Creating spaces for better conversations with Doline Ndorimana

Welcome to the Future Learning Design Podcast.

If we cannot have these important conversations that are so crucial for our schools and the people we serve who are our students because we don't want to trigger some emotions that are rooted in traumatic experience, how are we going to heal?

Hi everybody. Thanks for tuning in for this episode. My name is Tim Logan and the podcast is produced by Good Impact Labs. If you've been listening to the podcast for a while now, you'll know that creating conversational spaces full of possibility and as an antidote to polarization and crisis is something I really value and believe in, whether that's on a podcast, online, or even better in person. So it was such a joy to sit down this week with Dolin Ndoremana to talk about her amazing work doing just that with young people and fellow educators and leaders. Dolin's work centers the courage and humility of trying to get to real connection and mutual learning around complex topics rather than persuading and winning oppositional and propositional arguments. Born and raised in Burundi, Jolene is an international educator, DEIJ workshop leader, and university lecturer with 15 years of experience in international schools. She's also a Language Acquisition Middle Years Programme Consultant, part of the TIE Editorial Committee, and a member of the Association of International Educators and Leaders of Colour and the International School Services Diversity Collaborative. Thank you, Delaine. Been a real pleasure to meet you a few months ago and around some of these topics and issues around how to have really generative and productive dialogues across difference. And for me, it's a really, really important topic. And I know for you it is as well. So yeah, I'm just really super excited to be able to have this conversation, a conversation about conversations.

Well, thank you so much for having me. I enjoy conversing with you and, uh, I'm very, I'm feeling honored to be here.

Ah, no, not at all. This is great. So, well, maybe if we just kind of set that context for people to start with, just in terms of the broader landscape, and then we'll get into some of the kind of specific things that you've been working on, um, with young people about how to do this kind of work. But one of the things we discussed previously was the work of Indi Johar and his idea of conversational landscapes. And I think for me, that's a really interesting idea. It describes something about the fact that there are across societies and difference and people everywhere, there are different kinds of conversations going on, but often in the institutional frames like school or politics, there are particular types of conversations that often get given more space than others perhaps. And his idea was that we just, you know, we need different conversational landscapes. And I would agree with that. And I think Hopefully that's what this conversation is about. And for me, actually, I hope the podcast itself is a bit of a contribution towards that. But I guess the first question is, why do you feel like that is important work now? What is it particularly for you that motivates you around doing this kind of work?

Yeah, I think for me it's very important because we, we live in a world that is becoming more and more polarized, I feel, every day. And for me, conversations, it is really the antidote to polarization. And if we are not able to talk about important issues that matter to us and that are very crucial to our own institution, I don't know how we're going to fix those problems. So I think it's a— it's very important that we learn how to talk to one another, that we learn how to find some sort of collective agreement so that we can deal with whatever issue we're dealing with together as a community. And I think that is the only way we can see progress. And the reason I feel also that this is urgent is because I see that, you know, we're still not happy with, you know, the work that is done in schools and the progress that we are making. And I think at one point we have to take a break and wonder why we're not happy, why we are still talking about the same thing. Because I— there is no doubt in my mind that there isn't any educator or international educator in their right mind who does not want to see their children thrive, who does not want to see their students feeling a sense of belonging. I don't have any doubt about it. I think the problem is the approaches in which we go by. That's where we've got different views. And I know it because I've spoken to so many people. I know that we, at the end of the day, we all want the same thing.

Yeah.

Now, how do we then sit together and get to those things that we all want?

Absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, obviously the school community is in a context and a broader context. And how do you feel those kind of larger contexts, like maybe social media or the way that like news media has involved are contributing to these things that the young people are coming in with about expectations about what makes a productive or generative conversation or not? Perhaps. Do you think there's an influence there?

Definitely. I mean, you, you look at the news and you look at our politicians, it feels like we're not talking to one another anymore, you know. We're talking at each other, you know. And with social media, there is this culture of almost like anybody can be a reporter. And I think when we approach conversation, especially when we— when you look at social media, we live in a culture of cancel, you know, canceling culture. You say the wrong thing, you might get canceled, which makes people afraid to say certain things, you know. And because we're not being open and we're not being honest and we're not being vulnerable, then everything we do is going to be called performative because we are afraid to sit down and say, you know what, I disagree with you on this thing, because if we disagree, then we might be called all kinds of names and worse, we might be called out online. Somehow I feel like the loud voices are being rewarded on social media, which makes it very hard for us to have genuine conversation because people don't feel safe to have this kind of conversations.

