, checking to see how he or she presented herinformation. But they will also be working along the way together, thestudent submitting work, the professor checking the work to ensure

that’s correct, checking that the student has done what he or she issupposed to do. Meanwhile, I will be reinforcing that and hopefully ourlandscape architect will be reinforcing that for that particular student.

[TRACEY CARPENTER]: Uh-hmm, yeah. We’re encouraging them.One of the things I want them to do is to join clubs and, you know, getinvolved like they have a leadership program there that I think theyreally would benefit from being a part of, and they have to bag clubs orthey call it something else like a soccer teams, club or something, thatwe’re going to encourage them to be a part of, and you know, they’vetaken. So we’re hoping -- trying to incorporate as much of that as

possible as well as, you know, expanding that, right and allowing themto have at least access to, like, the college community at EastProvidence. And so that’s going to be another challenge because of where the house is located, that we’re going to have to work extrahard to ensure that they have that contact with other students and,you know, have that intellectual exchange that only 18-year-olds have,right, like you know they were -- we were ---




[TRACEY CARPENTER]: -- they were talking about men versuswomen, right and generalizing about guys, right, and it would seemthat it’s such an important conversation and 18-year-olds needs to

have, right. And they were having that conversation with each otherand I think they need to be with other 18 or 22-year-olds, right. Havingthose conversations together and -- and having their thinking processis challenged by their peers. You know, that’s invaluable and that’s animportant component of what they need to do and I think they aregetting part of that from living in the house but they also need to beencouraged to expand it, and the wonderful thing about the model thatindividualized learning plan is that we can incorporate that. They cangain credit for participating in clubs and in activities, right. They cangain credit for doing community service, you know, we can incorporatethese various ways that they are going to learn and interact with

people into the learning plans and encourage them to do it that way.


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Tracey Carpenter Transcript