IW 86: InterpreTips: Are We Boxed In?

"Boxing Day" is over. Time to step out and look around!

We are a practice profession. We are supposed to be developing our skills, knowledge, and overall work habits continually. However, we sometimes create our own personal and professional barriers to our own growth.

In this InterpreTips, I discuss how we build our own walls, boxing in our thoughts, our perspectives, our talents, our decisions, and our interpretations. Let's think through this to achieve more for ourselves, our profession, and the communities we serve as sign language interpreters.

Enjoy!

Transcript

IW 86: InterpreTips: Are We Boxed In?

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[ROCK INTRO MUSIC STARTS] 

00:00:02 Tim

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 Tim

Let's start talking... interpreting.

[ROCK INTRO MUSIC ENDS]

00:00:34 Tim

And now the quote of the day. No one knows who first coined this phrase. “Think outside the box.”

00:00:44 Tim

Today, let's talk about our profession and how we can improve the profession, how we can improve ourselves, what it means to have a profession. Is it a practice profession? Is it an occupation? Is it a passion? Is it a life mission?

00:01:04 Tim

Hmm, let's get started.

00:01:08 Tim

And what is the box? Please don't say it's a cube, although I guess we could discuss Cubism, but I'm not an architect, which is close to an engineer which at university I was taught to mock engineers because I was in astrophysics and we were…

00:01:27 Tim

…above the plane of engineering, huh? Maybe we shouldn't go there. Yeah, so let's go to the episode. Let's get started.

[SHORT TRANSITION MUSIC]

00:01:40 Tim

If we are inside a box, what does that mean? We have 6 walls. If you count the ceiling and the floor sounds like a room, or perhaps a small house, we are inside boundaries, inside limitations, inside barriers.

00:02:02 Tim

What are those barriers? What are those boundaries? What are those walls?

00:02:07 Tim

Well, if we're talking about the profession, we need to think, hmmm, what is it that limits us?

00:02:15 Tim

We need to think outside those walls.

00:02:14 Tim

The walls can be built by theories, process and dare I say it, [loudly whispers] the code of ethics. [inhales dramatically]

00:02:30 Tim

I said it. Are you still listening? Are you there? Well, you have to be there. We're all inside the same box, right? Aren't we?

00:02:38 Tim

Within our profession, we have standards. We have guidelines. We have codes. We have norms. We have acceptable boundaries, acceptable decisions, and all of these limit what we can do. They give us that cozy comfort zone to work within.

00:02:56 Tim

Many times when we are within that cozy place, that safe place where we can make decisions within that, within that range of accepted norms…

00:03:14 Tim

We become more at ease with a lot of the problems that we face with a lot of the dilemmas and the emotional baggage that we carry with us that we have to walk through to do our job.

00:03:30 Tim

In that regard, the box is a good thing. But wait, don't we always say we need to have a new perspective, we need to have perspectives of everyone that participates in our work.

00:03:46 Tim

We need to look through the eyes of others that we are working for to understand their view, their worldview, their understanding of what they are saying, and how that affects the others worldview so that we can create an appropriate interpretation without doing harm.

00:04:07 Tim

Well, if we need to have all of those different views, doesn't that mean we need to be inside all of their boxes?

00:04:14 Tim

How can we be in their box while staying in our box? Hmmm. Sounds like we're boxed in. Wait, we could use all of the boxes to build something new. Maybe a, a larger wall of boxes. Maybe put windows in each of the boxes to look over at the other boxes.

00:04:32 Tim

Huh. Yeah, sounds kind of silly, doesn't it? Yeah, it really does. Maybe instead of looking outside of the box or thinking outside of the box, or imagining we're in someone else's box, perhaps we should get rid of the box.

00:04:49 Tim

Ohh dear did I just say get rid of the theories and the interpreting process, the interpreting models, get rid of the code of ethics. It sounds pretty, ohh, bad, doesn't it? Well, let's think about that a little bit more.

00:05:08 Tim

Maybe, we can.

[SHORT TRANSITION MUSIC]

00:05:15 Tim

Many professional organizations, including sign language interpreting associations, have considered changing their codes of ethics over the years. In fact, many have changed it many times. Many have changed the name professional codes of conduct. Why is that?

00:05:35 Tim

Those of us who have been working on such things realize that overtime.