Yeah, absolutely. And I guess that, and it may be an addition to that, would be that the nuance gets lost in social media precisely because it rewards the clickbait simplistic narratives, right? Because those are the things that they spark your emotional reaction or they, you know, so they, they're actually exactly what the social media companies want because it generates more engagement. The nuance, I always find this, you know, such an unfortunate unintended consequence in a way, or maybe it's an intended consequence, but that the nuance drives disengagement. Because people are like, well, it's a bit of this, it's a bit gray, it's a bit, I'm not really sure. You know, it doesn't drive, oh yeah, I need to like follow this thread and keep finding out more and see where this is going and see who's saying what and who's arguing against. So when it becomes a complex nuanced argument, it becomes boring. I know, what a shame, right?

It's boring. There's no sensation happening, you know, it's— yeah. And you know, I was having this almost a conversation like that with my top students and we were talking about inclusivity and we were talking about politics and election and the language that is used in politics. And this is Year 11. They agree that this generation is the most inclusive generation. And I think we all agree that. However, I challenged them and I said, well, I think you are one of the most inclusive generation, but I don't know how tolerant you are to those who think differently than you. And then as we were unpacking, they realized that actually when they have something that they, when they believe in something, they're always going to look for the information about the thing that they believe in.

Yeah.

So they're always somehow, uh, fed with the same information and they find themselves in an echo chamber. So, so rarely will they go to look or interested in the other views. And I think that's also what social media does because of your interest and your group that you lose the I would say the interest or the opportunity to think like a scientist, so to say, to think about, okay, what might be the counterargument? Let me look at that from the lens of someone else who probably does not belong to, you know, or who live in a small town or who live in a different continent or something like that.

Yeah.

So I think those conversations that we're having, because they're so good at finding arguments for whatever they believe in. But they're not always good to counter-argue or to push back to the ones who disagree without feeling agitated or escalating to a place where it shouldn't go.

Yeah, well, exactly. And just to clarify for people that aren't in the IB world, TOK means Theory of Knowledge. So yeah, no, absolutely. And I think, I mean, it's so important, and I think just disagreeing well is one of the greatest art forms, right? I mean, it's just to be able to do that with grace and humility ability and not let it escalate, as you say, is— I would say that's one of the key roles of an educator, to support that competency being built in young people, right? Because it's— they're not, as you say, they're not necessarily being trained in those ways through social media because of the echo chambers and the algorithms. Yeah.

And the good thing, Tim, is that they actually learn about it. They can learn to disagree, to have good disagreement. You know, kids can learn to make a difference between my ideas and me as a person, right? You know, and this is something that we teach in Theory of Knowledge, something that I try to teach as much as I can. We talk about how do we approach conversation with curiosity, you know, what does that look like? Because most of the time when we get into conversations about heated topic that we feel passionate about, we approach this conversation either as a, you know, I'm thinking about Adam Grant work either a prosecutor's, which means, you know, I am right, you're wrong, and I'm gonna make my case. Or we approach it as a preacher, you know, he's the solution, this is what we need to do, listen to me.

Yeah.

And the moment we start approaching this conversation either as a prosecutor or a preacher, there is sentiment as if we have higher moral values than the person who sits in front of us, right? Person will feel it, you know. So from that moment, the conversation won't go wherever you want to go. Yeah.

And I think that's so useful because, I mean, that's kind of what I was referring to at the beginning about conversational landscapes. It's like those archetypes that we see, the role models we see, like a prosecutor or a preacher, are out there, but actually we— they're very oppositional. Right. We need many more role models and archetypes of conversations that are just to have, just have a different quality, right, to that. 'Cause I agree, completely agree. But the, the other thing that I think is really, I deeply respect about what you are doing is that you're not only teaching it to young people, you're also modeling it yourself. And that can get you into some interesting situations. So, you know, the example recently where you engaged with Scott Gillette on an article for TIE, the International Educator publication. Was, I can imagine, quite an interesting experience because you, one of, I think, well, I'd love you to just give a bit of the background, but as I understood it, you were really trying to role model that, that example of how do you engage generatively and positively with somebody who deeply disagrees with your views. And you did that publicly. So yeah, perhaps you could give a bit of background to the reasons behind it and how that emerged, but then also what then happened, and then what did you learn from that whole experience?

