EPISODE 45 - A Safer Spaces: Online Course Rundown
SHOW NOTES:
Shawna chats with Natalie Jurosky, the musician and leader of Scranton Girls Rock that helped Shawna create the online course version of her Safer Space Program. They talk about different learning styles, how talking is musical, bringing music into learning, whatever you want to do there’s a way to do it safely, and can you market this?
This course is for bands, venues, small businesses, small hobby groups, anywhere you gather, students, faculty, people that host parties, and basically anyone that cares!
SHOW LINKS:
Charles Wiegel at AK Press
The V Spot in Scranton: https://www.vspotbar.com/
Music to Life: https://www.musictolife.org/
SHAWNA’S LINKS:
The new Safer Spaces: Online Course: https://shawnapotter.com/safer-spaces-course
Making Spaces Safer book: https://www.akpress.org/making-spaces-safer-book.html
Request fun video messages: https://www.cameo.com/shawnapotterwow
All things War On Women: linktr.ee/waronwomen
https://www.youtube.com/@shawnapotter
SHOW SCRIPT:
Welcome to But Her Lyrics...the show where we delve into the political lyrics of songs I like, songs I wrote, or topics that I think should be a song. I’m Shawna Potter, singer and lyricist for War On Women - and your host. I’m thinking this is an episode about a subject that I think should be a song… and likely is.. And I probably wrote it already.
Life update, I recently built and published a Safer Spaces: Online Course, based on my training program and book, Making Spaces Safer. It’s up now on my website and I thought why not feature the musician (and founder of Scranton Girls Rock) that helped me build it, Natalie Jurosky!
If you’re a member of my patreon, stay tuned for an upcoming bonus episode made just for you where we dig into her starting the Scranton Girls Rock organization, why she started it, how it’s going, unique challenges, and for the dudes, just know if you listen to the entire thing you do in fact get to have your feminist card punched for the day. 10 visits to feminism and you get a free ice cream cone. Insert double entendre here. So that’s just for patrons, sign up at patreon.com/shawnapotter for lots of cool exclusive stuff like that. But let’s get right to Natalie and talking about how and why we built this self-guided online course.
[INTERVIEW TIME]
Natalie Jeroski. Thank you so much for joining me on But Her Lyrics. Please introduce yourself to everyone. Thank you for having me, Shauna. My name is Natalie Gerroski. I do a lot of things,
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but music's always been in my life, and I'm a big fan of your work because I also build a lot of communities, and I always want to keep those spaces safe.
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A Well, I'm a fan of your work obviously. um which is why I tapped you to help me build the online course
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version of the safer spaces training. Um now what is your background uh as far as
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like what's relevant to working on the course uh which we'll dig into the details soon but what what explain to
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everyone like kind of what you're bringing to the table what lens you're looking at this course through.
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Sure. Well, I grew up playing music in dive bars with predominantly
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male-centered bands and familiar.
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Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of us have um some resonance with that. Uh not to go back
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and get triggered or anything, but you know, there were a lot of good times as well. Um, I thought it could have been better had I
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had more vocabulary to what I needed to feel safe. And um, just when I found
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your book, I was like, "This is what I needed in those environments."
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Since then, I've tried going into other environments. Um, currently I'm surrounded by a lot of women trying to
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even out the balance of energy, but I really loved um, sort of getting that
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book and realizing that somebody else was experiencing that too because the beginning of the book was very
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relatable. you have a story of one of your instances and I think that a lot of the women that are in those situations
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are often we don't realize it because we're so fiercely independent but a lot of the times we are alone and uh yeah
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that book was a really great just voice in my head like an older sister wrote a book for me
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and I never thought that I'd be working on a course with you. I mean, I read that book and I was like, what are the
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odds that this woman is going to even get back to me? I'm going to shoot my shot. So, I reached out on LinkedIn and
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here we are. I try not to if there's more questions about my background, I can elaborate, but trust me, like, I'll gab all day about it. I'm a bass player.
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That's my main instrument. And I truly love sound. I love my ears. I love, you
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know, like I I like to ask people, if you were told, hey, you can only keep like one of your senses out of all the senses that you have, what would it be?
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And I find a lot of people do say their eyes because we think that they're so important. Yeah.
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Like I often think, what would happen if we focused on our ears as much as we focus on our eyes? And the listening
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part is not just in music. It's in what people are saying, because that's music,
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too. our words, the frequencies. So, my life has just been like a culmination of studying all of those things. I felt a
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little suffocated in my small town of Scranton, PA. Although, shout out to it raising me very safely. You know, I had
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some room to take some risk. But I got out and I moved to Florida where I started working at a university and that
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was also a lot of guys there. And uh you know that book helped me throughout my career as well.
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Wow. So to this day still doing the music.
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I'm teaching it more so. But I it's really important to me to reach out to the women who are trying to be
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successful in music and try and open their mind to like what music can be because I also think that we've sort of
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boxed it in and there's not a lot of innovation out there. So well and that's for another course. Someone else can deal with that problem.
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Of course you can.
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But yeah, so we both have this, you know, musician backgrounds and love music and and often growing up were like
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maybe the only woman um in a space. Very very normal um experience back then.
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Less so now I hope, but um still not perfect. But but I think the reason I wanted to collaborate with you is
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because you actually have experience like teaching classes and formatting like learning like tell me about that part of your background.
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Oh yeah that's like that's like like really important to creating this online course. Breathe.
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So when I I went to Fulsell University and I originally took recording arts and
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through that program I was still trying to discover my real confidence and like who I was. So, I wasn't super confident going out into the industry immediately.
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And I ended up, I have to say, uh, while I was in school, I was a birthday clown, which I was like, "Oh my gosh,
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wonderful." Like, very low pressure and they think I'm awesome and I really fit in with kids. So, I saw this job that was like teaching music tech at um,
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Fullale. It was another little side program that they had for K through 12.
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and I had a manager there. It was like my first woman manager and I have a
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really strong mom. So, I'm I'm ready to like get to work. And God bless her, she
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sat me down and she's like, "You are so there's so much fire and and you just need to like like channel it. You got to
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just direct it." And luckily, she was a Sagittarius, too. So, these words were like ringing true. and she sat me down
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and she was like, "Have you ever thought of like, you know, teaching?" And she started teaching me about Bloom's taxonomy, about different learning
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styles and how other people learn. And I just found myself getting fascinated with that. And, you know, on top of
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music, I just feel like you can teach so much through it because it's a creative,
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expressive outlet. There's so many different lifestyles out there. I'm not really about like this is how it should be. It should be like, well, who are you
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in relation to that? Some people can't find the words. So, being able to bring music into a lesson is really where I'm
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most comfortable. Um, but I could do the boring stuff like music theory and all the important things that you know
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traditional musicians will tell you about. But no, really more philosophical and and getting that guidance from her
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was so important because I really could have burned the world down if I wasn't like trained or guided or mentored. And when
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you have this like wonky girl who's like, I want to take over the world, you know, in a very, you know, gentle way.
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Um, and to have somebody take that seriously is really important. And I think that we don't have a lot of people who know what to do with very proactive
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women. And a lot of the times they'll be like, "Oh, well, just that face my mom would make when I knew I said something a little out there,
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like, you know, my daughter So really I've loved my journey.
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I mean I'm I love that you have taken it because I don't think I could have I didn't know
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where to start, right? Like I it was hard enough to write a book about the training. I'd already been doing the
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training for years and writing a book uh was really daunting. It was a lot of hard work and I could not have done it
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without my editor. Um, so shout out to everybody at AK Press for the help. Um,
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but it it it did feel like in general the the content was was there. Um, it
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was just finding, you know, what's most important? A book only has so much room.
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What's most important? Um, what order do you put things in?
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But and I now that I'm saying it out loud, I guess that's kind of what you have to do for to create put that into an online course. But I still was like,
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I'm lost. Like what do I do? What do we care about? What is the thing that's going to resonate? How do you make this
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interactive? You know, if I'm not in the room with people, like how do you how do we get them engaged if that's what their learning style is? So,
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how did you approach turning my book into an online course?
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What what was important for you? What what were those first like steps to you?
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It was in my wheelhouse first of all because me honestly, yeah, I needed this course when I was younger. So I knew
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that somebody like me, but also thinking somebody like me at a younger age who maybe
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you know doesn't have time to sit and read a whole book or just doesn't take all of the messages just what's useful
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at the time and sort of thinking of how it would blossom in somebody's mind as
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they went through it. And I really like how you agreed that we should keep it just sort of like short form little
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segments and it's truly not overwhelming. And I'm going to give you props to that because I can get very
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overdetailed sometimes. I'm like maybe maybe they want to know everything.
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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you can't do that because people overloaded and they're like they won't remember any of it.
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Yeah. also being triggered uh thinking about how this class might affect
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somebody like me who was reading these words that they would relate to knowing that they would be set back but having a
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lot of confidence in you as the safe space intimacy coordinator who would be like whoa whoa whoa we have a like
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disclaimers in there if you have to take a break if you um you know need to seek therapy you have great resources is. So,
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um the approach was very selfish at first. Uh I thought of myself a lot, but then I started thinking
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um of one bar specifically. Can I name them because they love when I name drop them? Sure. Okay. The VSpot in Scranton.
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They have um a manager named Vinnie. He lets us have our Scranton girls rock um
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shows there. anything we really want to do because he's always telling me I want to bring a diverse group into the bar. I don't
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want to be like every other venue. He has line dancing. He has poetry night. He has benefits. And I started thinking,
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you know, Vinnie would really benefit from something like this. So, I also want to think of it as like I'm somebody
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who owns an establishment and maybe a few little drama kicks go down, but I
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noticed that there were some gaps, you know, like as a manager, like how do I train my people on this? How do I
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simplify it so it doesn't seem like I'm training them in a really boring way?
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Oh, I could have them take this class and they'll be briefed on how to just execute. Like honestly, telling them how
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to ground people is probably tremendous in a lot of um and how to address things professionally
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and just being aware of a group setting rather than like one-on-one problems. So from a a single standpoint and from a
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group standpoint, but you know after the class is all said and done, I also try and think who else who else would
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benefit from this course and then what kind of things might they have gone through in their life and how are they
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going to take it and I can't even really I don't know how to explain that out loud. It's something that my brain naturally does. I think eldest daughter
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syndrome kind of kicks in there where you're just like kind of worried about everybody. That's good though.
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I'm trying not to overthink that. But um I I love my degree in instructional design. I'm so happy that I got my
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masters in it, but it was all very technical. And I'm really glad that as a person I have like the humanity part in
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me where it's like well there's a lot of brains out there like 8 billion. So,
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let's make sure this is received by all because really we want like even, you know, I think of like a little
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14-year-old who's trying to maybe start a club with their friends. Yes.
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Or um just trying to get even their friend group on the same page. Like it doesn't have to be an establishment or a business. It could be
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Exactly. Or just everyday things.
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Yeah. Like Yeah. groups, hobby hobbyists, knitting groups, you know,
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like like bike ride uh naked bike ride. Whatever you want to do safely.
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Yeah, exactly. Properly. Exactly. Whatever you want to do, there's a way to do it safely.
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Um, was there anything, you know, cuz I I I what prompted this was getting a grant from music to life, which I'm very
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grateful for. Um, and going through their um, like musician change maker program kind of helped me come up with
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this idea um, to turn the training into an a self-guided online course. So do
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you remember were there in the creation were there any like like stipulations or like sticking points or barriers or
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things that I was like well we have to have this and you were like okay fine and you had to work it out like was there anything on my end that you were like not expecting or
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and positive or negative you know whatever right it's all really I mean being that I'm into learning it's all a learning thing so it's never like well Shauna was
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kind of you know if you said something that was against my thoughts. I just assumed
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that, you know, you're the client and you've created this. You want it projected in a certain way and you've been studying this like forever. I just
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picked up the book. I'm interested in the topic and I know how to organize these thoughts. Maybe there was one time
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where um you said there were a couple pieces where you're like, I don't think we need to put that in the class. But I mean, I ended up
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agreeing. I'm like, well, yeah, but like I want the whole class, you know, but it's not just about me. It's about what
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everybody wants and what's good for everybody. And you're you were right.
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It's much better to bite-size. Maybe there's a course two coming out for people who want to further their education. And I think Oh, it was the transformative justice.
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Oh my god.
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Yeah. Yeah. Because that's such it's its own course. That could be its own course. And I do not claim to be an expert in that. I'm just aware of it and
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have read a lot about it. Um but never really well I guess I did a couple facilitation but no but I'm not an expert on it. But it's like yeah so we
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ended up you know putting something kind of about it that it exists just kind of like in the book like like talk here's a
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couple options and and further reading for you to do your own research but it really is its own subject its own part
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of it. It it's it felt like a challenge to me like cuz like a you know one hour one
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and a half hour training in person that is not it didn't feel like enough
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to warrant creating a course. The book almost felt like too much or would just
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go into too much detail sometimes or too big of a description sometimes cuz it's
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a book format. Um, so this felt like finding something in between, but also that's different, that has a lot more
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places to lead you for like more research, more more resources, more homework, um, self-reflection prompts,
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um, videos, like that. That's just a whole different beast. But I do agree that was a really good call and it makes
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more and more sense even as I continue to kind of ruminate on it because if you're into it, you're into it, you
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know, but if you're not into it and you just have to do this and take away some helpful things uh to make the environment better, then that's a
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different story. And I could see people taking the course and if we had transformative justice as its own lesson
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and we elaborated on it. I actually brought transformative justice up to people after I read it in your book and
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and they're so far away from that. They're like, "Oh, oh, so like like being fair to everybody absolutely not like revenge revenge." And I'm like, "Oh,
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right."
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Yeah. We're not quite there as a society yet. Um, you know, it's a very radical thing still.
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Um, is there So, other than that, is there anything about how the final
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product ended up uh that's like drastically different or like you did not envision it like like compared to
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your original vision when you first started working on the format? Like is there something that you're like, "Oh, like that's so cool that we did this."
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you know, or anything.
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I never I never got attached to like anything aesthetic in my mind again with the whole sound and you know, what is
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the message? So, I think we've always been really aligned on what that message is supposed to be because of our backgrounds, because of what we've seen.
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And I've this has been the greatest thing I've ever worked on, honestly.
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like it's the first thing I've ever been like, "Wow, like I'm I'm freelancing this skill that I worked on and somebody
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is trusting me to do this." So like impostor syndrome. Like I worked through a lot of stuff personally and I'm really
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glad that I got to work through it with somebody who writes a book called Safer Spaces. Oh my goodness, Natalie. Thank you.
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Absolutely. You I couldn't have done it without you.
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Same. you know, like I wouldn't have had the motivation like I would have with any other topic because I did try and
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make some classes for myself, but having that person to much like you said your editor like to just brain blast with uh
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gets things done so much quicker and that was really helpful for everybody because you it's not just your voice like we are 8 billion people.
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Yeah, that I I found that very helpful to be able to have conversations with you and like bounce ideas and and like,
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okay, this is where it's at now. What do you think? And and and you know, towards the end have some beta testers that could give me like really good specific
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feedback um that you know, if you're just in the weeds, you can't see the little detail.
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You can't um you can't see everything that might could be improved. So very very helpful. I don't know if you want
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to shout out to any of those wonderful people, but I really appreciated their feedback as well. I do. I want to shout
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out Denanisha and Aaron M and Pate, my rockstar beta tester, who went lesson by
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lesson giving me like amazing like grammar and like like book editing kind
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of kind of suggestions that I absolutely need because I need an editor. So, um,
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but shout out to the three of them and you, Natalie, like for taking taking the time, taking a look. Um, yeah, and
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making it what it is. Um, and yeah, it's I'm I'm really proud of it and it's cool
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that it can now just kind of live and hopefully hopefully people find it, but now it's time to actually start like
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marketing it or reaching out to people and saying, "Hey, this is available. why don't you take this? So that's the next step. So, anyone listening,
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anyone listening, if you want to know how to help, how to promote safer spaces, maybe you've read the book or taken a training, maybe you haven't, you
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can still really help by sharing this new online course with as many people as possible, with people in bands, with
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people that work in venues, um, people that run small businesses or work in small businesses, anyone that has like a group, hobby hobby group, activist group, any any place people gather.
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this course is for them. Even students,
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I think, in universities and colleges that have some sort of group that they're a part of or want to, you know,
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be more involved or like host a lot of parties like literally at their house or their punk house or whatever, you know.
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Um, it applies to a lot of people and it's just some good human stuff to know.
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Even though the the grant that I got it from music to life, they obviously care very much about um you know the music industry, making the music industry
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safer. Yes, it's very geared towards that, but it absolutely applies to any kind of situation because humans gather.
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So that's going to work for a lot of people. And I say even larger businesses, corporations, universities
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like could reach out and get a group discount and offer this course to all their members or students or staff or
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whatever. Um, and get a lot out of it because it goes over bystander intervention, the safer space tactics
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that I came up with. It does talk about transformative justice a little bit. It talks about what to do if you're harassed, how to flirt. um like so
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way ways to work on yourself like some it touches on like how to deal with you know police and ICE. Um so yeah, it
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really covers a lot a lot a lot of stuff and in a way that hopefully isn't too heavy because I me personally I can't
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deal with anything that's too heavy, you know?
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Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And that is one thing I was thinking about like I'm like I hope nobody hears this and thinks that it's going to be too much or too heavy.
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It's like it's a relief if you're the type of person who has felt uncomfortable in moments and thought at
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in early stages of feeling uncomfortable. You thought I could make this better. I could change this. But like you didn't have the words and so
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you get more and more tired and exhausted and now you're in this well if I can't beat them join them attitude but
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like you were supposed to be the light and you just needed the tools to do it and so it's not putting more information
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in your brain. It's like getting the information that you should have gotten 10 years ago. Yes.
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Unless you're 10 then you know you're on the right track.
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Then you're doing great honey. Keep it up. Live your life free timing.
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Um, okay. So, that's our pitch for the Saver Spaces online course. Please go check it out at shaunapotter.com.
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There's a tab right at the top to check it out. You can preview it for free. Um, see what you think. Check it out.
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But now, oh, what's up? Do you want to ask me anything about it? Well, I was going to say that I actually saw I thought it was my Instagram post about
26:42
26 minutes, 42 seconds
your safer spaces book, but I saw your safer spaces book posted on somebody else's profile and I'm trying to think
26:48
26 minutes, 48 seconds
it was a band or is it like is it white Betty or something? They they were part
26:56
26 minutes, 56 seconds
of like the Punk Sylvania scene or something and your book was just right there and they were promoting it. So,
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27 minutes, 3 seconds
people in bands do love it. It did reach the music audience very well.
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27 minutes, 7 seconds
I think it helps, you know, when you're in a band, you feel like you you you feel like you don't have any power, but you do have some. And it's a very very
27:16
27 minutes, 16 seconds
strange line to walk. And you know, and it's different obviously if you're making [ __ ] millions or you're you're
27:23
27 minutes, 23 seconds
headlining arena tours. Like, yeah, you have some power and you should be doing more, but if you're just a [ __ ] punk
27:30
27 minutes, 30 seconds
band doing your best and playing bars and stuff, like it's it's a weird weird nebulous kind of power. So, it's about,
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27 minutes, 40 seconds
you know, the the whole course, the whole training, the book, whatever it is, is about realizing what power you do have, which will look differently depending on what position you're in.
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27 minutes, 50 seconds
Um, and then utilizing that power for good. And that's going to look different for different people and that's okay.
27:58
27 minutes, 58 seconds
But everyone can do something is kind of, you know, the point, the goal, which feels so much better than just being
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like, "Fuck it. I give up. There's nothing I can do."
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28 minutes, 10 seconds
And it's also better than someone being like, "Why aren't you doing more? You're not doing it enough. You're a bad feminist." You know, and it's like we we
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28 minutes, 18 seconds
all are it's trying our best, man. We're trying our best. But see, I I I I like that. I really like that phrase like, "Hey,
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we're all doing our best." As long as it also includes We could probably be doing something a little better, though. Sure. Oh, yeah.
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28 minutes, 36 seconds
Like like better is better. And that can be incremental and it doesn't have to be like so huge that everyone everyone can see it from the outside,
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28 minutes, 44 seconds
you know? But little little little steps every day a little better. That's totally fine. That that's sustainable,
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28 minutes, 53 seconds
you know.
Thank you Natalie for alllll your time, not just today for this conversation, but all your work on the course. You didn’t hear us say a proper goodby because you will be hearing it when I release a bonus episode all about her work with Scranton Girls Rock - but not if you’re not a patron! So go sign up at patreon.com/shawnapotter to support me and my work and this podcast.
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