Season 2, Ep. 1 – The Teaching Interpreter: Starting the Conversation

Watch in ASL

Hi! Welcome to season 2 of the Amanda’s Musings podcast – this season is entitled “the Teaching Interpreter” where we will explore the various ways in which inteprreters are taught, mentored, coached, and influenced in their growth and development as an interpreter.

I’m Amanda Smith an interpreter, educator, coach, and creative. I love to discuss the puzzles of interpreting, the complexities of human interaction, and the power we have within ourselves to make a difference.

Today’s episode is to start the conversation around this topic, you can find the show notes at arsmithstudios.com and click the “podcast” button in the upper right navigation bar.

I want you to think about the following reflective prompts as you listen:

1. What, if anything, is sparking your care for the profession, those you influence in the profession, and yourself as a leader?
2. Do you feel moved to take any action? If so, what? When?
3. What questions arise?
4. What insights & connections do you see to yourself?

Starting the Conversation

So I’ve received a few asks about teaching, interpreting. I sent out a poll to my newsletter list to just see what people were wondering about. Side note, I’d love to hear from you if you have questions about teaching too. So look for a link to that in the show notes. I’ve been teaching interpreting for the last two decades, and teaching those who wanted to teach interpreting for over a decade, and there’s so much that I want to share with you, I’ve been a little bit stuck about where to start, so I’m just going to follow my own advice and just start somewhere and get the conversation going.

The Normalcy of Professional Disorientation

So one of the questions that I got, excuse me, one of the questions that I got was about teaching. Was a question about the rhetoric of the ITP versus the reality of our field. How do we close the gap? And I think that those that’s really two questions. So the chasm between what is taught in ITPs and what the field requires. And I used the word chasm, but I think as this conversation unfolds, we could argue how big of a chasm that is, and then the second is about closing the gap.

So I want to start with the second one, closing the gap. So there has long been a narrative about the gap between school and work. My co researcher, Dr, Elisa Maroney, and I have researched this topic at our at a specific institution, as well as across institutions. And there have been many, many other researchers who have delved into this arena of how to close the gap. There also have been agencies who attempt to close the gap through apprenticeship programs or school to work programs or any of those kinds of things. So it’s a pretty common theme in our field. It feels like we’ve been trying to close this gap since I joined the field nearly 30 years ago.

So I’m wondering if it’s time to reframe the discussion.

What if the gap is normal?

What if there’s nothing to be closed or fixed, but rather to be navigated and traveled through?

What if the gap isn’t bad, but a normal part of the shaping process of a professional?

I don’t necessarily have deep knowledge or research into other professions, but do we really believe that other professions graduate other professionals, I guess, just, I should say, graduate from schooling and immediately meet all the expectations and requirements of the field in which they work. If you’re anything like me, if you’ve lived near a teaching hospital, if you’ve lived if you’ve worked with new attorneys, or any of those other professions, I think we can all recognize that they don’t enter the field immediately ready to do all the things that a seasoned professional does in their realm. That’s why things like onboarding processes, oh, what’s the other word? Onboarding induction processes are popular for teachers, for counselors, for all kinds of professions, right? It’s something that there’s also stages of professions in various in various other professions. Those stages look different that help people on their trajectory of becoming professional and continuing to become professional.

So I just wonder how the narrative of needing to close the gap impacts the morale of upcoming interpreters, as if there’s something wrong with them or deficient in them in the sense of worthiness, like certainly, we can be deficient in skill sets. We’re always deficient in skill sets. I’m still deficient in certain skill sets, even though I’m competent in other skill sets, right? So, but this narrative that they’re missing something, or all the work that they put in, all the effort that they’ve put in to get to this point is still not enough, and I wonder how that plays out for them.

Right? What if it was normal to struggle struggle during the adjustment period between student and professional? What if it was normal to experience disorientation? What if we expected to go through that? I’ll put a couple of references in the show notes. There have been a couple of researchers who’ve looked at kind of like transition shock between student and, you know, professional or student and adults, you know, that sort of thing. But what if we actually told them to expect that so rather than, you know, they get shoved off of a cliff at the end of an interpreting program of like, good luck, and there’s no one to receive them on the other side.

What if they knew that you’re about to enter a period of disorientation, and here are some tools that you could take along with you. What if we taught them how to navigate that very normal experience of disorientation, with reflection, awareness, choice, all of those kinds of things.

Navigating the Transitions

And I think about my transition right now, so I am leaving a place that I have worked for almost two decades and entering back into a place that I used to work as a freelance interpreter. But also this is not the freelancing world that I worked in 20 years ago, right? So I am in a state of disorientation. Is it because I chose poorly? Is it because I’m doing something wrong? Is it because I’m deficient in something? Certainly I’m deficient in some skill sets that I’m going to need in the freelance world. But I as a human, as a as a human, I guess I should say I am not deficient. I’m experiencing disorientation, and I’m going to go through the reorientation process as this continues to unfold.

I’m so curious what your thoughts are on this, this idea of what if the conversation wasn’t about deficit, but was about normalizing the disorientation and providing tools through the disorientation, not to skirt around it, not to avoid it, but to go through the disorientation process, because that process shapes us into who we become.

So I have no doubt there will be future episodes on this topic, and I hope to share some of your insights, thoughts and questions as well. So feel free to let me know what you’re thinking about that this is obviously just a little kind of teaser of my initial thoughts on this, this question of how do we close the gap.