00:05:41 Tim

The culture changes the norms, the standards, our understanding of our relationship with the communities we serve and the process that we go through in our practice changes. And therefore, those codes must change. But what about getting rid of it altogether?

00:06:00 Tim

The first problem is a professional organization, a profession has a code of ethics to show that we have principles that we stand by that we follow to protect ourselves and the communities, their guidelines to show us those limits, those boxes that we have put up shows us where those boundaries are.

00:06:27 Tim

But if we're getting rid of the box, how do we handle the concept of the code of ethics? One way is to change it to a code of conduct. Another way might be changing it to professional guidelines, professional practice guidelines. Hmm.

00:06:47 Tim

What else would be a better way of putting it.

00:06:50 Tim

And how do we enforce such things? Or do we enforce them at all? Do we let the clients themselves dictate and determine what is right and what is wrong? Well, I would say yes, the code of ethics or whatever we call it gives us those safe zones…

00:07:11 Tim

Those safe boundaries to protect the interpreter and their work and to protect the communities, so therefore we are all stakeholders and should be deciding not only what the code of ethics or the Code of Conduct says, but how we use it, what the interpretation of those guidelines is.

[SHORT TRANSITION MUSIC]

00:07:39 Tim

But now let's think why would we want to get rid of the box? As a parent, I do many crafting activities, coloring activities, and sometimes I even do them with my daughter.

00:07:52 Tim

Many times we sit down when she was younger and she was going to start drawing a picture. She wants to draw a picture for Mommy. I said, “Ohh, what are you going to draw?” “I'm going to draw Mommy, and the sun, and the clouds, and a flower. She wants flowers, so I'm going to give her flowers.” And as she starts to create the image in her mind.

00:08:14 Tim

She starts drawing and I have to fight the urge to say, “Well, if you're going to draw the flower, the stem needs to be... And don't forget the leaves... Well, the leaves are actually shaped... OK, well, the flower should be smaller than… or the house… You really need to… OK, mhmm.”

00:08:32 Tim

So, I have to suppress the urges that I have of what these things look like.

00:08:40 Tim

I found myself, I've taught myself, even though I know as a teacher. Let the child be creative. Let them use what they have, what their image is, what they want to bring out, and whatever it is they're doing. And I'm there to ask them questions about it, or just to be there with them.

00:09:01 Tim

And create alongside them, but when she finishes her picture and she explains it to me. What this looks like, what that is, what this is, and why she did this...

00:09:13 Tim

…it all makes sense from her perspective. Why does Mommy and Daddy have a face, long legs, long arms and big hands? Because from her perspective, that's what we look like. So even though I want to say, “You need to make the legs proportional to the body to the blah, blah…” It doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter and what I get from it is a beautiful handmade fresh perspective on her world.

00:09:46 Tim

On our world. I get to see the world through her eyes. And what's important. What are the things in her world that is important to her, that are connected to the things that are important to her? She's not bounded by the box of the standardized shapes and world of reality, because that is her reality. The way she imagines it, the way she sees it.

00:10:14 Tim

Another story comes from playing different games, even playing sports, those who are new at the game, brand new at the game, they tend to do things that are not normal. They think out-of-the-box, the box that we as old school gamers or the experienced.

00:10:39 Tim

We know these are the boundaries. These are the rules. But yet when the new player comes, they surprise us with innovative, creative ways of doing the same thing.

00:10:52 Tim

And I've seen that with interpreters as well. You all have those of us who are very experienced. We learn from the new interpreters many times. We say, “huh. I never thought to interpret it that way. I would have never thought to use those signs, but it makes sense in this context.”

00:11:10 Tim

We sometimes get those standardized phrases in sign language when we hear a certain phrase in the spoken language, it's like, “Ohh I know what I would normally interpret for that and this is what I do.”

00:11:24 Tim

“Welcome everyone to the annual conference of blah blah blah blah blah.” We have standardized signing phrases for those moments, and it helps us because we're using less effort to get out the interpretation. We can focus on other things that we know are about to hit us.

00:11:45 Tim

So we have a box of signs that we use a box of interpretations that are ready for us at any moment to pick and choose from. As experienced interpreters, it's a wonderful tool.. hmm.. tool box. Interesting, isn't it?

00:12:03 Tim

But the new interpreters, they don't have that.

00:12:06 Tim

They don't have that toolbox full of all those limited phrases that we have created. They have to do it on the spot, just like the child has to be creative on the spot. From their perspective, from their idea of what the world view in that moment is.

00:12:25 Tim

So I say to all of us, we need to think out-of-the-box. We need to get rid of the box.

00:12:33 Tim

Keep some of those tools, but stop building walls to keep us from expanding. Make sure those walls are flexible. They have doorways and pathways and hallways into new, innovative ways of thinking, innovative ways of working with the interpretations.

00:12:54 Tim

Step away from the tools.

00:12:56 Tim

Put the box down and step away.

[ROCK TRANSITION MUSIC STARTS]

00:13:00 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.

00:13:15 Tim

Let's go back.

[ROCK TRANSITION MUSIC ENDS]

00:13:17 Tim

Even if you're not a sci-fi fan.

00:13:19 Tim

You may remember the Star Trek movies. Those of you who are not sci-fi fans, let me recall, for all of us want the sci-fi movies did, especially the second Star Trek the Wrath of Khan. In that movie we realized finally…

00:13:40 Tim

That space is not just two-dimensional, that the spaceships don't just meet face to face on the same plane, but it's three-dimensional space that you can move within.

00:13:54 Tim

They can meet with one ship above or below, but then in space there is no above or below or behind or beside. It's really difficult to know what is up or down without a reference point, and once we realized that, “oh, the ships don't have to just face each other on the same plane. One of them can sneak up from the other side from above. What we think is above and come straight down at that ship at a different angle. That's very sneaky.”

00:14:27 Tim

It's thinking outside of the box. It's getting rid of those barriers of two-dimensional space and expanding it to having a 360° perspective. It's moments like those that teach us that researchers should stop looking at the same old things with the same standardized norms and perspectives, but get rid of those barriers of thought. Get rid of those processes.

00:14:59 Tim

How does a new interpreter interpret compared to an old interpreter? If we look at each interpretation, we should learn something from both. Each of us should become a new interpreter once in a while. We should drop the tool boxes and pick up the creativity. The inspiration.

00:15:19 Tim

The new ideas.

00:15:21 Tim

Not everyone can do this. It's hard. It's hard to change our ways and our habits. It's hard to let go of the box.

00:15:28 Tim

But we should do it once in a while. We should, especially at workshops, conferences, training sessions, mentoring sessions, coaching sessions.

00:15:41 Tim

That is where we should step out of those boxes. Leave our toolboxes behind and think anew. Think in a new way. That is where inspiration comes from. That's where invention comes from. Creativity, new development, growth in our practice.

00:15:59 Tim

If we are truly going to be a practice profession, that means we are constantly learning, constantly practicing what we do constantly developing, breaking the walls and making new. So, I say we can drop the code of ethics, don't think about the code of ethics in a rule based way.

00:16:21 Tim

You have the code of ethics principles in your mind and that is really Do What Is Right, do no harm. Think about your consequences. Make that your deciding factor, not the theories that we have, not what another interpreter has told you, but what is the result?

00:16:42 Tim

What is the best that I can do even when no one else is looking?

00:16:46 Tim

Let's not stay in the box and let our work look like a profession. The boxes have their place and they fit in certain places. They give us boundaries for our own actions. They give us a safe feeling when we are lost as to what to do. Tools can help us.

00:17:07 Tim

But we need to remember that's not everything that we are.

00:17:11 Tim

We need to practice being a “profession”. Don't just be someone who looks the part who looks like an interpreter but be the interpreter. Practicing your profession daily.

[SHORT TRANSITION MUSIC]

[ROCK EXIT MUSIC STARTS]

00:17:31 Tim

The box is something to think about.

00:17:33 Tim

Well, let's rethink how we use it. Those toolboxes or the boxes that we create for our safe spaces, those boxes that house the theories, the processing plans, the perspectives, the norms, the standards that we have in place…

00:17:53 Tim

…with codes of ethics, codes of conduct, standardized behaviors, standardized clothing, standardized backgrounds,

00:18:03 Tim

…standardized times of swapping, switching, taking turns, standardized ideas of how many should be in a team and for how long. Let's rethink all of those because we are a practice profession, we should be working towards ongoing development improving every day for the goals that we all hold dear, to improve the services for the clients and communities that we serve.

00:18:34 Tim

So I hope I packaged this box of thoughts for you in a way that is clear and understandable… but as always, keep calm, keep unboxing your interpretation. I'll see you next week. Take care now.

[ROCK EXIT MUSIC ENDS AT 00:19:31]