50. Mentorship Over Status: Credentials Aren’t the Prize— Uplifting Others Is (with special guest Rebekah Mui)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
This is Rebecca and this is Naomi.
We're 40-something moms andfirst cousins who know what it's
like to veer off the pathassigned to us.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
We've juggled motherhood, marriage, college
and career, as we questioned ourfaith traditions while
exploring new identities andways of seeing the world.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Without any maps for either of us to follow.
We've had to figure things outas we go and appreciate that
detours and dead ends areessential to the path Along the
way, we've uncovered a fewinsights we want to share with
fellow travelers.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
We want to talk about the questions we didn't know
who to ask and the options wedidn't know we had.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
So, whether you're feeling stuck or already shaking
things up, we are here to cheeryou on and assure you that the
best is yet to come.
Welcome to Uncovered LifeBeyond.
Hello everyone, welcome back toUncovered Life Beyond.

(01:08):
This is Naomi and this isRebecca.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Well, at least one, Rebecca.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
This is a very, very special episode for us because
this is the first time that wehave a guest on our podcast.
That's true, Right, Usually,and this is actually.
This has been in the works fora long time.
It's enough of anaccomplishment for us for the
two of us to get on the mic atthe same time.
Adding in a third person hasbeen a well, I guess we're

(01:39):
leveling up.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
And we take every opportunity to celebrate.
So you know we're going tocelebrate this.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
And we take every opportunity to celebrate.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
So you know we're going to celebrate this,
absolutely, absolutely.
So, all that to say, we haveRebecca II here, rebecca Mui, my
incredible friend.
I was trying to remember how wemet and it was online, but how
did we connect?

Speaker 3 (02:01):
I know the first time I met you, I had only been in
the States for a week, so I cameover in August 2022.
And very quickly, one of ourfriends was like well, we're
going up to Anabaptist OrchestraCamp, and so then another
friend of ours decided to host aparty and I stayed with her.
You're in.

(02:21):
Holmes County yeah, one weekafter arriving.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
I did not know that.
I mean, I remember the event,but I didn't realize you were
here, just.

Speaker 3 (02:31):
Well, roughly, I mean , I was in Harrisonburg for a
while, so like literally myfirst introduction to the East
Coast, because we had traveledto the West Coast.
My uncle lived there a coupleof years, many times, but my
first introduction to the EastCoast was Harrisonburg,
shenandoah and then HolmesCounty, jumping in the deep end.

(02:53):
Yeah, yeah, I have to say I'vesince spent a lot more time in
Holmes County than I have inShenandoah.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
So what were your impressions at that first event?
Because there was a lot ofpeople there.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
Yeah, you were there.
You know, the funny thing islike we're all part of the same
Facebook group.
That's where Mrs Hostadlerinvited everybody and it's funny
how, like, what a lovely bigrange of people there were from
all over the spectrum.
I think you were the mostex-Mennonite of everyone there.

(03:30):
That's probably fair, actually,though you guys should have
Patricia on at some point.
She would be a great person totalk to, she would, oh that's
right, they were there, and Judywas there too, yeah.
Right, yep, so that's where werethere, and judy was there too.
Yeah, right, yep, so that'swhere trisha yes lewis lewis.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh awesome, yeah, I know her.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
Yeah, interesting, I did not like I did not realize
you had been here only a week atthat point.
That is so fascinating.
So what?
What were your impressions?

Speaker 3 (04:03):
besides, for me, being the most ex-Mennonite, um,
I didn't get to see much ofanything at all in Berlin.
I got to like we drove by andmy first impression was I had
read before somewhere that itwas very touristy, like the
first thing that hits you whenyou get to the area.
First of all, it was very graycompared to Virginia, which I've

(04:27):
learned is typical.
But the second thing is just inyour face.
There was huge billboards forthese weird plays that they have
at the.
You know that place down inthe- the Curl Isle yeah the
hollow thing.
So the surface part of HolmesCounty is the first thing.
Um, so you like, the surfacepart of holmes county is the
first thing you see.

(04:48):
And then when you spend moretime and you actually get to
know people, that's when you seea little bit more of actual
like normal life.
That's not on show for thetourists in a weird kitschy way,
not even kitschy in a good way,it's just cringe.
Cringe is the word.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
I love hearing your observations about Holmes County
and I think it's fascinating.
Well, first of all, because youmostly agree with me, which you
know, but it's just, it'sinteresting hearing an
outsider's take on it, I guess.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
I first met you last summer, so that would have been
two years.
You had been here two years bythen, and I think one of the
reasons why it's so interestingto hear your perspective on
things is that I was blown awaywhen I realized how relatively
new your exposure was to allthese.
I was like, whoa, how did?

(05:49):
Like you were picking up onnuances that people who have
lived in it their whole livesdon't recognize, or people who
have studied it for a long time,the culture for a long time,
don't recognize.
And so, yeah, you're very, veryinsightful.
Well, and the other thing I wasgoing to say when, um Rebecca
would talk about, uh, my friendRebecca Mui, and I saw you

(06:09):
online.
I somehow got an impression ofyou and then, when I, when I met
you in person, the, thatimpression was very different
and and and this is good, thisis a good thing but, like, my
impression of you when I waslike reading your things online
was that you are, I don't know,maybe 30, something Like I mean
like very mature, so mature.

(06:30):
And then I met you and you'relike so fun and such a sense of
humor and such.
You know, yeah, it was just avery different, it was just a
very different persona than Iwas imagining when I'm with
Rebecca, I think we haveprobably like a very similar

(06:51):
vibe, like we are on a similarwavelength.

Speaker 3 (06:54):
So I'm constantly teasing her about being like
this perfect beachy mom, likethat is like I mean, we went
down to that Amish what do youcall it?
Amish Collars Sy.
You call Amish scholarssymposium, which I don't know
why.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
I was there Just to have a weekend with you know
important people.
That's a good enough reason,right?

Speaker 3 (07:14):
But I was so amused because Rebecca brought like a
whole ice box full of food forthe weekend and we went to
Costco and it's just like I havea friend whose mom, mrs lab,
did the exact same thing when wewent to an airbnb for the
weekend and I'm like it.
Yeah, you, you're, you're verymuch who you are.

(07:36):
You don't have to like put on,you know that you're not from a
beachy background, you don'thave to pretend to be something
else, but you're also just kindof like living the fun, radical
life too.

Speaker 2 (07:50):
Well, shall I tell you the truth, I think at some
point you get too old, too tired, too lazy, too out of fucks to
give and you just start beingwho you are.
It's just easier, and youreally pick up cool friends
along the way.

Speaker 3 (08:10):
So thank you, giant roaster full of cheesy potatoes
okay, okay.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
So in that moment I really did kind of feel like
like who am I?
Even?
Yeah, I've become the personthat makes the roaster full of
potatoes.

Speaker 3 (08:26):
Yeah, but there's nothing wrong with that.

Speaker 1 (08:28):
Like it's a good thing it's a good thing,
absolutely right, right, rightbut that was always someone else
, oh, someone much more maturesomeone much.
I was one of the grownups, yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
Yeah, but yeah, how, how, how things change.
So, yeah, how are we going todecide who is who?
Or does it matter?
Should we say movie?
Yeah, I certainly am not, mrsKoblentz, you need to stop that.

Speaker 3 (09:02):
Okay, For now Just just for the next.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
If, if in your world you know Rebecca Mooey and she
is referred to a Mrs Koblenz, itis not me.
I am that, that's not me.

Speaker 1 (09:15):
It's your mother-in-law right.

Speaker 2 (09:16):
Yes, exactly, exactly , and she could make a roast or
potatoes, that's fine, and shecould make a roast her potatoes.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
That's fine.
So now that we've got thatimportant point squared away, we
should talk about why RebeccaMui is on the podcast today, and
I just want to say first of all, it kind of in this most recent
attempt to get you on thepodcast came about because of

(09:45):
something you posted on Facebookthat caught my attention and I
was like, oh, we've got to talkabout this.
But before we get there, canyou give us like the five minute
version of how you, a youngwoman from Malaysia, came to be
connected to these Anabaptistcommunities, these conservative
Mennonite, these Anabaptistcommunities, these conservative
Mennonite, formerly Amish kindof communities, and also

(10:08):
academia, because you're also aPhD student here in the US.

Speaker 2 (10:11):
So, like what, what an interesting mix.
And then you're hanging outwith weirdos like us.

Speaker 1 (10:22):
So with old people like us, apparently that too
right.
Yeah, yeah, how did this?

Speaker 3 (10:24):
happen, um.
So I kind of think it wouldhave.
Like I would have been aware ofanabaptist theology like long
ago, like maybe I was like 17 or18 18, and I kind of agreed
with but I didn't really thinkabout it.
And then after that point Ikind of like this was way before
deconstruction was a thing, butI kind of was like sick and

(10:46):
done with a lot of theChristianity that I have seen.
I tell people I'm from like alittle subculture of a church
that was heavily influenced bytwo different things.
One would be like the whatwould today be Christian
nationalist Pentecostals andcharismatics and on the other
hand, would also be Christiannationalist today Again, that

(11:07):
term didn't exist 15 years agobut like fundamentalist
independent Baptisthomeschooling niches, so like
ACE and IBLP specifically, werevery big in our country.
So our church was kind of likean intersection above of those
things.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
There was a lot of abuse surfacing during that time
you were talking about how yourbackground was this, this
intersection of IBLP andPentecostal, is it?

Speaker 1 (11:40):
the um.
Just you see my apostolicreformation.

Speaker 3 (11:43):
Yes, so there's a lot of influence from that in the
culture, in evangelicalchristianity, in asian, actually
around the world.
Like panic, like it's one ofthe biggest denominations, there
is a lot of toxic stuff, thereis a lot of abuse, a lot of
dominionism, like let's, youknow the the prayers are meant
to signal christian nationalism,like let's tear this down so

(12:05):
that we can take over it, likeeverything.
There are specific likemovements of that in my country
that were very cultish, like youknow, extreme healing, you know
anti-medicine, like all kindsof Wow, end times, end times was
a big one.
So-and-so, president is theAntichrist was a big one.
Um, so and so president is theantichrist was a big one.