Rhetoric vs. DeFacto

So now the first question the difference between rhetoric and de facto of the interpreting profession. So the rhetoric shared in Interpreter Education programs and what is happening in the field, I believe it was worded specifically as the reality of our field, and I think that this is a real separate and connected issue to the concept of the gap. So I have a couple of questions that I think could shape this conversation, so I’m going to kind of go through those in a bullety kind of way, to open the conversation and then share a couple of my thoughts. So here’s a couple of questions.

• One, what is the relationship between the educational institution and the community surrounding it? And I mean the community at large, sub communities, institutions within that community. You know, cross institutional, intra institutional, whatever the word is for institutional collaborations. But what’s the relationship with the educational institution and the community surrounding it?
• Two? What is the relationship between the faculty and the work of interpreting. So what is there that relationship
• Three? What is the relationship between theory and practice within within the curriculum of the program?
• Four how long is the program? And by that I mean time. I also mean number of courses, how the courses are structured, kind of thing. But how long is the program? How? How dense is the program? Maybe also. So something about volume, I think, is there
• Five what are the constraints of the institution. So I think we probably all know that when you earn a degree, you don’t get you don’t just take classes that are about the degree that you’re getting. So how much of the degree can be the major, and how much of it has to be something else, how much authentic work can be done within the confines of a classroom, and any other constraints that might exist at the institution,
• 6, to what level of understanding or competence are we expecting the graduates, graduates to leave with which might be related to the question about how long is the program and what kind of constraints they have right but are the expectations of students coming out of a program that they would be ready to work alongside a seasoned interpreter and provide exactly the same services, or is it something else than that, right? So what are our expectations in terms of where we see the difference between the rhetoric of the program and the reality of the profession itself.
• Another question I think that we can ask that kind of to help us get into this topic, is, is it true that the program doesn’t address the realities of the field, or does it not get students farther, far enough along that path? So is it not comprehensive enough?
  So maybe there is. Maybe they do talk about the realities of the field, but they only get to scratch the surface of the realities of the field, right? It also could be that they don’t talk about the realities of the field. It’s all theoretical, right? That that is, but those are two different things, right? If I, if I scratch the surface of the surface of the realities, but I don’t get to go deep, because my program is not long enough. Is a different issue than we never even talked about the realities. We just talked about the theoretical underpinnings, right? Or maybe there is a heavy emphasis on language and culture, but not the other complexities of the work of interpreting, like processing, time and management, professional boundaries, confidence and presence, ethical decision making, Team interpreting, self awareness, whether someone is a fit for a job or not, self regulation, as well as all the other things that interpreters are expected to know and do.
  So. It could be that the that a program’s curriculum is so outdated that it is fully ineffective in preparing interpreters for the current modern generation.
  
  It could be the case that there isn’t enough time to cover all the things in the complexities of the work.
  
  It could be the case that it gives a taste of reality, but not a four course meal in it, right? So then that leads me to some other questions, like, what is the role of the community of practitioners. And maybe that would be phrased as the relationship question.
• What is the relationship between the community of practitioners near the institution and the institution? Are there opportunities to join advisory committees? Are there opportunities to be a guest speaker and give a glimpse of the real world, quote, unquote? Is there an opportunity to take students out into the real world and show them the ropes? Right?
  
  I think that that this question is similar to the gap question in the sense of it’s a long standing conversation that we’ve had in the field, again, the 30, almost 30 years that I’ve been in the field. And if there was an easy answer. We’d have had it. We it would exist, but it doesn’t. So the questions that I’m asking here are more like, can we flesh out what, what we’re actually talking about, and where the problem, quote, unquote, actually lies, one of my favorite quotes from Albert Einstein, that sounds like I have a bunch of quotes that I love from Albert Einstein. One of my favorite quotes that happens to be from Albert Einstein is
• “if I had an hour to solve a problem, I would spend 55 minutes defining the problem and five minutes finding a solution.”
  
  So I think both for the gap question and the rhetoric versus de facto question, I want to define the parameters of what it is that we’re talking about. What are our expectations? What are not meeting those? What are the constraints that we have to live within right in order to build something or construct something that might better suit our needs?
  Because underlying both of these questions, I think, is a dissatisfaction of something I’m dissatisfied with the teams I get, or the interns that I get right out of a program. Okay? What is the dissatisfaction? Is that I forgot? Is it that I have forgotten what it’s like to be new? So I forget so many things have become automatic or rote in my practice, that I forget that used to require time and energy for me or thought for me. Is it that they I don’t have enough to work with, right?
  
  I just think we need to define these in a way that makes them answerable, as opposed to just continuing to perpetuate the questions. So I so appreciate these questions, and I think I’m hopeful that we can really have some constructive dialog around this. So I’m really curious to hear specifically, what do you wish programs knew about the real world of interpreting. So if you had the ear of a program, what would you tell them? And maybe as important, what would you ask them?
  
  I would love for you to share your thoughts with me, as I said about the gap question. I have no doubt this will show up again. I would love to discuss this further if you’re interested in coming on the podcast and having a conversation with me about this, not not a conversation that solves it for all time, although, if we did that, we got cool, not that kind of conversation, but just an unpacking kind of conversation. I would love that, and I think it could really benefit the field and perhaps make its way back to a program and maybe make a difference in the future. So thanks so much.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Conclusion

And again, I want to, I want you to think about anything that might have sparked your care if you feel moved to action questions that arise, what insights and connections you’re making. I’d love to hear from you about those insights ahas and questions. So feel free to reach out to me at arsmithstudios@gmail.com and you can also sign up for my very intermittent newsletter at arsmithstudios.com and click on the newsletter button in the upper right hand corner. So let me go back and answer some of these questions.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai