IW 77: Interview Robyn K Dean Part 3: The Sound of Silent Interpreters

Your Voice is Too Loud! You should let others speak.

In this part 3 of my series with Robyn K Dean, we look at how to improve our professional development on our own. That means, reflect on our practice, speak out about what we do and analyze it. But why is that so hard to do when we have so many workshops?

Robyn breaks it down for us. We discuss some interesting ideas of the dynamics involved with the workshop mentality that many sign language interpreters have.

Enjoy this and the last of the series next week. Until then...

Transcript

IW 77: Interview Robyn K Dean Part 3: The Sound of Silent Interpreters

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[ROCK INTRO MUSIC STARTS] 

00:00:02

Good morning, good evening, good afternoon. Wherever you are, this is the Interpreter's Workshop podcast. I'm Tim Curry, your host. Here we talk everything sign language interpreting the ins, the outs, the ups, the downs, the sideways of interpreting. If you're a student, a new interpreter, experienced interpreter, this is the place for you. If you want to know more, go tointerpretersworkshop.com

00:00:28

Let's start talking... interpreting. 

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00:00:34 Tim

And now the quote of the day by Czechoslovakian born American diplomat Madeleine K Albright.

00:00:44 Tim

“It took me quite a long time to develop a voice. And now that I have it, I'm not going to be silent.”

00:00:53 Tim

In today's episode, Robyn and I discuss many things about professional development and one major point goes through all of them.

00:01:04 Tim

How interpreters learn to analyze their work, but more importantly…

00:01:12 Tim

They need to find their voice again. That means, learn to express themselves not only in the vocabulary of the professional practice field of interpreting, but in the terminology of how to explain what it is they do, WE do.

00:01:33 Tim

Let's get started.

[SHORT TRANSITION MUSIC]

00:01:39 Tim

Can you define or rather characterize the differences between supervision or supervisor, [Robyn: mmm] and what is commonly thought of as mentor or a coach? [Robyn: mhmm]

00:01:53 Robyn

Sure, there's actually a couple of articles out there not regarding uh, not within the interpreting field, because these terms are also an issue in other professions that have similar concepts. [Tim: hmm]

00:02:04 Robyn

They have preceptor, which is uh, which is the term we don't use, but is used often in the medical field, which is a much more of a, of a, of a, of a teacher, more like what we would probably call as a mentor. [Tim: mhmm] And then there's a, a person who is a supervision leader or supervisor. And then there's this, you know, this concept of mentor and so other professions grapple with the distinctions of those.

00:02:24 Robyn

So, I think that's important to recognize. What I would say is useful is that within the context of supervision, whether it's peer supervision or leader facilitated supervision, which is what I provide, um, groups...

00:02:40 Robyn

…is focused on…

00:02:48 Robyn

It's, it's focused on work [Tim: mhmm] and people bringing cases to, to talk about their work. Right? So, if you say that work is supervised, it doesn't mean that it has to be work where somebody is watching you do the work. [Tim: mhmm]

00:03:03 Robyn

But it's supervised in that you report to that person on the work that you do. [Tim: mhmm] And so if you have group supervision, then you have a group of interpreters to which you report your work, right. [Tim: mhmm] And you talk about cases and you do case report and case analysis or what's called Case conferencing.

00:03:20 Robyn

And so, case conferencing is a component of supervision. But then another component of supervision, if the group stays together long enough… If you've got a group supervision group that does case conferencing long enough…

00:03:32 Robyn

These other topics will start to emerge. This more practitioner-based stuff. [Tim: mhmm] This more recognition… like when you start to see patterns in your cases.

00:03:43 Robyn

Or other people start to see the patterns for you… [Tim: mhmm]

00:03:46 Robyn

Then you start to say, “oh, maybe that's about me”, right? [Tim: yeah] And eventually you move away from or learn to expand to include [Tim: mhmm] yourself as the one who needs development [Tim: mhmm] on, um, a more practitioner level versus, versus just about, about the, the work, [Tim: mhmm] though obviously those distinctions are, are hard to make [Tim: mhmm] and sort of drawing a clear cut line. [Tim: mhmm]

00:04:17 Robyn

And then whereas mentor to me and the way I see it used in the US is, um, um, a little bit broader. Whereas you can be you can be a mentee or have a mentor, usually within sort of the early parts of your career as you're sort of needing somebody to go to, to get help with a whole variety of things. [Tim: mhmm]

00:04:39 Robyn

…including how do I do my billing and what about taxes? And this, you know, [Tim: yeah] those kinds of things.

00:04:44 Robyn

Whereas supervision and case conferencing is really expected to be a career-long [Tim: mhmm] thing, you never get done if you will [Tim: mhmm] with supervision, because there's always something to be learned from your practice and there's always something to be learned from your peers practice and from yourself. [Tim: mhmm]

00:05:04 Robyn

… um, and your experiences. And so, the mining of, you know, of learning points and develop- opportunities for development is endless as a career long thing. Whereas to me, mentorship feels...

00:05:17 Robyn

…not that you couldn't go say, “oh, I now I want to go into legal interpreting and I'm, you know, 45 years old. [Tim: mhmm] And so I'm going to find a mentor to help me with this specific task.” I think that's another example of when you can pick up mentoring later. [Tim: mhmm] Where as supervision and case conferencing is meant to be, in my view or my hope for the profession is that it becomes something that we adopt and develop, which it has not done [Tim: mhmm] umm, in the ways in which I would have hoped by now, [Tim: yeah] because I've been talking about this since 2005 [Tim chuckles slightly] and trying to implement it since 2005, and I know there's pockets of individuals and other parts of the world doing, [Tim: mhmm, yeah] you know, something similar as well.

00:06:00 Tim

So, at this point, for the US, would such activities, the mentoring and or the supervision be part of the continuing education units (CEUs), the points that you need for certification?

00:06:17 Robyn

They could and, umm… Certainly people count them when we offer supervision or case conferencing sessions. We offer CEU's and so people certainly…um, umm, get those.

00:06:29 Robyn

But in the US, it's very rare to find interpreters who don’t have a workshop mentality.

00:06:39 Robyn

Don't have this sort of tick the box. [Tim: mhmm] And I don't mean this to be critical. I think it's the way we set it up, [Tim: mhmm] right? And so that's everybody's frame of mind [Tim: right] is that you know, you, you tick a box. You go to a workshop, you learn something, you go home.

00:06:53 Robyn

It's, it's…

00:06:54 Robyn

It's discrete, right? [Tim: mhmm] It's, it's time limited.

00:06:57 Robyn

And the other thing I think it's a lot, I think also workshops allow you a certain amount of distance [Tim: mhmm] from the material, right? [Tim: mhmm] And where you're… I mean even Zoom allows us to be even more distanced from it. [Tim chuckles: yeah] And so when you say to people, hey, you know what, there's this other option. “You can sit, it might be in Zoom, but you can sit with only five other people, six other people and talk in very intimately… [both chuckle] … about your work.”

00:07:22 Robyn

Everybody's going to go, “I don't think so.” [Tim: yeah] I mean, I think that they like the benefits that we promise, right? [Tim: mhmm] And research has shown, umm, you know, that there are, are significant benefits, including sustainability. [Tim: mhmm]

00:07:33 Robyn

And, and ----- and sustainability to the profession as well as health, mental health, et cetera. So I think that that's not [Tim: mhmm] the issue. The issue is, is that you're asking interpreters to do something that that is uncomfortable. [Tim: yeah] And the other thing I wonder about, and this is something I've wondered about myself.

00:07:54 Robyn

Because I see it in myself.

00:07:57 Robyn

Since I've become an interpreter, there are things about me that are different personality wise. I… If you look at my report cards from elementary school, every single one of them is going to say chatterbox, chatterbox, motor mouth, chatterbox, motor mouth, right. I'm talking all the time [Tim: mhmm] in elementary school and certainly into high school. Though they didn't write those kinds of notes. [Tim laughing]

00:08:16 Robyn

I just got C's.

00:08:18 Robyn

As a means of, of, of referring back to my lack of self-control, but, umm…

00:08:25 Robyn

And I remember my mom saying to me probably about a decade ago, she said to me as there were sort of long silence in between us talking one day, she said, “you used to talk so much. [Tim laughing] You used to always have something to say, and now you don't have anything to say.” And I think interpreting turned me into a listener. [Tim: yeah]

00:08:47 Robyn

Or somebody who's quite happy to have nobody talking. [both chuckling]

00:08:53 Robyn

I mean, there's other things like my, all my wardrobe is, you know, [Tim: uh huh, yeah, yeah]  contrasting colors and dark colors and grays and blacks, there's…

00:08:59 Robyn

Other things that I, I am maybe…but there’s… [Tim: mhmm]

00:09:01 Robyn

But this, but this “I'm special.”

00:09:07 Robyn

I don't participate. I just show up [Tim: mhmm] and I'm present. But I'm not a participant. I'm a listener. I'm not an “engager”.

00:09:16 Robyn

I think that that has colored and changed my personality in significant ways. And what supervision asks is us to participate in ways that completely counter what interpreting the, the position interpreting puts us in. And where we've now, I would argue for some of us, if you're like me, have…

00:09:34 Robyn

…become quite comfortable with. [Tim: mhmm]

00:09:36 Robyn

Right? Is this, is this a place of…?

00:09:40 Robyn

I mean, it's powerful, isn't it? [Tim: mhmm] You're sitting in a room and you're able to engage, but in this very protected way, [Tim: mhmm] like a fly on the wall sort of experience. [Tim: mhmm] And so, when you go to an event that you're wanting to participate in, again, I don't want to speak for everybody, but I wonder if it's not also universal that you start to say it's hard to participate when you're so…

00:10:04 Robyn

…used to being the observer and being the listener. [Tim: yeah] Umm, and so I think that's, that's one of the reasons why supervision is such a hard sell. And yet, even though you can promise, “here's what people are saying, here's the value”, right? Interpreters are like, “Yeah, thanks. I'm just going to go to the 9:00 to 5:00 workshop, get my CEU's” [Tim: mhmm] and and God bless them. [both laugh]

00:10:25 Robyn

I don't blame him, you know. [Tim: yeah]

00:10:27 Tim

Recently at the efsli Conference, the keynote speaker, David Wolfenden, he mentions that it's hard for interpreters to speak out for themselves. He said interpreters are used to people judging us. Hearing people judge us. Deaf people judge us. Supervisors judge us.

00:10:48 Tim

Teachers judge us. Other interpreters judge us. And so that may also be part of why it's hard for us to participate in workshops or supervision settings, because we're not used to expressing ourselves and our opinions because we don't want to be judged by that [Robyn: hmm] or we're afraid we will be.

00:11:10 Robyn

Or we haven't had the practice. [Tim: exactly]

00:11:14 Robyn

You know when you've been in a meeting between being an interpreter and being a participant in a meeting and people would say, “Robyn, what do you think?” I would hear the words come out of my mouth and I sounded like an idiot, and I thought, “Oh my gosh.” [Tim chuckling]

00:11:24 Robyn

One of the one of the sort of outgrowths of being an interpreter is that you don't speak for yourself. [Tim: yeah] And therefore the practice of speaking for yourself... [Tim: mhmm]

00:11:34 Robyn

…for me it's... Am I going to be judged? Perhaps. But the other underlying thing is, is grappling and feeling confident in what it is, I have to say to begin with. [Tim: mhmm]

00:11:45 Tim

If there's also that imposter syndrome [Robyn: mmm] creeping in, because ohh now I have to speak for myself, I'm not confident in doing that regularly, so can I really do it?

00:11:56 Robyn

One of the, and one of the, the ideas I've, I've had of, of late is… If you can't get interpreters to come to supervision, can you get supervision to come to interpreters? And I have this sort of beta project I'm working on with a group of interpreters where, OK, so don't show up in group…

00:12:13 Robyn

But what if you looked at your work through particular lenses that I supply (these devices that I've mentioned that give us this sort of distance that we see with the television and human drama). [Tim: mhmm]

00:12:26 Robyn

What if you got those and then started to just sort of apply it in the privacy of your own practice and in the privacy of your own mind first…? [Tim: mhmm]

00:12:35 Robyn

Before you show up and talk about it out loud… umm…

00:12:40 Robyn

To give interpreters the practice that they don't get as an outgrowth of their, of their profession.