(12:26):
Like it's funny, so that wasthe kind of, but anyway.
So I took a break from all thatfor like six, seven years and
then I was in ireland in 2016and so I think being there in
the environment with the kind oflike values that people have in
a very humble and in aChristian in a different way

(12:50):
kind of culture, like veryanti-imperial Christianity and
in Irish culture, made me moveaway or at least realize some of
the flaws in, in how christiansperceive like taking over the
government, you know, uh,patriarchy, that kind of thing,

(13:12):
um, and so by the time, like by2018 or so, I was finishing my
master's degree and looking todo my parents really wanted me
to keep on doing research, sinceI seem to be good at it, I
guess, and so I was like, hmm,maybe I could do theology,
political theology.
And then I started getting intorandom kingdom Christian, which

(13:35):
basically is like charityMennonite Facebook groups, out
of almost by curiosity, almostby accident, and that's when I
met people who are reallyadvocates against abuse and this
is something that was reallyinteresting to me because for
the most part, like the likeHomeschoolers, anonymous, those
kind of ex-fundamentalistmovements or websites and all

(13:59):
that we're very muchanti-religion, but here are and
I still find this reallyinteresting here are really
conservative people orconservative Christians who were
also actively about uncoveringsome of these abuses and these
questions about fundamentalism,and so I found that really

(14:19):
fascinating.
And then I guess I slowly gotsucked in in the sense of like,
um, they would be curious aboutsomeone from overseas and want
to interview me on the podcastand so forth, and then it kind
of like I was on severalanabaptist podcasts before
coming here.
Yeah, so that's how I got toknow a lot of people through all

(14:39):
the like advocacy stuff.
That's one subject like to me,the christian nationalist stuff
and the abuse stuff are the samequestion.
It's just two aspects of thesame toxic, uh violent belief
system and therefore I kind ofmy uh dissertation project kind
of combines both of these thingsto look at like the history of

(15:02):
christian empire and constantine, but from the perspective of
sexual violence wow.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
So I have two questions.
One did you have gothardinfluence too?
Yeah, that was iblp.
Oh, he came.

Speaker 3 (15:16):
He came to malaysia uh, our family wasn't in the
program but the minister was inour church and that was like our
one year.
Our entire church camp retreatwas just a Goddard seminar, his
advanced seminar that we,including children, listen to,
including all his advice aboutsex.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
Oh my gosh, and I just think it is incredible how
that stuff travels.

Speaker 3 (15:41):
That way it's branded as mainstream Christianity.
It's not branded as afundamentalist offshoot, it is
very mainstream.
People from big evangelicalmegachurches were involved in
the program.

Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeah, wow, okay, and not to go off on too deep a
tangent here, but I think whatis really interesting to me to
bring all this full circle is towhat degree Watchman Nee, who
was a Chinese Christian in theearly 20th century, to what
degree his writings influencedGothard, and it was a very

(16:17):
hierarchical message, and so Ithink that's an interesting.
Well, let's just say, assomeone who was trained in the
humanities, I know, especiallyin a post-colonial perspective,
I know that it's veryproblematic to talk about human
nature as if it's some universal, same kind of thing.

(16:40):
And yet, and yet, I think it isso interesting how that message
of hierarchy and consolidatingpower has appeal across cultures
.

Speaker 3 (16:55):
The very niche that Watchman Nee promoted was a kind
of what I would callspirituality, like that internal
narration of your life that youalways go back to God and like
this, this whole, like you know,the biggest one is dying to

(17:16):
yourself and surrenderingyourself to God.
Watchman Nee was very big onthat.
Goddard was big in that gothicspeaking, that when I had
deconstructed some of the moreobvious aspects of gothic
theology, that was harmful.
I didn't realize until I wentback to one of their websites
and I happened to come across avideo about this woman talking
about, essentially, she wasbeating herself up spiritually

(17:39):
because, uh, she was.
She was really interested insomeone, and in that world women
are not supposed to express anyinterest in men, right, and
you're not supposed to have anydesires whatsoever.
And so the way that she talkedabout her relationship with God
was about constantlysurrendering every desire, doing
nothing about it and feelinglike she was the problem.

(18:00):
And then I realized that I hadabsorbed this part of
spirituality not just from IBLPbut also from Watchman Nee, whom
our church literally wentthrough almost all his books
about the, the mind games thatyou play, and you don't even
realize that this is abusivebecause that's just how your

(18:21):
mind works and that's how youthink about god, and you know
faith and religion, which.
So I would say there are many,many layers to that, because
it's what you're programmed in.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
That's a short form of it, I guess so, since you're
talking about deconstruction,let's just take a little bit of
time.
Tell me what deconstruction islike or was like for you,
because I know it's this big,scary bad thing and I think it's
actually rather fascinating,but I would love to hear what it
meant for you.

Speaker 3 (18:53):
I just wrote like a Twitter post on this.
So, like, the short form ofthis is that your life is like a
car and someone else is in thedriver's seat.
Now you uh that's that personis in driver's seat like telling
you everything, uh, andcontrolling your life and
telling you what you need tobelieve to be saved and

(19:16):
basically everything that youlearn about salvation is through
this conduit.
It may be one, it sometimes isthe entire church community.
It could be a certain likedenomination or doctrine.
It's just represented bysomeone else driving your car.
To me, deconstruction is likesaying I want to drive this car
and actually decide for myselfand not have this middle person

(19:39):
who, like, imagine the amount ofcontrol you have over someone's
life.
If you believe that your rightdoctrine is what is going to
save them and they have to eatit out of your hands, like, then
so, but then when you say youwant to sit in that driver's
seat, this human being will tellyou how dare you?
Right, because this is whereyou're.

(20:01):
You know, this is where Jesusshould be.
No one should have the audacityto drive their own car.
This is rebellion.
Your life is going to go out ofcontrol.
But then you turn around andsay but you are a human being
and you're sitting in mydriver's seat and therefore,
yeah.
So that's the picture that Ihave of deconstruction it's
taking over your own car andbeing told all your life that

(20:22):
you're never supposed to drivethis car your own car and being
told all your life that you'renever supposed to drive this car
.
Well, a human being is drivingit.

Speaker 1 (20:27):
And would you say, is it reading too much into your
metaphor to say that beforedeconstruction, you believe that
Jesus is driving the car?
Deconstruction is what happensafter you realize.
Oh no, it's not Jesus drivingthe car, it's this other human
being who is driving the car,claiming to be Jesus.

Speaker 3 (20:48):
They can hold.
Yeah, exactly, it's realizinghow human it is and how their
doctrines or whatever systemthey set up.
It's not about the doctrine,it's the fact that you are
taking this doctrine via thisperson who has to define all
truth for you.

Speaker 2 (21:04):
And it's their ability to convince us that,
once again, we just don't know,we're stupid.
We're emotional creatures, yeahyeah, yeah.
And world.
This is why I love Rebecca Mui.
We need more Rebecca Mui.
And, by the way, do you knowhow nearly I didn't attend that

(21:26):
dinner a week after you came tothe US, which, yeah, anyway, how
sad that would have been.
Well, I know how sad it wouldhave been, so yes, yes, wow,
yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:39):
And I like that point you made too there about how
it's even less about thespecific doctrine of teaching
than about someone driving yourcar and claiming it's actually
Jesus driving your car, becausethat, for me, was so huge in my
deconstruction to the.
The issue itself was like Ididn't really care about.

(22:00):
It wasn't even that big a deal.
It was just recognizing oh wait, that's not Jesus in the
driver's seat, someone claimingto be or claiming or claiming to
speak for.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:11):
And I think it's easy , when we start making that
realization, to, instead of stepback and go through the process
of deconstruction, we simplylook for another person to take
the driver's seat, believing wecan't do it.
And we fill in with otherdoctrine, we fill in with

(22:33):
different quote leaders and it'seasy to feel quite proud of our
growth, but internally verylittle has changed.
We just now believe somethingnew and I think in that process
it's so easy to do a lot ofdamage and to cause a lot of
pain.

Speaker 3 (22:52):
So how old were both of you when you were baptized
into the Beachy Church?

Speaker 2 (22:57):
I was 16.
And I was old.

Speaker 3 (22:59):
They were concerned about me.
They were concerned.

Speaker 2 (23:01):
They were concerned about me.

Speaker 1 (23:03):
Okay, yeah, me too.
I was 16 too and yeah, it wasolder and it was.
It was kind of like a.
For me it was kind of a.
It just kind of worked out thatway.
It wasn't like I was draggingmy heels, it just kind of worked
out that way.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
I was dragging my heels and it wasn't the beachy
church I was baptized into.
It was a Mid-Atlantic which isvery close to Eastern Mennonite,
mennonite, this is Beachy.

Speaker 3 (23:30):
Amish and then Mid-Atlantic Mennonite, the
difference is was everyone elsein this church from like a
Beachy or Amish background, orwere they all from Mennonite
background or mix?

Speaker 2 (23:42):
Me.
For mine, most of them wouldhave been like the mid-Atlantic.
There were some newbie peoplecoming in, but the core group
would have been an older versionof the Mennonite group that
they were a part of.
But even by those terms I wasold, like 12, 13 would have been

(24:05):
more.

Speaker 3 (24:06):
yeah that's what I heard, uh the thing like.
So I was at the abuse symposiumwith um this, this couple that
I had met online, and thehusband, uh, was saying you know
, if you look around us,everyone believes that a certain
period of time in history iswhere God intends us to be.
You know, whether it's theAmish in the mid 19th century or

(24:29):
whether it's the Mennonites inthe mid 20th century, everyone
has this ideal period.
Who's who's right?
And I said you know in it justoccurred to me in that moment.
I said for plain groups thatyou know you're right if your
children stay in the group.
That's the gold standard.
That's what it has become.

(24:49):
It's become and only in thelast hundred years, because
before that most childrenconverted out.
Baptism wasn't until you gotmarried in the Mennonite church
and also with the Amish, so likenine out of 10 with it left and
they were okay with that.
You choose your path in life,which is the core.

Speaker 2 (25:05):
That's the core of Anabaptist faith.

Speaker 3 (25:08):
Right In the last.
Whatever it has been aboutgrowing your children in a
greenhouse and making sure theydo not change one iota from what
your standard, how you dress,how you live, as long as your
children don't move from that,you have succeeded as a
conservative Anabaptist.

(25:28):
That is a problem because itcontradicts the very tenet of
Anabaptism.

Speaker 2 (25:35):
Adult baptism.

Speaker 3 (25:41):
For a lot of my friends, the deconstruction
comes from the fact that theAnabaptism they were taught and
that comes from the environmentwas more Christian nationalist,
was more Gothard, was moreWatchman or whoever else than it
actually was.
You know Anabaptism.

Speaker 1 (25:58):
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think we've talkedabout it.
That, or I know I havecertainly said that I feel like
I left the Mennonites to becomeAnabaptist, you know, or?

Speaker 2 (26:08):
the Amish.

Speaker 1 (26:09):
Mennonites to become.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
Anabaptist and I would agree, because it's almost
like I've been doing this,circling around like oh well,
yeah, I don't know that theAnabaptist necessarily would
embrace me at this point anymore, but sometimes I'm like I'm
coming, I might be coming back,sort of a little bit.

Speaker 1 (26:30):
Because there's a philosophy of it.
There's.
There's a lot to admire justphilosophically, aside from
religious identity, right.

Speaker 3 (26:40):
It would.
Anabaptism today would be whatwould happen if the
deconstruction movement in 2025,after 500 years became about
keeping your kids in this,because they started very much.
We're going to read forourselves, we're going to think
for ourselves and we're going toreject the baptism that was
imposed on us against our willin the culture and choose for

(27:01):
ourselves and choose forourselves.
So this is, I guess, a goodwarning to whatever comes out of
this large exodus fromevangelicalism or Christianity.
It's like you could just becomethat very thing in 500 years.

