Reading some more Stories of Hope
Restarting my daily “Stories of Hope” reading practice! Starting with the part of the book that allegedly “underscores that there is hope, through community and co-creation“. I hope it delivers, that’s what I need today!
Chapter 23. “Embracing compassion: Nonviolent communication for transformative teaching and learning in higher education” (Anna Troisi)
This is a really thought-provoking chapter. The combination of “nonviolent communication” and “computing course” sounds a little surprising, but on the other hand we should be practising nonviolent communication in all courses, so why not start in computing? Students learn how to observe, understand and articulate what affects their wellbeing, what their feelings are about it, what needs and desires are underlying those feelings, and what they would like from others. This is not only more effective communication because of making the actual information much more clear, but also because the message is a lot easier to accept if articulated in such a way. In the case of the computing course, students trained in such a way then co-created the course with the teacher, which I think is a great application of learning the skills and then directly seeing the impact of applying them! This is actually a chapter that gives me hope and energy and plenty of new ideas!
Chapter 24. “Better Together: Towards a new organising principle and mindset for co-creation” (Nikita Asnani, Inca Hide-Wright, Jess Humphreys, Bo Kelestyn, and Jean Mutton)
“Better together” is a based on design thinking but it is also really a mindset. It challenges habits and traditional ways of determining success, and it is important to do this in community: “Embracing collective responsibility and radical safety, which refers to a feeling of having space to develop inspired ideas and reflect on one’s lived experiences without fear of judgement, will help us not to get lost whenever we face a crossroad“.
I like the emphasis on that the future isn’t written yet and we can have an impact: “What is especially important to note about Better Together is that nothing is ever truly finished. Instead, we should always prioritise empathetic dialogue that’s emergent and alive to challenge students and staff to focus on what is meaningful and impactful. So, we need to be intentional in the smallest of actions. Each step, person, and voice is powerful. Each small action feeds the momentum of large-scale transformation.” Which sounds really good, but also really daunting. Every small action is important, but hpw can we be intentional all the time? One challenge they describe is to trust the process and trust that it needs the time it takes, and that it will be worth investing that time.
I also really like this approach of walking the talk: “[…] let’s be prepared to be wrong, to adapt, to accept feedback as a gift. And if staff expect this of students, why is it that staff do not practise this with as much ferocity? Let us lead by example. Consider this a place for connecting with others and for developing awareness of your blind spots, which in turn will lead to you growing your innovation capacity and capability.”
They invite us to think about the question “How might my real-time actions contribute to transforming the collective
micro-meso-macro future of education?“, so I’ll do some thinking now…
Chapter 25. “Peer review: No crime no punishment” (Debbie Holley)
Peer review, if not framed well, can easily result in peers trying to find as many faults in each others’ work as possible (often not out of malice, but in the attempt to do a good and thorough job), both in student and in teacher peer groups. In this chapter, the “huddle” model of small, supportive teams is presented as an alternative focussed on learning together rather than weaponising feedback. In this case, they explore needs and then focus on highlighting pedagogies like teddy bear clinics and walking for learning. Walking for learning I can totally see working in my context, too, but now I am wondering how to include the teddy bears. As audience when practising presentations, as the “rubber duck” that you need to explain a problem to before going to someone else to ask for help? I only have a dragon skeleton on my desk…
So, that’s it for this week’s reading of Stories of Hope. Interesting that I am starting this up again after almost a year, there is something about this time of year and the need to find something hopeful somewhere…
Abegglen, S., Heller, R. F., Madhok, R., Neuhaus, F., Sandars, J., Sinfield, S., & Gitanjali Singh, U. (2025). Stories of hope: reimagining education. https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0462