00:12:50 Tim

Teaching them how to do what they will be doing in a group supervision. Yeah, yeah.

00:12:57 Robyn

Yeah, it's a missing step. I imagine, right? It's a it's a missing step. You know, they there's a great... You might remember that I have a master’s degree in theology and one of the sort of big phrases that we learned in this very, very liberal theological seminary that I attended was: “It's never the people. It’s always the system.”

00:13:19 Robyn

And so if people are behaving in a way that is perplexing, frustrating, confusing, [Tim chuckling] confounding, it's not them, it's the system. There's something about the system that is leading to that. Now that… you could say that that's a bit of, uh, you know too, you know, overly positive look at...

00:13:39 Robyn

That, that the human… [Tim laughing] that people are all fabulous and it's just systems that are bad. Maybe it's, it's oversimplified, but there's something to be, to be learned from that.

00:13:47 Robyn

And I think that, what…

00:13:50 Robyn

Looking at that behavior of interpreters going, “Oh my gosh talking about my work, you know, learning about these theories, applying them to my practice, all that sounds fabulous. And yet I'm not signing up.” [both chuckle] And trying to figure out what is the disconnect between that excitement that people have upon hearing about it or learning about it [Tim: mhmm] and then actually rocking up on the day.

00:14:09 Robyn

What is that disconnect? I think it's this or I'm proposing and I'm hoping to give the people this sort of middle step that might make the jump…

00:14:18 Robyn

A little easier, or even if it doesn't end up that they, [Tim: mhmm] you know, sign up, but at least it brings them to a place of looking at their practice in these meaningful ways. [Tim: mmm] Again, not just making sense of their work, but making meaning from their work or their practice. [Tim: hmm]

[ROCK TRANSITION MUSIC STARTS]

00:14:34 Tim

A big thank you to everyone who shares this podcast with a colleague and friend. If you want to support the show even more, check out the show notes for links to Buy Me a Coffee because it's very embarrassing to fall asleep during an interview. Thank you. Let's go back.

[ROCK TRANSITION MUSIC ENDS]

00:14:50 Tim

So, out of all of this, so much that we've talked about already, about the settings, context, people's perspective… What is it about ethics that has changed for you, or has it changed since the beginning? The beginning of your work, I should say, not the beginning of time. [Robyn giggles]

00:15:09 Robyn

Well, Aristotle is actually quite well informed in the teleological. [Tim chuckling] He was, you know, spot on, uh, still is today. Umm…

00:15:18 Robyn

I would say the biggest change for me…

00:15:23 Robyn

I, it's not that I didn't practice differently. Once I kind of got over the…

00:15:28 Robyn

…what I taught, “what I was taught in my program is not working in this context [Tim: mhmm] and working with deaf professionals and working with hearing individuals with mental illness.”

00:15:38 Robyn

And I sort of started practicing in the ways in which I now reflect through, you know, I came to understand as teleology and consequences-based decision making [Tim: mhmm] or operationalizing values, et cetera.

00:15:51 Robyn

What I have now, what I didn't have then…

00:15:55 Robyn

Was the vocabulary to talk about it. [Tim: mmm]

00:15:57 Robyn

And I talked about this in my most recent publication in 2022. Bob and I published our most recent article.

00:16:07 Robyn

And I talk about this idea of it's not that I think interpreters have bad judgment or make bad decisions that certainly can be the case. But most of what I think is lacking is the reasoning skills. [Tim: mhmm]

00:16:23 Robyn

It's not What should I do? that interpreters struggle with. It's Why did I do that? What was I responding to? And how do I express that? And it turns out that that's not unique to just interpreters. Daniel Kahneman in his book Thinking Fast and Slow, talks about that.

00:16:42 Robyn

“Speaking about ethics and reasoning skills requires a richer vocabulary than is available in everyday language.” [Tim: mhmm]

00:16:53 Robyn

And what we've been given as interpreters is the everyday language with which to… So, we'll say things like, “oh, well, I did that because I'm a member of the team” or “I did that because it's like I'm not really there” or “I'm an advocate” or “I'm an ally.” Right? [Tim: mhmm, Yeah]

00:17:12 Robyn

Or “I’m a human being.”