Speaker 1 (27:15):
Yeah, I think that's very likely.
Oh, I mean, I think maybethat's just part of the cycle of
history that repeats itself,and I don't know if there's any
way to create a movement orcreate an identity that doesn't

(27:36):
fall into that at some point.
I don't know.
I don't know, it's not my jobto figure that out, but I don't
have that all figured out forsure.
So shall we talk aboutmentorship in academia?
And do you want to tell usabout that Facebook post that

(27:58):
you published recently where youwere talking to and I don't
have it here in front of me now,I should, but you were talking
about the role of mentorship andkind of explanation or maybe a
guide to maybe non-traditional,maybe first generation students
about the purpose, the role,what they should and could

(28:21):
expect from mentorship inacademia.
Is that right?
Yeah, did I get those themesright?
So can you talk about whatprompted that post?
Was there a someone needs tohear this moment, or was it
something that brought thisabout in your own experience
that you felt this needed to besaid?

Speaker 3 (28:42):
Well, it's an ongoing conversation with Rebecca,
because what we have both foundis that sometimes even people
who have struggled through fromnon-traditional backgrounds and
achieve a certain place inacademia, they want to close the
gate to other people.
They want to use that as aposition of hierarchical
achievement and it just is suchan awful vibe.

(29:05):
But for me I sensed thatbecause there was someone like
in my close family who was veryabusive to everyone, verbally
abusive and who had gotten a PhD.
Now this person is actuallylike flunked out of a year of
their degree and just is ingeneral, everybody knows they're
not, they were they.

(29:25):
They happened to get a PhDbecause it was paid for and
that's just how they ended upgetting it.
But it became like this thingthat, like my class of people
especially I belong to, likethis elite, like that was this
strong sense of elitism thatwent along with this person's
honestly, narcissism and abuseof other people, and so to me

(29:48):
that's always something reallyoff-putting.
I don't go into toconversations with people
wearing my education as like a,like a badge on my forehead or
this is how you interact with me.
I'd much rather the opposite,and that's something Rebecca has
found as well.
That's like there are peoplewho who put up these walls and
it's really irritating, and whenI see that happening, it

(30:10):
irritates me too, because it itit isn't meant to create a
special class of people.
It's actually just meant tolike.
The higher you go, it's moreabout you being really
interested in your niche andknowing a lot about this.
One thing it doesn't mean youknow about everything.
It's the more you know aboutless.
Yes, yes.

Speaker 1 (30:31):
Absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 3 (30:33):
What prompted the post was just thinking about the
fact, and the summary of it isthis like a good academic is
someone who is good at helpingother people and mentoring other
people If they are putting upthese barriers and if they're
making themselves up to be, youknow, aloof, unhelpful,

(30:56):
standoffish to students orwhoever else.
They're not good academicsBecause the core of their job,
what they're paid to do, is tohelp other people and to teach
and to mentor and advise and beon committees.

Speaker 1 (31:10):
You know, as you say, that I think about one of my
mentors from graduate school whowas known to be incredibly
helpful.
I mean, she was the kind ofperson who was always
introducing students her gradstudents to established scholars
in the field.
You know, she was so helpfuland one time when I had gone to

(31:33):
talk with her about some thingsand I really was appreciative of
her advice or recommendation orwhatever it was, she was like,
ah, just my job, and so yeah.
She was like, ah, just my job,and so yeah.
And to be honest, like now thatI'm writing letters of
recommendation for students youknow who are applying for
internships or, you know, gradschool or whatever, that is

(31:55):
that's the joy of my job Sittingdown with a student who is
applying for grad school andhelping them find their story.
That is so.
You know, everybody's got aremarkable story and often
they're the last to find out,but I'm there to help them find
it.

Speaker 2 (32:13):
Like that is the best part that is the best part of
my job and I think this is animportant conversation, because
I don't think anyone is going toargue that there is certainly
this class system withinAnabaptist circles and, for
whatever reason, I wasn'texpecting it in academia.

Speaker 1 (32:35):
And when I first encountered it, I was not
expecting it, well, okay.

Speaker 2 (32:39):
So how old were you guys until you realized that not
every doctor out there was adoctor, simply because they
wanted to help the hurting?
I was way too old until Irealized some of them just want
money, like in my culture.

Speaker 3 (32:54):
Well, in my culture everyone's parents wants them to
be doctors and they kind ofhave to be.
They don't have choice.

Speaker 2 (32:59):
So it's like, see, I for a long time like I bet I was
easily into my 20s and I trulybelieve that every doctor was
out there just wanting to saveevery sick person they ran into
and that was why they were inmedicine.
And all of a sudden I had thisrealization oh you want the

(33:22):
money involved.
Oh you want the money involved.
And I think I went intoacademia the same way, just
thinking everyone in academiawants to ensure that everyone
gets an education.
I mean, I'd been listening toNaomi for the last 30 years of
my life telling me how importantthis is, and so I just had not

(33:43):
entertained the possibility ofthere being this hierarchy.
And when I first ran into it, Ijust remember being absolutely
both shocked, pissed off, likejust I was so angry about it.

Speaker 1 (33:59):
Well, I can't believe I left that out.
I didn't mean to leave that.
I guess this is.
This is the difference betweenyou and me.
You assume purity of heart andeverybody you run into, and then
I'm expecting cynicism.
So that's maybe how we canunderstand that, that
misconception or thatmiscommunication.

Speaker 2 (34:23):
Well, you know, and I think there's also this thing
of I don't know if it's purityof heart, so much as I just like
to believe and imagine theworld is kind and good.
Yeah, and I mean you probablydid, you know, give accounts of

(34:44):
that happening.
I don't think I believe myselfto be anything special, but I
think I believed, if I did hearthose cases, that it was like
well, it happened for thisperson, but the next 20 people
are not going to encounter it.
You know, and yeah, I mean it'sfair, I do like to imagine that
the world is kind and good andyou know something that kind of

(35:07):
pisses me off is that so many ofmy friends are like kind of
like yourself.

Speaker 3 (35:13):
You know they're moms and they're trying to get a
degree and starting with acommunity college.
There is something aboutcommunity college professors
that seem to want a power trip.
Community college professorsthat seem to want a power trip,
like I have not seen this levelof weird, like you know, you
didn't.
You know, just taking awaypeople's grades for no good
reason, having unreasonablestandards or unreasonable, and

(35:39):
when I hear this, the thingsthat, like, people who go to
community college, especially ifthey're older, really want to
learn and really want this.
And then you're faced byprofessors who maybe are going
to this and you know they, theywant to, they want to lord it
over people, they, they want toprove that they're somebody by
essentially abusing theirstudents like we've.
We read that you know they, theytake away grades for no good

(36:00):
reason, the assignment standardsare unclear, the teaching is,
and you know that reallyfrustrates me a lot when I read
about this, because I have notencountered that in professors
where I am for the most part,and I'm kind of wondering it's
do they have like a kind of chipon their shoulder that they go

(36:21):
into community colleges wantingto like okay, my experience has
been that, like whenever I'veapproached a new level whether
it's high school or college orgrad school, and then a
professor, like when I'mapproaching that threshold, I

(36:42):
see it as like, if I can justget over that threshold, then
I'm gonna be in the promisedland, then it's all gonna be,
it's all gonna be good.

Speaker 1 (36:51):
And then I get there and I find that no, there's
hierarchy here too, there'shierarchy within the thing, and
I finally, I think, learned toexpect that.
So, my, you know, most recentlyit was like being a tenure
track professor and then gettingtenure.
It's like you get tenure andthen you realize like there's
still a carrot.

(37:11):
Well, I'm not chasing it, letme tell you, it's not a big
enough carrot to chase.
But I guess what I'm saying islike there's still and that
didn't come as a surprisebecause you know by now I knew
to expect it.
I'm just saying I think that'spart of it.
And also, I don't know.
I mean, it's so sad to me tohear what you're saying about

(37:34):
community college professors.
I have very little experiencewith community college
professors.
I took one community collegeclass and I know some who are
take, you know, their work withstudents very seriously, but I
also know that within.
I think, when you said a chipon your shoulder, that would be
my go to explanation for whatyou're talking about.

(37:55):
That.
Yes, it's because, just in,just in the naked terms of
cachet or status, you knowcommunity colleges are pretty
close to the bottom of thestatus hierarchy in higher
education.
I can see why someone in thatrole might go in expecting

(38:16):
they're going to be disrespectedand so they kind of go in with
that chip on their shoulder.
Well, but then to studentsstudents, especially someone
who's new to academia thatdoesn't that they're not
thinking about that.
Oh, they think about this.
The professor yeah, who?

Speaker 3 (38:31):
who is the boss?
Who decides your fate?
You know on a whim?
No, the reason why I say thatis because many of your
listeners, especially like mostof the people I've heard these
stories from, are from moms.
Like it's like if someone youknow you ask for help, they
should, or clarification, theyshoot you a nasty email and
threaten to like that reallyplays with your head and that is

(38:52):
like I'm sure has things to sayon this.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
Yeah mrs coblins, sorry.

Speaker 2 (39:01):
I hate having this discussion, but I think it's
important because I think itaffects a lot of our listeners.
I want to be the first in lineto support and defend community
college.
Community college is usuallycloser for those of us who are
in rural areas and communitycollege is cheaper, and I think

(39:23):
community colleges have the bestof the best professors, but
then the worst of the worst.

Speaker 1 (39:30):
Does that make?

Speaker 2 (39:31):
sense?
Yeah, it does.
I think there is a certainlevel and I want to be kind when
I say this, but washed uppeople, maybe old white men who
didn't make the cut, and theyare angry about it and they're
power tripping.
They don't have many years leftin their power tripping the
crap out of it.

(39:51):
Because I have had some of thekindest, um, most helpful, good
people as professors incommunity college, but I've also
had some of the meanest people.
I had to realize that the sameskills I needed in the

(40:12):
Anabaptist, amish, mennoniteworld to function there are the
same skills I need to deal withthose professors.
And when I figured that out itwas like, oh well, I've been
here before and made it feelless intimidating.
Most of them aren't preparedfor you to push back.

(40:34):
I mean, I just recently had aprofessor explain Christianity
to me for like 30 minutes and hejust went on and on and on.
And I'm like really really, andon and on and I'm like really
really.
But since that conversation Ihave all of a sudden kind of

(40:54):
became his favorite student, itseems like.

Speaker 1 (40:55):
And there's a part of me there's a part of me about
this development.

Speaker 2 (40:59):
I've been watching it .
I've been watching it.
What happened?
There's a part of me that's madbecause I think I gave him what
he wanted.
So there's a sense that there'sa part of me who's mad about
that.
I gave him what he wanted, butat the same time, I still push
back and say what I want to sayand I think, to a level, I gave

(41:20):
him what he wanted, but at thesame time, he knows that.
I know, does that make sense?

Speaker 1 (41:27):
Is it that you you listening without your eyes
totally glazing over, at leastin a way that he would recognize
probably set you apart from thevast majority of the other
students in the class?
Yeah, probably.
Okay, so now he feels like hecan have a conversation with you
?
Yeah, and do you so?

