 I'm Grace Lottick and this is Educating Ourselves in These Difficult Times on ThinkTech Hawaii. I am a communications major at Hawaii Pacific University and interned here at ThinkTech. In my series I cover the unique challenges presented by coronavirus and how it has impacted education. In today's episode we will be delving into the challenges presented by coronavirus on educators, the shift of a college classroom experience to an online setting and the anthropological significance and impact of pandemics. Today my special guest is Dr. Rob Borowski, Director of the Center for Public Anthropology, Professor of Anthropology at Hawaii Pacific University and founding editor of the California series in Public Anthropology. He will be sharing how coronavirus has impacted his role as an educator and how anthropology can be an important tool to understand the evolution and future of pandemics. Thank you for being a guest on my show today Dr. Borowski. You're welcome Grace. So for today's program for our first segment I'd like to focus on the impact that coronavirus has had on educators and then for the second half of our show I'd like to focus on the anthropological significance of this pandemic and what anthropology can teach us about global issues particularly COVID-19. So to start off our show today could you share with us what have been some of the greatest challenges of being an educator during this difficult time? I'm perhaps not the best person to talk you about all these difficult challenges and sufferings because I'm enjoying myself. If you understand his deep problems with education in the United States and around the world in the United States you have a book came out in 2011 called academically adrift in other studies confirmed it that about a third of the students who go to college for four years come out without having made any improvements in critical thinking problem-solving or effective writing that means they went in they had a good time and so forth but they did not get a real sense of education and so we have in these have been known for since 2011 but there's a sense that educators sort of talk about changing and they've been certainly talking about all the change they haven't changed very much they smile at you when they talk about changes if that would be enough so the coronavirus is a very traumatic experience no doubt about that for a whole lot of students and administrators a lot of schools are going to lose considerable sums of money a lot of students aren't going to go back they're going to have to transform what they do online versus in person classes and so this is at the same time a deep trauma it was also I would suggest an opportunity how can you remake education in this stressful difficult time to really help students learn more not just teach which is what often happens with teachers focusing on how they teach students the idea is can you help facilitate learning among students and so for me at least I've enjoyed using Zoom in the classroom with actually grace and doing these interactions in which we try and work together as a learning community so my basic answer is it's going to be stressful it's going to be traumatic it may be a turn to the better when we recover who knows but I would hope good would come out of this trauma I definitely hope so as well that's definitely a shocking statistic that only one out of three college students really get anything out of their college education so what do you think this pandemic has revealed to us about what college students are really getting out of their education and how do you think that education will be transformed as a result of this pandemic one it's not clear what students will get out of it we never know some clearly viewed as a major crisis which it is it's a very very serious problem for a number of students it goes from the minor not being able to celebrate your graduation with all your probably well cohort your friends and family to really how are they going to get through where they're going to gain a synchronic education which is you just get in you do the assignments versus synchronic which is like this in the zoom I different in they give different things but the question really is can they adapt to change can they improve and they having to date we will see it's an opportunity and what would it look like I personally would like to see more internships like Northeastern University where you go out into work in the community as part of your course load I would like to see education for what is real to create a quote a famous educated John Dewey from the early 1900s and I think what you really want is to explore how students can learn more effectively they pay a great deal of money to facilitate a great deal of academic bureaucrats I'm not sure we can do it more efficiently more effectively if we focus not in teaching but on learning so it's an open question can we focus on students really learning what the need for meaningful lives and careers I definitely agree with that I think that adaptability and learning how to learn effectively definitely are key skills that will carry a student far beyond just the classroom itself with this shift sorry but you need a certain resilience for sure this is really a tough time for the people no doubt it's gonna get much worse in terms of economics can you have the resilience to find opportunities in this difficult time but I interrupt so what the shift to online learning what experiences would you say have been lost or enhanced for college students what you've lost is teachers comfort zone what you've lost is students comfort zone students in these election large lecture halls like University of Michigan University of