Yeah, thank you actually for giving me the opportunity to talk about this. I think the background— if I go back to maybe 2 years ago, I was doing this work of DIJ, and then I got, I got to a point where I started feeling like we were stuck somewhere. There was something that was not going well, you know. I was trying to— I was reflecting back in 2020 how all international schools, most of schools world was, you know, was very open to the work of diversity and inclusion and the hope that everyone was feeling. And then 2 years later, it was kind of going down. The conversation was still happening, but it wasn't the same conversations we were having. And I refused to believe that everyone who were not excited anymore about DIJ was either racist or transphobic or homophobic or sexist or whatever.

Yeah.

And I just went into trying to figure out what's going on. Let's have a conversation with people. And it was off record. It was— it started with a colleague and then a friend, and then, you know, so I realized that there was nobody who was against the values of diversity and inclusion. Everyone that I spoke to, they all believe in those values. But it was the way it was now being promoted. It was, I have to hold the same belief as you. If I don't hold the same belief as you, then I am not, you know, for DIJ.

Right.

So it's almost like you want me to think like you, you want me to be a certain person. For me to be able to help my students thriving. Actually, no, I, I disagree. So that was where the conversation really started. And this really one-on-one conversation were so powerful, not only for me because I was able to understand where people were coming from, but it was also powerful for the other person because they felt safe to ask question, to have this debate, and they left the conversation rethinking some of their thinking. One thing that always came back was, Dolleen, you know, I, I know what you mean, but I know what everyone is talking about. But this, this notion of white privilege— because I'm white and that means that my life is easier, you know, I work really hard, nothing was given to me. So there was a sentiment of, you don't understand where I've been, you don't understand the thing that I had to go, to go through and the sacrifices go through. And just me saying, you know, it has nothing to do with the work that you've done, it has nothing to do with the sacrifices, it has to do that on top of all the things that you went through. There's one thing that does not contribute to your hardship, and that's your skin color. And every time I had this conversation, people were like, oh, okay. And it's a simple thing. And maybe people think like, well, duh, that's what we always meant. But if you don't sit down and have those conversations, what might seem obvious to you is not obvious for everyone. So from there, I started to say, okay, we have to have more conversations like that. And I wrote an article about guides to navigate DIJ, and then Scott responded to that article. And at the end of the article, I wrote, I'm open to any perspective, please, if you have anything, I invite you to leave comments. And he left a comment and I thought, well, that's good. I want to have this conversation with you. So I contacted him and he responded back, and the comment is still there on this article. And then we ended up speaking, I think, for 2 hours, and it was a good conversation. It was respectful. We were both curious. At the end of the conversation, because it was such a good conversation, I suggested that we should write something together. And the reason why I suggested that we write something together is because what Scott was saying is the thing— almost is the thing that I've been hearing for the last 2 years that nobody dared to say publicly. And I thought, this is why we're not making progress, because we're not having these conversations. And by making public that article, the people who never had the pushback have the opportunity to get the answers they're looking for. And also, hopefully we are modeling how we can have those kind of conversations. The point was not to change his mind or that he was going to change my mind, but the point was hopefully to expand our thinking and put it out there so people can do the same thing in their schools.

Fascinating. No, very— I mean, I completely appreciate and respect the intention, but I think then what happened was there was a lot of pushback pushback. I don't know, did you expect the amount of pushback that it got, or was that—

I was definitely expecting the, the pushback. It's something that obviously I thought about, and my response is, if we cannot have these important conversations that are so crucial for our schools and the people we serve, for our students, because we don't want to trigger some emotions that are rooted in traumatic experience, how are we going to heal as a community? That's number one. Number two, if we want to build bridges within our community but we can't talk about the things that divide us, how are we going to build those bridges?

Yeah, completely.

I don't see any other way to do this.