(41:47):
He feels like he maybe he'staking you more seriously, is
that?
Is that it?

Speaker 2 (41:51):
Yeah, well, and you have to do a lot of writing in
this class, and so I know toparrot enough of his lectures in
my writing to affirm him.
But I also know how to weave inenough of my own
interpretations and well, thisis bullshit narratives.
So I'm affirming him, I'msaying in the lecture it was,

(42:14):
you know, brilliantly stated.

Speaker 1 (42:17):
Not brilliantly stated, but you know.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
I know how to affirm, but still be like but this is
bullshit yeah.

Speaker 1 (42:25):
Well, there you go, lesson.

Speaker 2 (42:27):
But isn't that what you have to do in religious
circles?
That's exactly what you'redoing in religious circles.

Speaker 1 (42:33):
I think that's what you have to do in human circles.
Okay, in human circles, becauseit's like an ego thing, I mean,
I don't know, there's a lot ofdifferent ways you could explain
it Right.
But I in academia, figuring outhow to disagree without coming
off in the wrong way, and I I'llnever made he made a reference

(42:54):
about the way you use theliterature, the materials to
support your arguments is, Idon't know, noteworthy or
something.

Speaker 2 (43:04):
I don't know how he said it, but that's.
I think a lot of thoseprofessors are going to want a
little bit of affirmation, soaffirm them.
Like you know, you said thisand yes, yes, yes, but also.
This is kind of dumb.

Speaker 3 (43:22):
I think one of the things that we do have to, I
guess or it helps to learn veryquickly maybe is that like
engaging with an idea, even ifit's to disagree or debate with
it, is something, something thatreally helps because like, uh,
the thing that the example thatcomes to mind is when I first

(43:43):
started reading Anabaptistresearch, I read the Mennonite
Quarterly Review and there'sthis friendly rivalry going on.
They are dissing each other.
It's like an in-house battleover whose interpretation of
Conrad Grebel's life is totallywrong.
And then they'll be like Ifought for 20 years with the

(44:03):
historical society on this onepoint, like I fought for 20
years with the historicalsociety on this one point.
Like, but it's a, there's aloving kind of jab that's going
on.
There's, there's a vibe there.
It's the entire history of thisjournals.
People like yelling at eachother by, you know, in scholarly
texts.
So if, even critically engagingwith someone and you completely

(44:24):
disagree with them anddismantle their arguments, it is
still very flattering, I think.

Speaker 2 (44:27):
Yeah Well, there's a certain, there's a certain
amount of not pride, but acertain amount of approval.
That's not the right wordeither.
You get credibility from it.

Speaker 1 (44:41):
Yes, yes, yeah and OK , yes, yes, yeah and okay.
And then another interpretationof it too is a you're signaling
to the, to the professor, thatthe point they were trying to
get across landed, so you got it, so they feel like they've.
Okay, she gets this right.
But also, rhetorically, wecan't advance an argument

(45:03):
successfully with someone untilwe have some common ground
established, and so by youreaffirming what was said in the
lecture and the class and thecourse materials, you are
creating common ground then fromthere, from which you can then
say and therefore, and then this, and then this is, and push

(45:23):
back against the part that youdisagree with, and then this,
and then this is, and push backagainst the part that you
disagree with.
But by establishing commonground, it's made it possible
for them to hear thedisagreement too.
I mean, it just shows that,yeah, you are on the same page
here, you're not missing theirpoint, you get their point and
also you disagree.

Speaker 3 (45:39):
Well, and who knows, maybe in that meeting he figured
out I'm an old, tired womanwho's just over it maybe.
Maybe he figured that out.
It makes a big difference, likeI think, from perspective as a
student it makes a bigdifference to be the student in
a room who's actually payingattention and has an interest in
the class, like it.

(46:00):
It is very from the professor'spoint of view.
You know who those students arewho actually want to be there,
yeah, and that makes your jobworthwhile.
So even like, if you're in theclass, you love learning, you
have an interest, you askquestions, you're actually
present, then they know who youare.

(46:22):
That's a good thing too in someways.
Now you know who to stay awayfrom.
After a while you figure that'sa good thing too.
In some ways you know who tostay away from.
After a while you figure outwho's power tripping, who has
bad vibes.

Speaker 2 (46:32):
Yeah, someone with the initial s*** will never,
ever, ever receive a pass in mybook.

Speaker 3 (46:45):
Yeah, he was a shoddy professor and mean but the fact
that even I don't know how, hewas power tripping all day long
but the fact that even peoplewho are peers with or even
superior to said professor couldsense something was wrong and
want to do something about ittells you a lot.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(47:06):
Like from both ends, both fromthe students and at the bottom
of the rung, and people who areabove this person, like, yeah,
everybody soon realizes there's,there's a.
They're like acclimatizingyourself to an environment with
institutional drama.
The the first thing people tellyou stay out of the drama, but
it's good to be in the know,like what the vibes are, what

(47:28):
the office politics are.
You know, unfortunately it islike a workplace.
Unfortunately you're gonna haveto have a thick enough skin to
deal with all of that if youwant to be in this space.

Speaker 2 (47:40):
I think right the other thing I'll say before we
move on regarding communitycollege pushing back won't get
you anywhere, Like going to thetop and going up the chain as
far as like.
I had a professor talking abouthow horrible it is to use
contraceptives in a classroom.
These are young, these were CCPkids, these were kids still in

(48:04):
high school.
He had no business, but it wasagainst his religious beliefs.
Professor bluntly said andtalked about you know well, we
know which race scores worse onIQ testing.
He bluntly had thatconversation.
I complained oh, I had aprofessor use the R word.
I complained, complained.

(48:24):
It never got anywhere.
In fact, I think it got usedagainst me then by the professor
every time.
So I don't think, in myexperience, talking about it
doesn't get you anywhere.
Oh, you can give those reviewsevery semester.
Trust me, we give honestreviews.

Speaker 3 (48:45):
Sorry, they may not read them.

Speaker 2 (48:47):
Oh their bosses do their supervisors do, I think at
community college they do.
Okay, I do think and I'm veryhonest about that, good, and I
encourage kids I'm with to behonest about that as well.

Speaker 3 (49:01):
Can I just say, thinking about the anonymous
review, right, there is arecognition that students can be
abused in the power system thatis the academy, and so they at
least have a way for you tovoice this in a safe place.
This is something that churchescould learn from the fact that.
One, I want to listen to you.

(49:23):
Two, how are you experiencingthis without it being
manipulated back against youbecause it's anonymous?
I know that seems like there'san awareness there that you
don't really find in churches.

Speaker 2 (49:35):
And that's true Because there was one professor.
On his review I wrote he isemotionally abusing these kids
and I'm not quite sure why youguys let it go.
That was his last semester.
Whether it was because of whatI wrote, I don't know, but yeah,
and he was another Amish expertprofessor.

Speaker 1 (49:53):
When I think about other first gen students
listening to this, orperspective ones.
I just want to say that, a ofall, even if it feels like
speaking out like that didn'tmake a difference, it was still
the right thing to do.
But, b of all, like and I saythis from the perspective of the

(50:14):
institution where I am rightnow, which you know, every
institution is different.
But there's been a lot of talk,and in higher ed generally,
about the validity of those endof semester evals.
My view is that they areimportant but they are not like
they shouldn't like determine.
In some schools they determinemerit raises and they determine

(50:37):
like they're hugely influential.
At other schools, they're takeninto consideration.
My understanding is that,generally speaking, the
supervisors are looking forpatterns.
So if your one comment was madean outlier and everybody else
was saying all these glowingthings, then it wouldn't have

(51:00):
made a difference probably.
But that's why it's stillimportant to say something, even
if it doesn't change, becauseit's building a paper trail so
that if there is that kind ofthing going on, it's there.
But like the other thing too islike who knows what the
motivations of the supervisorare.

(51:22):
It could be a supervisor who'slike eh, whatever.
Or it could be a supervisor whoreally cares, like.
When I say supervisor, likewhoever that person is that's
looking at them, is overseeing,who knows what, the hiring
situation.
Maybe they're desperatelylooking for someone else to take
that place.

Speaker 2 (51:40):
Which often happens.

Speaker 1 (51:42):
That often happens at community college levels, and
so they're like well, got tohave someone to teach it because
students got to graduate.
Students have to have thiscourse so they can graduate.
Million and one differentscenarios.
These are just a few For me.
Like the takeaway for anyonelistening is talk to someone
until you find someone who hearsyou.
Because, like I think aboutthat, one time you had a

(52:03):
situation where and it was likewhat it was like the end of 2020
, the end of the spring semester2020.
So, everything was up in the air, everything was like just, and
there was a situation and youwent and then, finally and
talked with a professor who waslike you, someone you were close
to, right.

Speaker 2 (52:22):
Or had a closer relationship with.

Speaker 1 (52:25):
Yeah, and he took care of it.

Speaker 2 (52:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (52:29):
My advice would be that someone cares.
You might have to, depending onthe situation, you might have
to knock on several doors beforeyou find that person.
But, like, if I have acolleague who's acting like that
, I want to know, and I know alot of my colleagues want to
know too Right.

Speaker 2 (52:45):
Well, and more importantly for me, I decided to
use these scenarios as not as areason to quit, but as a reason
to practice, advocating formyself and for others.

Speaker 1 (52:57):
So what if I?

Speaker 2 (52:58):
didn't do a good job of it.
I could do it, I could practiceit and then next time it
happened I had better skills andI know having done those
sometimes well, sometimes not sowell with professors has
absolutely made me a betteradvocate now, and it was a

(53:20):
fairly safe place to do that andat least familiarize myself
with some of those skills,because you're gonna have to do
that in the workplace too.

Speaker 3 (53:32):
Right, right, exactly yeah, and in personal life and
in exactly exactly so how, howdid y'all find advocating your
for yourself to like learning,like learning how to walk in
those shoes, in comparison tosort of the, the training you

(53:52):
know, the?
Uh, I was just reading throughthe united bethel mennonite
church.
United bethel mennonite churchreport, by grace, on the sexual
abuse.
Isn't that horrible?
It is one of the most damningreports.
That really says the quiet partout loud it.
But the, the, the girls, likeliterally said we couldn't even

(54:17):
say that we were uncomfortablewith having a convicted rapist
in the youth group.
Content warning, uh, becauselike we would be the bad person
for excluding somebody, so likethis censorship, silencing.
I've read studies on how likewomen are trained to be, to be
compliant, to make sureeverybody is happy, like, how do
you get out of that mode?

(54:38):
Uh, and then going to a youknow, go to college where you
have to advocate for yourself orcomplain it about a professor,
and it isn't the problem.
Isn't you realizing, maybe,that it is their problem?

Speaker 2 (54:49):
for the record, let me just backtrack here.
What Rebecca is talking aboutis um out of the BMA
organization and it happened inPlain City Ohio.
Um and Walter Beachy was one ofthe influential people at some
point.
Yeah, when it was gettingstarted, and this would have

(55:09):
happened at his church, and ifyou search for it you can easily
and I guess we can put it inthe show notes too.
But it was a horrible, horriblesexual abuse.

Speaker 3 (55:20):
Ten abusers in that one church.

Speaker 2 (55:22):
Lots of family relations.
It was horrible Culture ofabuse.

Speaker 3 (55:31):
Yeah, sounds like yes .
Yeah, yeah, abusers in that onechurch, lots of family
relations it was horrible.
Culture of abuse.
Yeah, sounds like yes.
Yeah, yeah, the foundation yeah.
Many of our listeners wouldprobably be coming from an
environment where you have toself-censor or even their very
frame of mind is like theproblem is always me.
You're just not, you know,submiss enough, or you're not
pleasant and kind and whateverenough to go from that to being
in an academic or workspacewhere you're, yeah, speaking up,

(55:53):
complaining or advocating foryourself is something you
actually.
It's a life skill that womenare being trained not to do like
.

Speaker 2 (56:02):
How does one of my first years in college.
The one class was a mess.
It was the professor who talkedabout um, the horribleness of
contraceptives, and he's the onewho talked about um huckleberry
finn and and how he saved theslave.

(56:26):
But we should, yeah, and, butwe should report undocumented
citizens and yeah, yeah, yeah,yeah.
It was bad.
And at very early on I realizedand I think many of us have the
skill we know how to show upand we know how to read a room
and then we know how to deliver.
What happens if I practiceshowing up, refusing to read

(56:49):
that?
What if my goal this semesteris just to show up and do
everything I can, not to readthe room, and just to be who I
think I need to be and to saywhat I need to say.
And I think I remember eventelling Naomi that this is what
I'm doing.
I'm practicing showing up, notreading the room.
I'm practicing showing up as ifI don't have that skill.

(57:12):
It was kind of freeing and Icrossed my arms a few times and
told him he was full of crap.
I mean, I didn't say you'refull of crap, but I'm like.
I literally crossed my arms andI said I'm so confused.
You tell stories about yourfriend who, literally, you saw
robbing hubcaps and car lightsout of parking lots and you

(57:32):
didn't report him, am I correct?
And he's like I told you aboutJohn and I'm like, yes, you did,
but yet you think and youromanticize a fictional
character who, I agree with you,did the right thing he saved
Jim.
But you think we should reportundocumented citizens.
Are you serious?
And I knew there were youngerkids in the room.

(57:53):
I knew there were kids in theroom who, very well, potentially
could not be documented as well.
And I am like there is no way onearth I'm going to sit here and
pretend what you're saying isgood or right and I am like
there is no way on earth I'mgoing to sit here and pretend
what you're saying is good orright.
And I was docked.
He gave me he that thoseprofessors always made sure that
I got an A minus 89.

(58:17):
They always gave me an 89.
It was magical the way itworked out.
There was four of them,including 89.
But I took it as a job welldone.

Speaker 1 (58:26):
Yeah, I like that idea of going in without the
idea of reading the room,because what goes along with
that is is then adjusting tomeet those expectations of what?
Yeah, whatever, whatever yousee there.

Speaker 3 (58:42):
It's amazing how much space you can ask for if you
realize that you can ask forthings like extensions.
Yes, it surprised me when Irealized my brother was asking
for extensions, because never inundergrad, master's degree,

(59:04):
right up to now, I have neverasked for an extension and I
always thought deadlines aredeadlines.
So it's only in recent yearshave I realized that I have one
of the most compliant studentsthere are like but it's also
having that self-awareness to tobe like oh okay, I can ask for
space so I can ask for adifferent question.
I can, uh, there's a little bitmore leeway than what I'm

(59:27):
giving myself.
It's good to recognize that,especially if you uh, you were
raised to always, you know,follow the rules and be, a type
a person that that you canactually step out of that, maybe
a little bit, just know.

Speaker 2 (59:44):
One of my favorite professors said at the beginning
of every semester.
She said life happens.
Life happens to all of us.
You always have a two dayextension on a deadline, always,
and if, for whatever reason,you need more, let me know.
There was another professor whosaid one of the assignments was

(01:00:06):
write me and tell me about thething that you think is going to
be your biggest barrier tosucceed this semester.
So I mean you guys there's someprofessors out there that are
like Naomi nailing it, and whenyou hear stories about the bad
ones, don't be afraid, just knowit's going to happen.

(01:00:28):
But you have the skills ittakes to navigate that.
And, yeah, you don't alwayshave to follow the rules.

Speaker 1 (01:00:34):
Yeah, that was me too .
As far as asking for extensionsand that kind of thing, I did
get an extension in undergradwhen I had to go to a funeral
and I remember feeling like,like, like I was really getting
away with it.
And now, now that I'm on theother side of it and I see how

(01:00:54):
often extensions get handed outand it's also a post COVID thing
, it's a deadlines have become adifferent thing.

Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
But I still read syllabusabuses though.
Syllabus, syllabize, yeah,syllabize.
No extensions under nocircumstances Like.
I've had.
I've had one semester or one.
This semester says that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:14):
Yeah, I'm sure, yeah, I'm sure they're out there.

Speaker 2 (01:01:17):
Yeah, and then that language.
If you're a rule follower, thatthat language will suggest that
you absolutely shouldn't ask.

Speaker 1 (01:01:23):
You're right.
You're right.
It gives that perspective andfor some professors I mean, I
guess it's a good idea to asklet's put it that way as much as
you can develop a relationshipas much as you can develop a
relationship with your professor.

Speaker 2 (01:01:36):
Always reach out, always create some kind of
question early on in the classthat you may or may not have.
Just ask a question, develop arelationship, and I think that's
the other thing.
We're taught really not to askquestions because we should know
everything, we should figure itout, we should be reading, we
should you don't want to soundstupid.
Early on in the semester, comeup with a reason to ask a

(01:01:58):
question.
Shoot a personal email just doit.

Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
I've even started.

Speaker 2 (01:02:03):
if I drop classes, I'll send the professor an email
and explain that I'm droppingit and kind of give a good
reason why I'm dropping it,because I might have to pick up
the class, especially if you'relike at a community college, you
might have to have him later,you might have to have that same
professor later and I don'tknow.
I want to be the person thatthey remember replying back.

Speaker 3 (01:02:26):
In most cases.
I've always found personallythat it's good to be recognized
in a sea of 50 undergrads or 100.
It's good to be someone who'smemorable, besides for being the
old person, because in mostcases now you don't want to
stand out like if you have atoxic professor who's who's
gonna pick on you.
Maybe that, but, but it always.

(01:02:46):
It always helps to like bethere, ask questions, stand out,
be someone they'll remember andappreciate, because that really
helps you down the line.
It does.

Speaker 1 (01:02:56):
Yes, yes, it does, and that's.
And if I have a student, comeby my office at the beginning of
the semester.
I mean and this happened oncein a blue moon, but if you
really want to make yourselfstand out, yes, if you have a
question, or even if you don'thave a question, if you come by
and say, yeah, I was justwanting to come around and say
hi to all my professors, youwill automatically put in the oh
, this is one of theconscientious ones, fox, yeah,

(01:03:18):
yeah, in that category.
Like that will you?
I was gonna say you become ateacher's pet, like, but you
know what I mean.
Like that will make you standout very quickly.
Yeah, I, I build in a lot ofconferences, like into my first
year writing classes, just toget students in the habit of
coming in.
And then I try to make thoseconversations very positive and

(01:03:41):
rewarding.
And rewarding because I findfor a lot of students at that
stage you know they're justfresh out of high school and
they're they're still learningthat it's okay to ask for help.
You know, I feel like so muchof what I do is convince them
that they don't have to knoweverything right away, that
learning is not about just aperformance, but so many come in

(01:04:02):
with this kind of assumptionthat it's just a performance and
I'm like with this kind ofassumption that it's just a
performance, and I'm like youknow, come on, let's chat, let's
have a conversation.

Speaker 3 (01:04:08):
So yeah, this might be a helpful.
I guess that's really helpfulfor people who might come into
higher education from like aChristian school or
homeschooling background butmaybe think, oh well, the public
school students know everythingand they're just ready.
Yeah yeah it helps to thinkabout uh real, maybe that for

(01:04:29):
what you describe and I havefound this true teaching
overseas, like back in malaysiais that sometimes having had 12
years of schooling doesn'tnecessarily give you an
advantage.
There's a there's a strongculture of sit in your chair and
do what you're told Don't asktoo many questions, don't make
trouble, and so it helps maybeto think of higher education as

(01:04:51):
almost being a completelydifferent mode.
It's like a blank slate, in thesense of it's not going to be
like your previous education.
Whatever you came from, it isan environment which supposedly
ideally, it's an environmentwhich supposedly ideally
encourages inquiry and researchand debate and participation and
far more autonomy andespecially self-regulation and

(01:05:16):
self-discipline.
And sometimes you can think ofyourself as maybe having a bit
of an advantage.
Maybe you had to sit in acubicle in your ACE school and
fill in workbooks, but you learnhow to guide yourself and be
self-reliant, to manage your owntime.
These are some advantages thatyou have that could really help

(01:05:37):
you.
So don't feel like you're adisadvantage.
I would say.

Speaker 1 (01:05:41):
I agree, you have to make use of the resources we
have, the advantages we do have,absolutely, yeah.
And I think the pushing back onideas is really important.
When I think the trick iskeeping it about the ideas and
not about the, so it doesn'tfeel well.
It's about the ideas, but alsoit's about having reasons.

(01:06:03):
You know, being able to to givegood reasons for the pushback
makes makes a big difference.
I mean, it makes a bigdifference until you run into
somebody that doesn't care aboutthose things.
So I'm looking here at ourquestions, our conversation has
kind of gone a differentdirection, which is awesome,
yeah, but I, I expected it to,yeah, yeah.

(01:06:27):
So we started out talking aboutmentorship from the perspective
of what a mentor or what thosewho gone before, oh to those
coming along behind, or oh, I'musing that generally, but like,

(01:06:48):
I'm using that generally, butlike, what advice would you give
to someone, say, who is goinginto academia as a first
generation student?
And I think all the mentorshipis important at the undergrad
level.
It becomes even more importantat the or, you know, central to
to education at the graduatelevel.
But are there anymisconceptions that you see
first gen students sometimesmaking?

(01:07:10):
Or and again, it wouldn't haveto be first gen, just students
generally making about mentors.
Maybe it's about who would makea good mentor, or is it about
what can be asked of a mentor?
You know what that's supposedto look like.
I mean, you've already namedsome really good ones.
Is there anything else that youthink about helpful?