California system they go in they pitch a type they do whatever and they leave it's not clear what they learn it teaches just lecture it is a famous movie video called declining by degrees and talks about teachers saying she has a bag and unwritten bag in the students you don't ask much of me and I don't ask much of you and they just go on through the motions maybe that could change maybe teachers would focus now on helping students learn I'd be great I definitely agree it's really sad to me today that so many college professors just take advantage of their position just speak there to their students but don't really care about what they get away from the lecture per se or what skills they're developing as a result of their investment into college and academics you mentioned earlier that this pandemic I view it as a little world it teaches about in the universities but it pervasive throughout the western world you mentioned that this pandemic has definitely caused educators to get out of their comfort zone so what are some lessons that you've learned as a result of the shift to online learning it can be fun I never taught online learning before but I didn't like this aches and chronic of just doing assignments and students passing the men but doing zoom in class it's fun you interact with them you it's not the same as doing it in person but it's differences but it's fun how would I know that learning or teaching online having students learn online interacting with them could be fun that's what I'm sorry I can't complain I definitely agree that zoom learning has been fun it's especially been a privilege to be a student of your anthropology class you've definitely kept class very entertaining and engaging and I definitely still feel like I'm getting just as much out of my education in your class as I was in the classroom with you thank you I appreciate that overall what do you think the impact of this shift has been on students have you had to make any specific accommodations for curriculum have you noticed increased stress in students or are they perhaps struggling in areas that they weren't previously I think students are struggling some can respond to change better than others but um you have to have a sense of compassion for students maybe always but certainly now as you try and adjust to a whole new situation they're going to face a really difficult economic environment and they're not sure what their lives are going to be like after college they may not have been sure beforehand but now they're really unsure what it's going to be like and so they're trying to feed these out I think what the main adjustment I've had to do is just have a sense of compassion more compassion for them in terms of what I teach in the introductory course I still have eight books in the advanced course I have 11 books these are 300 page books so one book in the introductory course that Grace yourself had won the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature on the collapse of the Soviet Union and what it was like I don't think you should lower your standards here but I think you should really help students reach these and it's always I think the job of teachers to help students reach these empower them as learners power them as being able to think for themselves feel empowered to really change things to take their lives and make something up I definitely do agree with the philosophy that it's crucial for professors to give students the tools for success and I definitely think that having compassion during this time is crucial for professors to have because they may not necessarily understand how students may be coping with this pandemic I think that has definitely been a difficult time for all of us and I think that it's important for us to understand that each of us do have a different way of coping with global issues such as COVID-19 overall how would you say that the online experience has differed from the classroom experience some students have complained that perhaps it's less formal or they feel is not as engaging as being in a classroom what does it felt like for you I'm sorry to tell you it's been fun it's been a whole no experience here I am I'm 76 um I've taught 37 years at Hawaii Pacific and Hawaii Low University I never taught an online course before I'm doing it now and it's fun it's different um you get students eat it eat in front of you you get to see the children sometimes students brought their kids to class because they couldn't find a babysitter but right now it's it becomes a little less formal because you're focusing on the key things of the book or the ideas that you're trying to get of a broader nature and trying to be inclusive and having them really think in groups and as individuals but I don't think I even make too many changes in what I'm doing and I apologize for not complaining they say you're not suffering and have all these difficult times when change comes I think the only thing you can do is get out of the resilience to respond to face up to them and adapt I definitely agree and it is an inspiration to me that you've continued to have such a positive attitude in spite of this massive global issue and to really enjoy and like bask in the new experiences that you can get out of online learning I think that definitely having that I think that having that spirit definitely does have students to have that spirit and approach towards their classes as well I definitely think that in our zoom class just keeping the same structure that we had before still allowing us to break out into discussion groups definitely just gives me the comfort of how our class used to be and it just helps me to create some sense of normalness in my life