00:17:14 Robyn

“I have to sleep at night.” And all of those phrases which I talked about in this article really put us at a disadvantage. I mean, it's all intra-professional speak. I know what interpreters mean when they say those things. [Tim: mhmm]

00:17:28 Robyn

It's just that anybody on the outside listening to us, would think that that was pretty funky, right? Why would you say, “I'm a human being.”? [Tim: mhmm] Right?

00:17:39 Robyn

That's just a matter of fact. [both slightly chuckle]

00:17:42 Robyn

What do you mean, you're…

00:17:43 Robyn

…you made a decision because you have to sleep at night? [Tim: mhmm] You could defend any decision by saying, “I have to sleep at night”, right? [Tim: mhmm] I mean, if you, if you believe that, you know, tap dancing is sort of your calling and you never get an opportunity to tap dance.

00:17:58 Robyn

So, you decided to in the middle of an interpreting assignment, start tap dancing and at the end go, “Well, at least I can sleep at night because I was able to express myself, through the dance of Tap. Right? [laughs] [Tim: mhmm]

00:18:09 Robyn

That's, that's how that gets defended. And yet that would not be a good decision. [Tim laughing too: no] So, so, whether it's saying you're a human or saying you're an ally, [Tim: Hmm, mmm] you're saying you're a member of the team. All of these are phrases that we have passed back and forth one to the other [Tim: mhmm] and they do not develop our decision making. And they don't allow us to be cooperative and collaborative with professionals, other professionals. [Tim: mmm]

00:18:35 Robyn

Because they don't use that nomenclature, they have a whole set of vocabulary that they learn, usually through supervision and case conferencing, and through, you know, ethical training. They have a whole series of vocabulary that they learn to say. This is an outgrowth of the value of non-maleficence. This is an outgrowth of the value of respect for autonomy. [Tim: mhmm]

00:18:56 Robyn

Etc. etc. and…

00:18:59 Robyn

And if we could actually learn and borrow that language, we can actually have a collaborative discussion with professionals in ways that I think we would probably be less frustrated. [Tim: mhmm] Oh, they just don't get what it is that we do. That's sort of an easy pass. They probably don't get what it is that we do because we don't articulate well. [Tim: mhmm]

00:19:21 Robyn

In ways in which another, another person in their position would understand what it is that we do. So, what's different for me between then and now? And I think it's true for other interpreters…

00:19:30 Robyn

Is it's not the decision making the forward-looking movement of “what do I do in this instance”. [Tim: mhmm] It's how do I reason in ways that are sound and rigorous and reflect an understanding of the field of normative professional ethics. And like I said, that was sort of the, the, the, the focus of this article that we just published in Interpreting and Society in 2022.

00:19:57 Robyn

And going back to this idea of restorative. If you learn the language of what does it mean to take respect for autonomy and operationalize it in this context [Tim: mhmm] and then to be able to reason and say, “here's the contextual factors that led me to make this decision. And here's why this supports a respect for autonomy or non maleficence” or et cetera type of approach…[Tim: mhmm]

00:20:21 Robyn

If you learned that there's something very restorative about the ability to do that because it grounds your thinking in something that is timeless and time honored and well respected. [Tim: mhmm] I think that when we flounder… umm…

00:20:38 Robyn

And worry then that leads to more… that kind of perpetuates the imposter syndrome, [slightly chuckling] [Tim: mhmm] right? Because you don't have the language. If you had the language, then you're not a imposter. You're actually well versed and able to, to express and articulate it. But that's not something you learn in a one-off workshop. [Tim: no]

00:20:57 Robyn

Learning to operationalize values and, and, and reasoning skills is something that's developed over time, and that's another distinction between supervision and mentoring. Supervision particularly pays attention to the vocabulary that is modeled around decision making.

[SHORT TRANSITION MUSIC]

00:21:18 Tim

You kind of fell into the role of researcher.

00:21:22 Robyn

That's right.

00:21:23 Tim

I would say after a cup of coffee and...

00:21:25 Robyn

Mm-hmm. And being shoot, being shoo-ed out of Bob’s office. [laughing]

00:21:30 Tim

No more caffeine for you. Go away, but… [both laughing]

00:21:36 Tim

What research have you done other than what we've already talked about that gave you even more excitement.

00:21:44 Robyn

So, occu-, occupational health has, you know, our very first article was on the stress, if you will, of interpreting and how you might define that stress. And that's never gone away. We've continued to publish and conduct research in that area. Our cortisol research that showed that when you divide interpreters up into work settings VRS interpreters, as well as K through 12 or educational interpreters [Tim: mhmm] have the highest degree of cortisol dysregulation.

00:22:11 Robyn

And cortisol dysregulation as you might know is what leads to very significant health effects such as cancers and diabetes and heart disease, etcetera. [Tim: mhmm] So, cortisol is the hormone, stress hormone. It's what gets you out of bed in the morning. [Tim: mhmm] But if it does not leave your body in a sort of quick and precipitous manner...

00:22:30 Robyn

…once you do get out of bed, then it can have a negative health effect. [Tim: mhmm] And so that's really, I mean exciting is not the right word except that I do know that some interpreters who have made claims, workers comp claims have used our research as a means of winning their cases against companies such as VRS companies. And we did a workshop. I was the host. I, I don't do VRS work.

00:22:58 Robyn

And again, for those who might, umm, not be familiar with the video relay service in the United States is basically the idea that…

00:23:06 Robyn

Phone calls for deaf individuals through video phones versus through a TTY is now mandated by our Federal Communications Commission. [Tim: mhmm] So, the federal government funds telephone calls and interpreters work in these call centers, basically relaying calls from deaf callers and to hearing callers and from hearing callers to deaf callers.

00:23:27 Robyn

And so it's a very, it's one of the, the biggest employers of interpreters in the United States. And of course, they've moved to other countries in Europe as well. And we did a, a webinar as the host. I'm not a VRS interpreter. So, I brought in those who work in the context of VRS as kind of a cautionary tale to say…

00:23:46 Robyn

“Look, here's what the working conditions started out as, when we first all joined up and signed up and thought interpreting for VRS was the best. And here's where we are now. [Tim: mhmm] And here's what the research is saying, which is of course, is not very good.”

00:24:00 Robyn

And so if you're, if you, Europeans and British folk and Australians and people all over the world, interpreters who are finding themselves, um, providing this very important service, make sure that the working conditions don't evolve into what has happened here in the US.

00:24:17 Robyn

Umm. And so that's exciting, right? [Tim: mhmm] Not because of what we're finding, but because the hope is, is that it will prevent this from occurring or maybe even stop it, you know or, or, or, or improve things in the United States. [Tim: mhmm] The other area of research that I've been working on is…

00:24:38 Robyn

‘Caller behavior’ in VRS. Some of the stories that we hear that interpreters experience, anywhere from rude behavior by hearing and deaf callers to flat out abuse…

00:24:50 Robyn

…to laws being broken. And so we've, we're looking into what those behaviors are and documenting them. And from a frequency standpoint. As a matter of fact, we just got accepted [to] umm,…

00:25:00 Robyn

…a very prestigious conference to present at as the American Public Health Association [Tim: mhmm] Conference that they have every year.

00:25:08 Robyn

It's a huge, you know, thousands and thousands of, of people come with, ma-… all these different tracks.

00:25:13 Robyn

And we had two papers accepted off the research about VRS, both from a legal perspective and also from an occupational stress perspective. And that's happening in November. So we're very excited that our research got, got that notoriety from the APHA.

00:25:28 Robyn

And then the other research that I'll mention is…

00:25:33 Robyn

What has always perplexed me about teaming? So, we have said for years that there's this 20-minute rule which we now have research that we've done that suggests that there's no such thing as the 20-minute rule, and I'll explain that if you wish to know more. [Tim: mhmm]

00:25:50 Robyn

But the idea is, is that you would be on for 20 minutes and then you used to be off for 20 minutes. But then we decided, no, that's not OK. You have to be in the support position. [Tim: mhmm] Right? We even come up with the host that comes up with a whole bunch of different names, right? There's the processing and the support. I forget all the different names.