Speaker 3 (01:07:29):
And then it turns out that they're actually not, that
they weren't genuine abouttheir you know offers of help
and it's easy.
So there are times one of myfriends recently literally

(01:07:53):
someone who's supposed to beadvising on her project said,
like a very passive, aggressive,like if you want feedback from
me, you're gonna have to ask twomonths in advance, and it made
them feel like a bad person foreven asking for advice.
And I was like, oh, it might becoming to realize that maybe
this person isn't as helpful asthey appeared to be and that

(01:08:16):
they were making you feel likethe bad person and also that
they were maybe using thisgraduate student to just get a
career advancement and have thaton there without actually
caring or investing.
And there are people like that.
So I don't know if that's somuch of a tip, but because
there's a certain expectationthat you're helpful, that you're

(01:08:38):
a good mentor, there may bepeople who put on a show of that
and they don't follow through,who put on a show of that and
don't like it.
They don't follow through incases like this, all of the
other students really we wereall like.
You know, this is not yourfault because this person
generally felt really bad, likehave I taken advantage of my
professor and asked somethinglike that I shouldn't have.

(01:08:59):
And then you sometimes you canask for reassurance, you can ask
other people to read the email,you can like it.
I think if you get an email likethat or you get a response like
that, which I have, like I oncehad a professor that one
professor told me to talk toabout my project and then for
some reason, they met and thensuddenly they were like never

(01:09:20):
email me again, stop harassingme.
Oh, my goodness, they had neversaid oh okay.
So then me again, stopharassing me.
When, my goodness, they hadnever said oh okay.
So and then I asked theprofessor who's you know,
leading the class and was likewhat's what went wrong there?
And she's like no, it's fine,but this does happen.
There are times when people whoinitially offer help or want to
be involved in your work orresearch suddenly just

(01:09:43):
completely change their tune.
There they're gonna be peoplelike that.
Or you realize that you knowsomeone isn't what they appear
to be and you might feel badabout it.
But talk to someone else, workthrough it process it, realize
that it's not your fault, ormaybe if you, if you did figure
out, you know a new strategy ora different way of approaching

(01:10:05):
someone, then then you can applythat.
But there are gonna, they'regonna be, they're gonna be nasty
people essentially, and justdon't.

Speaker 2 (01:10:14):
The whole world is not pure and lovely like Rebecca
wants them to be.

Speaker 1 (01:10:18):
Yeah, being aware that things might or that people
might not live up to theirfirst impressions is so valuable
.
I know one of the tensions cansometimes be like do I want big
name scholar who will?
Whose name will be on my CV?
If we're talking about likegraduate school, like a

(01:10:39):
dissertation director orsomething right, that can open a
lot of doors if you have famousscholar's name on your CV.
But they may or they may notcare at all about mentoring,
they may give you no help.
It's not always that tension,but that can be the case and I
think if someone finds himselfin that situation then they
might go.
Well, I need the help, I needthe guidance because I don't

(01:11:01):
know what I'm doing here, butalso I don't want to offend,
risk offending big name scholarand there are ways you can kind
of rework it so that maybe youkeep big name scholar as the big
name, but then developing othermentoring relationships with
other people, I think with otherfaculty, can really help kind

(01:11:25):
of round that out, Because youneed more than one mentor.

Speaker 2 (01:11:29):
You never want to put all your eggs in one basket.

Speaker 1 (01:11:31):
No, no, no.
And I love what you were justsaying about talking with others
in the program, like otherstudents, and finding out what
their experiences are, because Ithink it's so easy and I've
seen this with a lot of firstgen students and certainly was
true for me too.
You go into college with thisidea like I just have to go to
class and get good grades andthat's it, and and and it's like

(01:11:54):
no, there's way, you know, likethose conversations you have
with people outside of class areso important, and it's not just
about going to class andgetting the good grades, you
know, it's about all those otherthings, and I think the mentors
, you know, seeking out thosementors is part of it too.

Speaker 3 (01:12:11):
Actually that's a really good point, that that's
perhaps one of the you don'talways find good people to work
with but unfortunately, like,one of the things I always hated
was group assignments, becauseyou know, until you have a good
group and you know people whoare actually going to show up
for you, group assignments canreally screw up your grades.

(01:12:32):
You're dependent on people whodon't do or who are coasting
along and who just are moochingoff other people's work.
There are people like that, butI think if you're going to
college college for the firsttime, figuring it out for
yourself like for me I hadn'tbeen in school since I was eight
years old yeah, uh,appreciating, like the social

(01:12:54):
connections and the cohortfeeling of it, building those
relationships, especially if youare moving away from home for
college and you need to, likeit's almost like make that
calculation in your head andknow that there are advantages
to to building up your social.
Uh, there's a theory socialcapital theory.

(01:13:15):
Building social capital willnever, will never be bad.

Speaker 1 (01:13:21):
Yes, so let me ask you this as students grow in
their careers and move on, howcan they pay forward the
mentorship they've received?
What are some things that youwould like to see or that would
be helpful, that might helpaddress some of the challenges

(01:13:44):
that prompted this Facebook postin the first place?
Like what are some things youwould like to see that would be
helpful to other students comingalong behind?

Speaker 3 (01:13:55):
Building up communication, because it's all
about communicating what youknow.
So that friend of mine whoreceived that kind of passive,
aggressive email about, we wereall like, hey, we can read each
other's work.
We don't need to wait for ourprofessors to read our work.
It's simply a matter of us,like we're all in different

(01:14:15):
fields, you know, with differenttopics how well are we
communicating?
Or building up the skill ofgiving presentations to each
other?
Or one of the big ones is, ifyou sit together in a room and
work on stuff, you probably canget a lot done like you do this,
like 50 minutes writing, 10minutes chit chat, like things
like that.
Organizing, you know, studygroups and all that are a huge

(01:14:38):
help in trying it out.
The other thing I would say isthat I started out educational
theory.
One of the things that hashelped me the most and that also
, like is one of the ways that Ithink about learning which is
why I wrote that post is thisthing called metacognition.
It's like we're reallyreflective about how we learn,

(01:15:00):
what works for us, how we thrive.
I'm really interested in thosequestions.
I feel like if we reflect onthose questions, it's not
navel-gazing, it's thinkingdeeply about our learning
process or our experience andthen, if we think deeply, we
might be able to engage withothers more and be able to share

(01:15:23):
what we've learned, which iswhat you guys are doing in this
podcast.
I guess it's like you're reallyreflecting on your background
and your life and your learningexperiences and the more that
you do that inner reflectionthing, you're helping yourself,
but it also helps other peopleto be able to share that.

Speaker 2 (01:15:40):
And just to kind of bounce off of what you just said
, I think for those of us thatgrew up ACE, bce, cle, whatever
it was oftentimes the assumptionis that we're independent and
that has often been the way wehave learned.
So I think for those of us who,the way we have learned, so I

(01:16:03):
think for those of us who, andlike I, did well that way, I did
really good that way, which isprobably why as many college
classes I've had to take online,I still did okay, because I
actually have to work hard toengage with others.
Like that doesn't comenaturally for me, especially
when I'm learning Like I like todo it independently.
So I think reflecting on it butthen forcing yourself to branch

(01:16:34):
out and to do it differentlyand to experience it differently
is important, because I caneasily learn things short term
but my retention sucks and thatagain is a reflection, I think,
of the whole independent thingor what it's done for me,
because I can learn short term Iam great with memorization but
the long term it's when you talkabout it, it's when you um

(01:16:58):
conversations about it withother people.
I think is where the long-termmemory yeah, when it's
meaningful, yeah, but.

Speaker 3 (01:17:05):
But you were trained like you had to survive in a
world where learning wasn'tmeaningful and it was just
churned out stuff.
And then, right, if you retainit, what was the point?
Because the next thing is goingto another workbook where you
have to memorize it, turn turnit out, forget it Like you were.
You're surviving, so it's notlike you're doing a bad thing.

Speaker 2 (01:17:24):
Oh right, right, right, but I think I think
that's where, reflecting on howyou learn and and what has
worked and maybe not been quiteso effective, I think is really
important.

Speaker 3 (01:17:37):
I feel like, personally, I learn best when
I'm mad about something.
That's when it you know you'recurious.

Speaker 2 (01:17:44):
You can do research like no one.
I've ever met Rebecca Likeseriously when you're engaged.

Speaker 1 (01:17:52):
When you're engaged, you're emotionally engaged, yes,
when you're mad.

Speaker 2 (01:17:56):
Very motivated.
But your attention to detaillike I don't think if I was in
education for the rest of mylife, I could pay as much
attention to detail as you do.
Like I would become depressedif I'd have to spend that much
attention to details.
So I love it.
I think it's an amazing giftand amazing talent and I love it

(01:18:20):
when you get mad because youcome up with amazing work and I
just think it is so valuable andI am just like so grateful for
the work you do.

Speaker 3 (01:18:33):
Aw, thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:18:58):
And I think you both, like I don or not, we're
actually enrolled in theclassroom.
We kind of want to be, and Ithink sometimes and I have
theories, but I think sometimesit's easy my running theory is
that it's often the individualswho didn't quite feel accepted

(01:19:18):
or included within theirreligious community who are the
ones who tend to break out andget an education, and I think
sometimes they then it's easy tosee that education as a source
of validity for them, which inturn they become gatekeepers,

(01:19:41):
and I think it's so importantthat we don't do that to each
other.
My worthiness is not found inan education or lack thereof,
and I have no businessgatekeeping inside the classroom
or outside the classroom.
And I think what you posted onsocial media was so important
because I saw it as a reminderto all of us.

(01:20:03):
We have professors who do it,but we also have people inside
our worlds who do it to us, andwhen you see it, I think it's
okay to recognize it.

Speaker 1 (01:20:15):
Recognize the gatekeeping.
Yeah, yeah, and I guess becauseI think the two of you have
maybe seen more of this than Ihave, just because of your kind
of connection to some of thesecommunities what does the
absence of gatekeeping look likeand what you're describing?
I guess that's kind of my word,that question that I keep
coming back to what do you wantto see?

(01:20:35):
What would be the opposite ofthe gatekeeping?
What is the thing that you arehoping to pay forward as a way
of not gatekeeping?

Speaker 3 (01:20:46):
I was going to say Rebecca is a little bit like my
barometer.
I take Rebecca along and justsee if people are gatekeeping,
because I'm a little bit like,I'm a little you, you know, just
a little bit like I don't pickup on these things as fast, I

(01:21:06):
don't have that instinct for itas quickly marilyn marilyn does,
and also I think that peoplethink they can get away with a
lot around you.
Do you think so?
Like people think, oh, this isjust someone I can.
I can, like get a little bit ofan ego trip by by being like
mean to.
I don't think it's conscious,but that happens and it's really

(01:21:28):
like when we reflect on it,when we discuss it, and it's
really irritating you know whatI mean?

Speaker 2 (01:21:37):
yeah, but say just a little bit more.
So why do you think that peoplethink they can do that to me,
like just like, say a little bitmore.

Speaker 3 (01:21:50):
I mean, it's the whole thing with the like, like,
if someone comes in from theoutside, you don't have a place
in this Mennonite system, thecaste system, so I don't, I
don't fit in anywhere.
People are often very trying tofind.
Like you know, there's this oneperson that I was telling you
the story about, who looked atme and looked me up and down,

(01:22:11):
like who your parents and I saidI moved a few years ago and the
the clock was not, like thewheels were not turning, like
what, where do I put you in this?
Yeah, maybe it's because youalready are in the culture.
There's already like anexisting caste system, and
sometimes it's just that peopleare looking for anybody.