Yeah, no, I, I completely agree. And that's actually why I contacted you after that article, cuz I just, I think it's such an important thing that you did. One of the interesting pieces of reflection afterwards from some of the people who I think deeply disagreed with what you did was that it gave a platform to Scott's views, which the people I've read who've written pieces on reflection they felt was undeserved because it was a, some of the challenges, for example, were a lack of definition in some of the strong words that he was using, like coercion and totalitarian. So there was a, the pushback was about not the conversation being had, but about the very public and wide-reaching platform of TIE to, that inadvertently shares the views of, and, and somehow validates the views of someone who has perhaps hasn't done enough thinking about this and isn't quite rigorous enough in his own thinking about where these ideas have come from and what does coercion really mean. Interesting. I don't know. I, when I read the piece, I felt he was expressing his own experiences of this personally and his own quite emotional feelings about it, and then was trying to articulate those in quite sweeping generalized statements about the indoctrination and ideology of wokeism, et cetera. Which is a really important thing, I think, to bring out into the open because people like Elon Musk and, you know, many others are saying the same thing and they have a huge amount of power and influence in the public sphere. And that needs interrogation, right? Because the idea that it is an ideology being disseminated by the liberal elites or whatever needs challenging because it's, it is challenging to, for example, the operational and business model of people like Elon Musk. Because it's saying, well, hold on a minute, what about the things you haven't thought about and the people that are being oppressed in the process, et cetera, et cetera. So there's, I think there's a lot going on there, but I just wondered, yeah, how do you, how do you feel about the idea that, that TIE gave a platform to his views?

I think we have to, to remember that, or maybe I should stress that, TIE would have never published that article if it was only Scott's views. I think it was published because there was his voice together with my voice. And I think that as an organization that promotes the advancement of education and being open-minded, if you— we think about the IB learner profile, it's important that we put out there something that can provoke conversations which will help us get to some sort of resolution or a better place. You know, I want to talk about the fact that I've been in those places where I look at some of the schools' work and I, and I judge the work as being performative and I'm not happy. You know, I've been in those places, but I think that oftentimes the work that we call performative, and I'm not saying that it's everyone, I'm saying that some of the work that we call performative, they are performative because in order for us to have to do transformational work that is sustainable, we're going to have to do deep work. And that means we have to have those conversations.

Yeah.

Does it make sense what I'm saying?

Yeah.

So if we're not able to have those conversations where we are all on the table with people, with Scott and other people who think a little bit like him or, or have different views, because we're afraid of how, what people are going to think, or the names that will be called if we disagree, then the fear will make us do performative work.

Yeah.

If I don't want to hurt your feelings, Tim, but there is something that I need to discuss with you, I'm gonna stay on the surface.

Of course.

Yeah, we're not gonna go deep and actually unpack and do this transformational work and, and work on our relationship so we can get to a better place. That's the thing with DIJ. If we're not able to actually put our mission ahead of our ego and first of all heal ourselves so we can heal our community, there is no way we're going to do transformational work. There's absolutely no way.

Yeah.

So I think the response that I would give is Scott's voice are the many voices that are happening in international schools. Sure, let's not lie to each other, you know. Scott's voice is the many voices of international schools. So because of that article, because of Ty, we're having this conversation, Tim.

Exactly.

You know, because of my article that was made public, there are so many people who are having these conversations. And the thing actually that a lot of people don't know are the many DM, emails, Zoom calls that I have received from people of color, from Black people, from white educators, heads of school, someone like you as well, you know, that said, thank you for starting this conversation. I know how I'm gonna lead this conversation next time. You know, I know what I'm doing. You know, I didn't think about this. Now I know better.. And just the idea that there are a couple of people who will go back to their school, or who, when the article came out, that they started to rethink how to do certain things and will make their schools better, their classrooms a better environment. Well, I think it's worth it.

Yeah, absolutely. The, the one thing I wanted to just highlight, because it was the thing that jumped out at me about the, the article was, and anybody who's, who's listened to the podcast for a while will know that this is a really an issue I feel strongly about is that certain positions have a pretense that they are not biased and somehow universal, right? And Scott does make a comment in the article that's, you know, basically pushing back on the idea that he is in any way biased. Mm-hmm. And that's just nonsense, right? I mean, you know, with all due respect to Scott, I'm sure he's a great guy, but everybody's biased. I'm biased based on my own experience. You are biased based on your own particular lived experience.

Yeah.