00:26:06 Robyn

That we, we just call it hot seat, cold seat. We don't call it that anymore because it gives the sense that somebody is in some sort of restorative place, [Tim: mhmm] but we don't let interpreters recover in that 20 minutes. And so, you're actually not getting a rest [Tim: mhmm] after your 20 minutes of interpreting. And what I found is that when I'm working with a colleague…

00:26:26 Robyn

In the morning I might be fine doing that, sort of on, on, on, on, but on in a different way, in the support role. But come, [Tim: mhmm] you know, 11:30 or the lunch hour, my team interpreter will look at me and I'll be like I don't have anything for you because my brain can no longer process anything. [Tim: mhmm] So, going back to the idea of working conditions, why do we have this 20-minute rule that we say, you know, interpreter start to make more mistakes after 20 minutes or have other sort of cognitive impacts after 20 minutes and then we don't honor it [Tim: mhmm] like we've never honored it. Right? [Tim: mhmm]

00:26:59 Robyn

Well, at least we didn't pass basically the 1990s when we started saying, oh, no, no, you got to be in the support position [Tim: mhmm] as opposed to resting. And people used to get mad, “Oh, the interpreter will get up and walk and walk out of the room.” And my response will be as well when they come back, I bet they're going to be more, you know, more sort of prepared to take on the next cognitive challenging task [Tim: mhmm] than if they had sat there in the room with you.”

00:27:22 Robyn

Which again, people don't, don't think about, but once you bring it to their attention, people are like, “oh, right. Why do we do that?” You would actually need 3 interpreters for a team, an all day, team job, [Tim: mhmm] which is what they do in the United Nations.

00:27:33 Robyn

Oftentimes, if they have enough interpreters in a particular booth, they'll have three positions. [Tim: mhmm] And one position is literally don't do anything. Some even walk away. They've got 20… 40 minutes to walk away and come back restored for the next 20 minutes that they're taking on. [Tim: mhmm] So, I like that kind of research. I like, eh, uh, collaborative research.

00:27:54 Robyn

So, in the research I'm doing with the VRS caller behavior, I'm working with a psychologist, Bob Pollard. As you all are already familiar with, but also a lawyer, [Tim: mhmm] who is a lawyer who is federally trained lawyer and also works in the field of domestic violence or intimate partner violence and women's, particularly women's issues associated with women and legal issues. [Tim: mmm]

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00:28:25 Tim

Well, stay tuned for next week where we'll explore Robyn’s research just a little bit more and find out if we have any answers.

00:28:35 Tim

For now, let's take a look at what we've talked about today. Each of us have fallen into what it is to be an interpreter. That means we change our personality slightly when we are working as an interpreter, we change how we behave. We are more impartial…

00:28:55 Tim

And speak less for ourselves and our own needs or opinions. Therefore, it becomes routine. It becomes habit. If we want to get more out of our professional development, if we want to learn deeper, if we want to get past the imposter syndrome, if we want to alleviate our stress, one way is to be ourselves, and that means we find our voice again.

00:29:26 Tim

We need to get out of the rut of only thinking Workshop, Workshop, Workshop, seminar, seminar, seminar, conference, conference conference, as the only way that we grow as an interpreter.

00:29:43 Tim

Yes, we need those workshops, seminars, and conferences. We must do, those that helps improve our networking and our skills and our knowledge. But we must change how we view them. They are not just a participant place.

00:30:02 Tim

But rather they are a place for us to use our voice, to debate, to discuss, to think about how it all connects, and how we all connect with each other to teach each other how to improve professionally in our practice.

00:30:22 Tim

If we only walk in, sit down, listen, and listen and listen in a passive way, it goes away quickly. We all know this. We've all experienced it. If you teach, you learn even more. So, let's do that in the workshops. Let's teach each other share our experiences and analyze them together.

00:30:47 Tim

We are not imposters. It's just that sometimes we don't know how to explain what we do. We need to learn the terminology of our profession in such a way that we feel confident in how to explain what it is we do or what the decisions are that you're making.

00:31:08 Tim

And why.

00:31:10 Tim

Using that terminology helps us feel like an expert in our field, and that drives away the boogeyman of imposter. Great episode learning again from Robyn K Dean. I'll see you next week, but until then...

00:31:30 Tim

Keep calm, keep interpreting.

00:31:35 Tim

And don't be silent. I'll see you next week.

00:31:39 Tim

Take care now.

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