because I think that many of us feel as though we've lost the sense of normalness within COVID-19 I think that some of my other classes they've definitely changed drastically it's more difficult to interact with my professor but in your class you've definitely done an amazing job of ensuring that we still have that interaction with you and that interaction with our classmates I do think it's my moral responsibility to do that as a teacher who's supposed to help you in these difficult times and there's no doubt they're difficult thank you Dr. Browski what teachers are supposed to do adapt and help I agree in a moment actually Dr. Browski we will be taking a short break in the meantime I'm Grace Lodik and you are watching Educating Ourselves in These Difficult Times on ThinkTech Hawaii with my special guest Dr. Rob Browski we will be back shortly. Hello Haa I'm Lillian Cumick host of Lillian's Vegan World the show where we talk about veganism and the plant-based diet located in Honolulu Hawaii I'm a vegan chef and cooking instructor and I have lots of information to share with you about how awesome this plant-based diet is so do tune in every second Thursday from 1pm Aloha I was the head coach for the Punahou Boys varsity tennis team for 22 years and we were fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championships my show is based on my book also titled Beyond the Lines and it's about leadership creating a superior culture of excellence and finding greatness I feature a wide range of amazing guests who share valuable insights about how going beyond the lines leads to success in everything you do in life I'm looking forward to you joining me every Monday at 11am Aloha Welcome back to Educating Ourselves in These Difficult Times with my guest Dr. Rob Browski professor of anthropology at Hawaii Pacific University and director of the Center for a Public Anthropology for the second half of our show I'd like to focus on what anthropology can teach us about the pandemic and how it can be used as an important tool for us to better understand global issues such as the coronavirus so for some of our viewers who may not be familiar with the term what exactly is anthropology? Anthropology is different things different people you have to understand great that in the 1800s there weren't all these different sociology political science economics and anthropology these all grew up during the early 1900s when these departments or these subjects went into universities and they had to define themselves as different from one another and so they formed departments they're artificial because their different history and anthropology in the Pacific to my mind is nil between political science and anthropology they're often the same we may study different areas but anthropology certainly study in Western Europe and political sciences certainly study in Africa and Asia so I'm not sure there's that they're really defined but let me give you a definition an imperfect and that is that anthropology studies variations in human beings through time and space so variations in time is the evolution of human beings pro magnum, neanderthals all these things that we're finding out about how old the homo sapiens are in space we around how people live around the world I myself spent three and almost a half years on a small coral atoll in the middle of the South Pacific about 2,000 miles south of Kuwait called Puka Puka in the Cook Islands so we live around in diverse places the goal is to use the insights of difference human beings at one of the special traits of all human beings is their diversity you can say all humans share these traits but diversity is really something they all share because they're all different in so many ways so you want to use diversity how things are different to find out through comparison how to have insight into how different people live what are the dynamics of the behavior and in that way to improve them so if we take coronavirus which is a straightforward thing we've seen Sweden them ignoring it and now they're having to suffer for that we've seen Korea South Korea they're being rather efficient we've seen Germany they're being efficient and the United States not the United States now has the highest death rate of any country for the coronavirus you ask why why this diversity of human beings has led to this different result and so we can study these and we can find better ways to do it and so that would be an anthropological perspective on you know the coronavirus today using diversity in comparison to better understand the dynamics of work overall what human behaviors and interactions would you say help to create this perfect storm per se for a pandemic like COVID-19 to occur people aren't so interested in changing they've come to the belief that since World War II particularly the pandemics don't really occur they occur far away the Ebola epidemic pandemic occurred far away from us the flu comes every year but people have got sort of blasé about these deadly diseases and the suffering and disastrous economic consequences and people's lives that can occur that people die and so they they become comfortable it's not having them if you go through history these have made a major difference in the constructions of society throughout the world the black plague transformed Europe from a feudal society in this pre-modern era that it went through afterwards I believe that 200 million people died we only have I think 150,000 worldwide we are absolutely petrified that of all these things happening and so yeah we have to get the question back I'm sorry but it's it is difficult how would you say how would you say that our global environment today differs from