(01:22:33):
They can, I think so get apower trip from like.
It's not that, it's not thatyou attract this.
They're looking actively,looking to have a terms.
Like you know, I have amaster's degree or in academia.
You know this is how we talk Iknow exactly what you're
referring to I think, yeah, Ihonestly think they would do it

(01:22:55):
to anybody that they could tryto do it to.

Speaker 2 (01:22:58):
To the whole thing of gatekeeping, I think that I do
think I have an allergicreaction to it, for whatever
reason, and I think sometimes myreaction to it is my knee jerk
reaction to like.
Sometimes I'm not sure if I'mtotally aware of it.
I'm learning to pay attentionto it, but I'm not sure that I

(01:23:19):
always do.
Sometimes I do think it's anattempt for me or an invitation
to play the game, and I'mstarting to think about that a
little bit more because I neverbefore would have necessarily
thought about it as aninvitation.
But I do think sometimes it isthat about it as an invitation.

(01:23:40):
But I do think sometimes it isthat Sometimes I think it has
been a bid for power and a bidto put me in my place, but I
haven't necessarily advertised alot that I'm in school and so I
think sometimes people aren'teven necessarily aware of it.

Speaker 3 (01:23:56):
One of the thoughts I have is that, like, like,
academia is not going to solveissues of being like, feeling
and experiencing beingmarginalized in a culture and
being silenced and not having anidentity.
Like, for example, you know,not being somebody in the
culture, but academic life isn'tgoing to solve that need.

(01:24:18):
Therapy is a very good optionBecause if you haven't dealt
with some of these issues, it'sgoing to be part, like, it's
going to follow you into acareer and that's why maybe
people who have felt trampled onwant to have that feeling of
having an identity and havingworth.

Speaker 2 (01:24:38):
Being validated?
Yeah, being validated.

Speaker 3 (01:24:40):
Yeah, but it's not healthy and that's that's not
going to help you help otherpeople, which, again, it's not
going to help you be a goodacademic or successful person in
most careers, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:24:51):
And so the people I admire most and this is what I
see in both of you and I soadmire it is this constant sense
of curiosity.
Truly, the best gift I think wecan give ourselves is the gift
of curiosity about the worldaround us, about other people.
And so, instead of showing upto conversations with, well, I

(01:25:16):
have a doctorate, or I have thisor I have that, and so I let me
educate you, you both haveshown up with curiosity, and
curiosity is at the top ofconversations.
Not, I'm the expert, and I hopethat I can show up that way too

(01:25:37):
.
Hope that I can show up thatway too, and you do, you do.

Speaker 1 (01:25:40):
But here's the thing Maybe this is this is easy for
me to ask, this is easy for meto say or to suggest.
Let's put that way.
Maybe this and maybe this is myown baggage, but to me, I see
someone you know waving theircredentials as a flag or the.
To me that is, that is anexpression of real insecurity.

(01:26:04):
To me, I see someone whoseself-worth is based on being the
best person in the room andit's more about proving to
whoever is around that they arethe, they are the smartest, they
are the best, they are theleast, they have the least fault
, and it's about this need theyhave, as they go through the

(01:26:24):
world, to reinforce that towhoever they come across, to
make sure everybody thinks ofthem, because that is the only
way that that is how they thinkthat they are valid and worthy
of love and respect is becausethey are so smart and so good.
I don't know, does that makeany sense?

Speaker 3 (01:26:43):
or or the kind of sense of like exclusive
knowledge, like I talked aboutwhen someone's trying to drive
your car.
And since they have the rightdoctrine, they have the right,
they have everything right, you?
have to just follow what theysay, not use your own brain, use
their like.
Let them do the thinking foryou.
Well, actually it kind of tiesback to the fact that early
Anabaptism was this movementthat was very peasant-centric.

(01:27:06):
What was happening was, theReformation was largely a
movement among academics, whothen worked together with the
nobles, and then they reformedthe system, but it was still
very much like everyone else isleft outside of any of the
decision making process.
The, I mean, I do appreciate,like I do like the fact that

(01:27:26):
when I go to any kind of andabout this midnight setting, I
don't talk about having aneducation.
That's not what I introducemyself with.
It's almost something that you,you, you don't go in waving.
I appreciate that.
I think there's a lot ofdownsides to that in the culture
, but there are some.
I like the fundamental ideabehind it, which was initially

(01:27:51):
according to Stuart Murray'sdissertation and also some later
books that he's published, likethe Naked Anabaptist, which I
haven't read.
I read the thesis Initially.
It was just like anybody,including women, including
people who had never been toschool they could get together
and read the bible and thendiscuss it and let the holy

(01:28:11):
spirit have be the authority inevery person there.
It was meant to be ananti-elitist way of approaching
faith and the bible, uh, whichyou know, and and uh, even the
people who, like michael settler, he wrote the slight cycling
confession.
Yeah, at least I can't pronounce.
Yeah, that's okay, it's, it'sgerman, he.

(01:28:34):
He was one of the authors webelieve, right, he?
When they interviewed him forhis trial, he said wait a second
, I'm not going to respond toyou yet.
I want to ask my brothers andsisters and sisters what they
think, and then I will come backto you.
On these doctrinal questions,there's a strong sense of far
more camaraderie, humility yes,just yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:28:58):
Right and I think when there is that sense that
every person is valid and isworthy of dignity and respect,
aside from their accomplishments, you can have that kind of
sense.
But as soon as status, whateverthat is based on, whether

(01:29:19):
that's based on family,bloodline or on an education or
on wealth or whatever that'swhen you lose that right and
it's a little bit like we pushback against this idea that it
doesn't really matter what theman has done for the last 20
years.

Speaker 2 (01:29:36):
When he goes to a job interview, that's great.
Whatever he was doing, that'sa-.
Oh, it's relevant, yeah, butthen when a stay-at-home mom
shows up, she's worth $12 anhour.

Speaker 1 (01:29:51):
Her experience isn't relevant.
Yeah, right.

Speaker 2 (01:29:53):
And I think we easily do that to people who, for
whatever reason, don't have aformal education.
I think it's easy to assume thathow can they know, how can they
be an expert on anything, whenin fact sometimes those without
a formal education are some ofthe smartest people you will run

(01:30:18):
into.
They might not have the rightvocabulary, they might not even
know about theories that are outthere that affirm what they've
been thinking, but yet they'rethere, they're thinking it,
they're creative thinkers, and Ithink that whole gatekeeping is
such a.
I think that's why Anabaptiststend not to trust people that
get an education that's veryvalid, and so those of us from

(01:30:39):
the Anabaptists tend not totrust people that get an
education that's very valid.
And so those of us from theAnabaptist background who are
getting an education had betterdarn well treat it with care and
with compassion and withhumility that I should be valued

(01:31:05):
because I now finally have this, but close the gate or make
those who haven't received ityet feel stupid, like that's
just cruel, I mean, and that'snot something I want to be with.
And so I think when I receive aninvitation to play that game,
I'm just like I'm too old forthat nonsense.
I can't think of one reason Iwould show up.

(01:31:25):
It feels like a pissing contestin the wind.
I have no, I have no.
I don't understand why I'd showup to play that game with you
so like the most in any career,though the playing field.

Speaker 3 (01:31:40):
For the most part, if it's a professional,
well-paying career, the playingfield is like an egotistic
pissing contest.
That's how most things are setup, whether it's politics,
finance, academia.
There is advantage to enteringinto those spaces with a

(01:32:05):
different ethic, but also usingthose spaces, using the
advantages that come from thosespaces, to to open the door.
I I think there is because,like I went to the american
academy of religion in november,uh, that it was really helped.
I wouldn't have known aboutthis had not my dissertation
chair given me all these tipsand like told me like you know,
go for this conference, thatconference, go for those

(01:32:26):
receptions.
Like that was incredible,because that was amazing.
That's opening it, or I didn'teven know it's there.
But when you go there you'regoing to deal with a lot of ego
because when people find outyou're just a graduate student,
you're suddenly like in adifferent, like you know you're.
You're a kid in a room withadults is what some people?
But then you, you start to getto know the people, you know who

(01:32:50):
to talk to you, you figure outwho.
Yeah, playing, you've you'vebeen here before.
Yeah, you play that game,because all careers are a game.
But you also invite otherpeople into that space.
You can change the culture.
But it doesn't mean that we alljust stay at the lowest rungs

(01:33:10):
and don't even try to enter intothese spaces.
I think we have a right to bein those spaces and sometimes we
can benefit from and also helpothers benefit from them.

Speaker 2 (01:33:21):
And I'm glad you made that point, Because I think
that's so important, Because Ithink I would it would be easy
for me to be like whatever, goplay your own game and I'll just
sit out here and do my ownthing.
We're getting into the crowd,like I see you doing, which I

(01:33:41):
think is so amazing, and theninviting other people to join
you.
I've been invited to join inand I'm so grateful for that.
And to bring us back to Naomi,your original question what do
we wish we would see?
It's just that invitationsinvitations to be part of the

(01:34:02):
process and the experience, notnecessarily because of what
title I'm bringing, but becauseyou see me as a person and
because of who I am, because I'mme.

Speaker 3 (01:34:16):
I think it does make a difference.
I just remembered something myhistory professor said.
So she's like this granny, youknow she's I've seen.
Sometimes you see professorsoutside of work and you're like
oh, this is a light fall ladyand she said she was on a hiring
committee for the chair oftheir department and she said

(01:34:37):
you could tell who had hubris.
And it was just.
And she has someone who'sreally senior in the field who
is deciding who gets this verybig job.
She said you could tell who hashubris and, like she's been
around, you know to be a womanof this age, who's been in
academia long enough, I think,who researches gender, obviously

(01:34:58):
she has a sense of what's beengoing on in the field.
And yeah, if you walk into aroom and think you're entitled
to everything, there are peoplewho applied to be the director
of our program who talked as ifthey already had the job while
they were still applying.
People read that for sure.
So it's not going to help youget ahead either to have who is

(01:35:20):
dripping off you.

Speaker 1 (01:35:22):
Exactly.
I have just in recent weeks,seen this very thing play out
and let me tell you it is so offputting I guess.
I guess that's why I'm a littlebit seeing it not not exactly
as a toddler's temper tantrum,but you know, like it's a show
in my mind, it's a show ofimmaturity.

(01:35:42):
It's not someone I want to dobusiness with.
Yeah, the hubris.

Speaker 2 (01:35:47):
Well, two things.
Hubris is not a word that Iwould have used very often, and
I've encountered it like sixtimes in the last week, and I
just think it's so funny, so I'mgoing to have to start adding
it to my vocabulary now.

Speaker 1 (01:35:58):
I was not using it in relation to the situation I was
talking about just now, butI've heard it.

Speaker 2 (01:36:03):
I've heard it like six times, I think, in the last
week or two, which is hilarious.
I think where it's damaging isthe Anabaptist, amish, mennonite
communities, whatever tend tohave a little bit of a fear
about education.
So if you have someone wholeaves and gets education and

(01:36:24):
returns with hubris dripping offof them, it simply validifies
the argument and the fear,making it more difficult for
those who want to get aneducation.
It just makes it more difficult.