And cultural influences, et cetera, et cetera. But the move that says my position is not a biased position and is somehow universal and objective is a move that Western imperialist ideologies have used over and over again. And you know, the idea of, of North Atlantic universals, right, is a perfect one from Michel Trouillot, which I really like. Cause it's just, you know, these ideas of modernity, for example, that somehow these ideas of truth and beauty and justice, they are somehow universal concepts that everybody should just, if they're in, in their sane rational mind, should just accept as a universal idea. Everything is rooted in cultural influence, everything. And therefore I think that's one of the things that I would call out about that article, particularly from Scott, is we need more conversations that acknowledge my own lived cultural experience is different to yours, is different to Scott's, is different to everybody else's, and therefore That doesn't mean we descend into relativism and individual relativism, but it does mean no position is impartial or objective.

Absolutely. And to go back to— and I don't know if many, if people have seen it, but Scott actually put it on LinkedIn. He said, I had to think about, and I have to take this back, of course I have biases. So he did back to what he said and had wrote a whole thing about it. Because yes, we all have biases. It's not even— it's out of question. It's just the app for discussions. But I, like I said in my response to the people who felt that this, this article was harmful, I think we need to think about the idea of silencing certain views or certain voices that are very present in our ecosystem, what does it do to the work of diversity and inclusion? I think that's the real question, you know. What is our mission? What is our goal? What is it that we want to accomplish every time when we do this work? And how are our own personal experiences— personal, and I'm talking about this because I, I've been there, everything that I'm talking is because I've experienced them, you know. When I'm having this kind of conversations, and, and it doesn't always go well, of course not. First of all, when I approach these conversations, I'm very well prepared, and I approach it with curiosity, that's for sure. I'm there because I want to learn from the other person, and I have to believe, I have to have a genuine belief that I can learn from that person. And then there are times where the person will say something, and my trigger, the thing that tells me that this is the moment you need to pay attention is when someone says something and my mind goes like, what the hell? Are you kidding me? You know?

Yeah.

This is my trigger. Dolin, pay attention. This is the moment you need to be present. This is the moment you need to put your feelings or how your judgment aside, because this is where the breakthrough can happen. That's my trigger. And this is where you have to remember, why am I doing this? What's my goal in having this conversation? It's not about me being white, but it's, it's about finding common ground, understanding where people are coming from. You know, I know what I know. I don't need to communicate what I know at this moment. I need to know where the other person is so we can get close to our goal. If I let my feelings and my judgment take over, the conversation will shut down. And then what have I accomplished? You know, how far have I come to our missions? And that's why I know that this isn't— this is not an easy thing to do. Like I always say, even in Burundi, we've got a thing that we say in Burundi, you can't heal the community if you haven't healed yourself. You can't do community work if you're wounded. That's not possible. Yeah, because it's very relational.

Absolutely.

And the thing that I've learned having this conversation is at the end of the day, we all want the same thing. We all want to be heard. We all want to feel that we are worthy of, of love and appreciation, that we are relevant. The moment people feel that they are not relevant, that's when they fight.

Yeah, I mean, again, it comes back to your kind of, if you come in as a preacher or a prosecutor, you're not coming in with that disposition of curiosity to learn, right? And I think, and the other thing for me is that I shared with you the, a recent conversation that Nora Bateson had with, with others, Vanessa Andriotti and others, but about the idea of an ecology of communication. And I think there's something incredibly powerful in that idea Because what's actually happening, as you say, it's a relational process that's happening. It's actually not about what you think or what Scott thinks. It's about the relational dynamics or the ecology of communication in the space in between you, right? And I think there's an interesting reframing there for me, which I just really, I really like about the idea of a conversation becomes not about what these individual people think and who gets to feel like they won the argument or who, you know, who has felt heard because their view is important. It's about how have the perspectives of all the people involved in the conversation interacted in such a way that it creates this incredible space of possibility that wasn't there before, right?

Yeah. Yeah. I, I think there is something, I mean, for me personally, every time I have those conversations and I get into them with a purpose of learning, of learning from you, learning from the other person. Okay, I know you're an educator. There's a reason why you're an educator. Tell me why you feel this way. I don't know what it is, but there is something that kind of— you detach yourself or your feelings to what's going on in the conversation because it's almost like it's not about you. It's— you're in a mode of understanding. And because you are so focused on the other person, you ask questions that will help you understand what you don't understand. So you ask more clarifying questions than gut check questions. Does it make sense?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it's so liberating because we leave the conversation feeling both like we wanna continue this.