past pandemics that tended to be more centralized and didn't spread as quickly and do you think that our global environment today has led to an inevitability of pandemics like COVID-19 to occur well let's start with the global environment I believe that that has been going on to the Silk Road I believe the Bourbon plague came along the Silk Road to Europe from Asia you may not know why the Spanish flu is called the Spanish flu I believe it started that flu epidemic started in Kansas during training camps for the Americans going overseas and neither the allies nor I think the Germans really wanted to highlight the disease that was occurring in the front during the war it was devastating 50 million people died from it more than died in the fight actual fighting so they called it the Spanish flu because Spain was not involved but clearly I'm in that World War I but there clearly is a problem here that people have been communicating in trading with one another for centuries millennia so that's come it's much more common today but what's the real problem here is that the coronavirus is highly contagious it just can spread and you do not know from the symptoms immediately whether people have it and some people may not have it it can be a carrier not just for the two weeks but far after that it's turning into a very complicated issue which will affect about opening up the economy again so from an anthropologist's perspective what do you think that our future will look like after COVID-19 and do you think that any cultural practices or human behaviors or interactions may change as a result of this pandemic I'd say absolutely but I'm not sure what they are not sure this is a really traumatic event as I said with students with people in general they're afraid their normal worlds have been upset they're looking for people to blame as a tool of coping rather than just coping but exactly how we don't know will the economy international global economy shut down somewhat perhaps but as you know the different countries have been trying to close off others from coming in it's absolutely legal in the United States to stop people from one state going to another incitate commerce the United States since its founding it's part of the Constitution I believe just today the Guardian from Britain had this wonderful video about how they were appreciating all these immigrants who were helping with national health organization national whatever it is NIH I don't know it's whatever it's called and it's very nicely really appreciating immigrants they were trying to it was a very touching movie about how the immigrants should be embraced because they're really helping as you may know in the California valleys or the fruit eventually was the mostly picked by immigrants so in one time people trying to back set these barriers up against having outsiders they can't live without these outsiders and so they'll fluctuate a bit but it strikes me that we have to live with outsiders whether we like it or not to have any sense of standard of living to have any sense of being able to have meaningful lives I definitely agree with that so for all of us personally how can we use anthropology as a tool to better understand global issues such as coronavirus anthropology emphasizes studying differences of people engaged with these and what the basis of these differences are if you compared one difference with another how people cope with a difference such as coronavirus you can get a better sense of how would be a more effective way why is Germany more effective at dealing with coronavirus in France make sure people in France have an answer the people in Germany do and the Italians have and the Spanish have and they all have these national character statements but these are important to know why China why is South Korea better we believe I believe China would get a reasonable job though those statistics are unclear exactly what they are somewhat like Collins spent the flu the American flu the Spanish flu during World War I but there's a sense of using differences comparison to really understand the broader issues how we're going to cope with these different things we have let's think of something well education international education has been central to funding many American universities and Britain actually in Canada as well and this is going to change how are they going to try and appeal to other people how can they really draw people in to collective intellectual community in a time of stress it's clearly happening you have to figure out innovative ways so what would be really nice is if people become innovative and really try with a sense of compassion rather than hatred to really figure out how they can work with others who are different than themselves to do better things to build a better world I definitely agree I think that a lot of people ago at times they are changing they're always changing you know use difference in comparison really improves human life I definitely agree that anthropology is a tool that we can use in our own personal lives to learn more about the pandemic and to better teach us how we can change our behaviors and how we can shape a future that'll prevent the emergence of a pandemic like COVID-19 again that's actually all the time that we have for our show today but I just wanted to thank you again Dr. Boroski for being a guest on my show and to thank you for watching Think Tech Hawaii we hope that today's program shed some light on the unique challenges presented by coronavirus for educators and how anthropology can be an important tool in understanding the development and future of pandemics again I'm Grace Lodik and see you every other Thursday at noon Aloha