Speaker 3 (01:36:41):
Most.
What you're saying kind ofmakes me think of the fact that
most ideas, most theories are attheir essence really really
simple common sense things.
They just it just academiaalmost, is just a different
language, a different lingo, butthese are really interesting
ideas that anybody can engagewith.

(01:37:02):
Most theories in my field atleast, humanities are.
And one thing that does happenis, I see, like I'm familiar,
say with this is going to bevery on the nose, but here we go
.
I'm familiar with early churchscholarship and there are people
who go into Anabaptist circles,who have no background in early
church scholarship, who havesuddenly the authority to

(01:37:25):
dictate so much of people'slives this is in recent years
and what is true and what isdoctrinal, based on their very,
very limited expertise.
But you can't argue with thembecause they will use their
education and their arguments touh bowl you over, to steamroll

(01:37:45):
people with their knowledge ofsuch and such writings by
tertullian or origin or whatever.
And it irritates me becausethat's not.
They're not even from thesefields.
They don't engage in the waythat scholars do.
There's so much that's lacking.
But they are the experts in theroom and they can weaponize

(01:38:06):
this so-called expertise againstAnabaptist communities
especially who do not have thatprior knowledge of this
particular field of scholarshipand in the same breath.

Speaker 2 (01:38:19):
They can almost suggest that because you're
Amish, mennonite, whatever, youshouldn't have an education.
But because you don't have aneducation, then let me educate
you.
They're trying to drive the car.

Speaker 1 (01:38:31):
Yes, they're trying to drive the car and, in doing
that, revealing their ignorance,revealing how much they don't
know.

Speaker 2 (01:38:39):
But then they again convince people that an
education is bad, because thisis how educated people show up.

Speaker 1 (01:38:46):
Making it harder Reinforce the stereotype.

Speaker 2 (01:38:49):
Making it harder for those who desperately want an
education.
They make it just moredifficult for those people to
receive it, and I just thinkthose of us from those
communities who are fortunateenough to receive an education
should be, of all people, themost humble, the most kind, the
most compassionate, generous.

(01:39:10):
We should generous and weshould never try to get in other
people's driver's seats.
We should be empowering them toget into their own seat instead
of telling them you have baddoctrine, you are uneducated,
you have whatever it is theamount of things people can
think they can get away withsaying, like about, say, amish

(01:39:31):
or mennonite people, especiallyin the amish.

Speaker 3 (01:39:33):
they'll be like, oh well, you know they're amish,
they don't know the bible, orthey're mennonite, they don't
have good doctrine.
It's just that you know, likethose articles that Jeanette
Harder publishes, like you haveto talk to an Amish woman, like
she has an intellectualdisability, yeah, it just like.

Speaker 2 (01:39:50):
it just makes me want to gag, or because so many
Amish Mennonite women haveexperienced sexual abuse they
can't know Jesus.
Well, I've heard that.

Speaker 3 (01:40:02):
I've heard that too I mean it's, it's.

Speaker 2 (01:40:06):
it makes me sad because I, I am more than ever.
I understand why there is this,this distrust of education
within the communities.
Like I'm understanding it, butI'm also going to fight against
it, because I, I, I will alwaysbe fighting for education.
But for the love, oh mygoodness, don't prove people

(01:40:30):
right when you actually receiveyour education.
Like, don't prove thatnarrative right.
Well, yeah, yeah, that looksimportant.

Speaker 1 (01:40:41):
Well, no, I'm just trying to get my head around.
I feel my blood sugar kind ofdropping and my brain cells are
slowing down, starting to slowdown, but it's just I hear what
you're saying about you knowsomeone getting maybe somebody
reading a David Bersow book orsomething like that.
You know, like a I didn't sayit out- loud the name, but let's
go with it.

Speaker 3 (01:41:01):
Yeah, somebody reading a David Bersow book or
something like that.

Speaker 1 (01:41:04):
you know like a self-published books about the
early church right.
And so authoritatively, soauthoritatively.
And confidently and confidentlyand I raised my hand.
As someone who, in my earlyyears, read that and was you

(01:41:25):
know, I was quite taken in by it.
So I guess, yeah, I'm just oneI don't have anything really
profound to say other than tojust affirm what you're saying.
That like having a little bit,a little bit of knowledge, just
enough to advance an agenda, butnot enough to actually have an

(01:41:45):
understanding of what it isyou're talking about, is just, I
mean, and it's no longer abouteducation, it's about driving
the car, it's about weaponizingwhat little information you have
and distorting it.
And, yeah, that's hugelyproblematic.

Speaker 2 (01:42:04):
Well, and I think a true scholar knows that the more
you know, or the more you learn, the less you know.
Yeah, there is so much to learn.
There is so much about anysubject, there is so much to
learn.

Speaker 1 (01:42:18):
We were saying early on.
Rebecca Mooney, you mentionedthat the more advanced you get,
the more specific your area ofresearch is, and it would seem
logical that the more Ispecialize into my very niche
area of research, the more I'drecognize oh, everybody else has

(01:42:41):
their own little niches, youknow, and it would recognize the
limits of my little niche andhave a new respect for all.
There is to know that I don'tknow, and maybe that's my
naivete that I think that shouldbe the response, but to me it's
pretty obviously a power grab.

Speaker 3 (01:43:00):
If someone loses that sense of curiosity and decides
they know now and they can speakwith finality and authority on
something, is that there was, Ithink, an engineering professor
here at Virginia Tech whodecided that he was going to be

(01:43:22):
a creationist and writeextensively and this was decades
ago some of the first volumesof creation science, while
absolutely having no knowledgeof biology.
This is an engineer.
Yes, to dictate like, very like.
You know how engineering worksaccording to principles.

(01:43:43):
The principles and the formulasthen become so this formulate
thinking and fundamentalism gohand in hand and they came
together in this particularinstance.
But there's something to lookout for, I guess in any field
humanities, political science,people that we know what
fundamentalism is because we'velived it, we've known like the

(01:44:05):
formulaic thinking, the absoluteRigidity.
There'll be people who doMarxist research, who are
fundamentalists and you're likeoh wow, they're just basically
like Fundy Baptist, just abouttheir theory.
But there's an agenda, thatthere's often an agenda and like
a desire to make the world worka certain way and shoehorn the

(01:44:28):
world into this reality.
This is why I personally reallyliked the culture and I'm
writing an article about theASAS symposium this year from
what I've experienced becausethere was a lot of humility in
the very plain groups that came.
Everybody there is trying tofigure out what to do with this
and there's a sense of we don'thave all the answers.

(01:44:51):
The groups that believe thatthey have all the answers and
know everything and know how theworld works and have an agenda
and whatever, and they show upto educate.
They weren't there.
And if they were there, theydidn't stay very long.
There is a difference.
So I actually was going to writean article, which I'll probably
put in my Medium blog, aboutthe fact that I feel these

(01:45:13):
kingdom Christian slash charitygroups are dangerous in the
sense of there's a worldview andthese formulas have to work, or
else and if they, if they dealwith abuse, it usually is to a
prove how other groups are wrongand their group is better, or b
get it out of the way so theycan get around along with a real
project, whereas people whoactually take abuse, spiritual

(01:45:37):
abuse, violence in the churchseriously are not those who are
going to have every piece oftheir theological jigsaw and
cultural pride intact, likethere's a strong sense of
humility, literally.
I think it was somebody from theMidwestern church who responded
to my workshop and was like oh,you were critiquing these ideas

(01:46:00):
largely in an evangelicalcontext.
I've I've actually think wemennonites believe the exact
same things and we're teachingthem and you should directly
criticize mennonite culture morelike I mean, that is such a
open and humble and curious yeah, and I was like was like no, I

(01:46:20):
didn't come here to tell youguys what you're all doing wrong
either.
I'm reflecting on thesequestions from my lived
experience in these evangelicalsources, like I didn't want to
come in the room steamrollingtelling you know, that's not,
that wasn't the point.
But we were able to connect tothat and I thought that was just
such an interesting comment toget.
What a beautiful commentactually.

Speaker 1 (01:46:41):
Yeah, it's very hopeful, encouraging, yeah, and
open and non threatened.

Speaker 2 (01:46:52):
Well, so the rest of the world can get more of
Rebecca Mui.
I think you should tell uswhere we can find you.

Speaker 1 (01:46:55):
I know you're all over, all over the social media
world, but and we'll put allthese links, and we'll put all
the links in the show note.
Show notes too, if you know, ifyou miss anything.
But yes, tell us, tell us, Idon't often talk about education
on.

Speaker 3 (01:47:09):
Most, like most of my stuff is about abuse, but I
guess that's good stuff.
It's part of the theme of thispodcast.
I can give you my Twitter Xaccount and, I guess, the medium
account.
But just, I guess, beforewarned that, uh, most of
these, most of the my researchor interest in at this moment,
is in spiritual abuse, whichactually kind of overlaps.

Speaker 1 (01:47:32):
I think so, I think so.
What is the name of your Medium?

Speaker 3 (01:47:38):
blog.
I'll just give you the link,like it's usually just my name,
like xcom slash, mui Rebecca andthen Mediumcom slash.
Let me just check for a second.

Speaker 1 (01:47:49):
Okay, and that spelling.
While you do that, the spellingof your name is
R-E-B-E-K-A-H-M-U-I.

Speaker 3 (01:47:58):
Yeah, that's my Medium account too, Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:48:01):
Wow, this has been so good.

Speaker 2 (01:48:04):
I feel like we should do this, like you know, once a
month.
We need to do this more.
If you want to hear more frommy dear friend Mui, just tell us
.

Speaker 3 (01:48:15):
Absolutely, I just miss talking to you.
We miss each other when they'renot here, I know, I know.

Speaker 1 (01:48:22):
And if she talks about Mrs Koblentz, it's not me,
and there's a link at the topof the show notes.
It says text us.
You can send us a text directlyfrom your phone.
We'd love to hear from you.
All right?

Speaker 2 (01:48:36):
Thanks so much, rebecca Mui and Rebecca, who may
or may not be Rebecca thesedays, we don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:48:44):
And thank you listeners and we will catch you
next time.

Speaker 2 (01:49:02):
Thank you for spending time with us today.
The resources and materialswe've mentioned are linked in
the show notes and on Facebookat Uncovered Life Beyond.

Speaker 1 (01:49:09):
What are your thoughts about college and
recovery from high demandreligion?
We know you have your ownquestions and experiences and we
want to talk about the topicsthat matter to you.
Share them with us atuncoveredlifebeyond at gmailcom.
That's uncoveredlifebeyond atgmailcom.

Speaker 2 (01:49:29):
If you enjoyed today's show and found value in
it, please rate and review it onyour favorite podcast app.
This helps others find the showWhile you're there.
Subscribe to our podcast so younever miss an episode Until
next time stay brave, stay bold,stay awkward.

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