Yeah, no, that's great. And because there's genuine thinking going on, right? And I think, I actually wonder, I'd love to ask Scott this. I wonder whether the thing that he really objects to underneath all of it is the performativity that you were talking about is that people are spouting views that they haven't really thought about. And some people are, and many people are not. They've really deeply thought about these issues, right? And they're choosing to make a stand on certain values that they think are really important to them. But I, yeah, I'd love to ask him if that's one of the things that he was really pushing back or feels strongly about is that lack of genuine thinking. You know, it's like there's a script, there's like a DEIJ script and you this, these are the things you say in order to, and that's the performativity I think that you were talking about. Right. And that's not the work of an educator. It's not the work of an educator to teach our young people scripts to then go out into the world with. That's indoctrination. Right. And again, so it's just, I actually wonder whether a lot of what, where the disagreement is about this kind of unthinking performativity, everybody disagrees. Everybody in the space disagrees with, nobody wants that. It's, it's like, How do we really get to that space of genuine curiosity and willingness to think deeply about really uncomfortable, personally uncomfortable issues?

Yeah, there is a great quote from James Baldwin who says, "We can disagree with one another and still love each other as long as your disagreement is not rooted in my oppression and denial of existence," something like that. Yeah, you And I think it's very powerful to keep that in mind. To me, that is part of, you know, I, I think about these people who have gone through horrific oppression and who could still think that way. And I, I think if we could just remember that and get to a place where we can recognize and accept that we live in a work in an environment where we've got different beliefs and different views, and we can still have those disagreements with respect and no dehumanization, and still go out for coffee afterwards. That would be great.

It would be. But as you say, with the caveat being, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist. And actually that's, that's the key piece that some people push back against, again, against the article, was that it strayed into that caveat. It strayed into that Scott's views being platformed by TIE were a denial of some people's humanity and right to exist.

I disagree with you. I disagree with whoever says that. Where is the dehumanization in what was said in the article? Where did Scott say something that was dehumanizing or that deny the existence of a group of people. I don't see it, but I'm willing to listen. And if I, you know, have an answer that is satisfying, I'm willing to rethink some of my statements. But the way it is now, and I'm— this is my strong belief— I don't see any anywhere in the article where people are dehumanized. Did he say some things that offended people? Sure. Did he hurt some people's feelings? Sure, but to say that it was dehumanizing or that, you know, was denying people's existence, no. But the one thing that I want to say is that within the 24-48 hours after the publication of the article, it was brought to our attention that some statements were transphobic. And then when we were aware of that, we removed it because that's never our intention and never our purpose. Of course not. We don't want We don't want anybody to feel dehumanized. So I'm still standing by James Baldwin. We can have disagreements as long as it does not— is not rooted in the oppression of people and their existence. I think we have to make a difference. I know people are not going to be happy to hear that, but I think that we have to be careful between being offended, have you feeling hurt, and being harmed. To me, there is a difference of feeling discomfort and feeling unsafe. So the discomfort, when you feel uncomfortable, it might be a trigger for you or a signal to tell you something is not right. It might be like something is not right, your safety might be in jeopardy, right? But there is also discomfort that is not necessarily an issue of safety. If you speak to me in a way where you say things that I don't like or that I feel offended, I might call you an ass, but it doesn't mean that— sorry, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you are threatening my safety or that you are harming me, because harm is strong, you know. So no, I'm not saying that people who felt harm that we should completely disregard it. Absolutely not. But I disagree. I, I don't see where Scott, in that article, where there was dehumanization. And the moment there were dehumanization, we removed it and we spoke to the people who made us aware, which we very much appreciated. But other than that, I don't see the other side.

Yeah, no, I mean, I think that's a really subtle and important nuances, right? And the idea of safety and harm and, you know, all of the things you've just talked about, I think are really, really important and particularly important when we're working with young people, right? Because when we're trying to create safe spaces for young people, of course, everybody's gonna agree we want safe spaces for young people, but how do you define safe? And if we can, I'd love to hear a bit more about the work you've been doing with young people, because I think in your, one of your documents that you shared with me that You say that perhaps we've created cultures in schools that shield students from necessary challenges and discomfort. And so actually, you know, it reminds me of Jonathan Haidt's book about coddling young people's minds, right? It's like we've perhaps wrapped them in cotton wool and we've kind of created these safe spaces in both commons, but to such an extent that they're actually not being really pushed and challenged to be uncomfortable, understand how that feels, how to deal with it, how to respond to their own emotions around that. And as you say, have the confidence to push back and maybe not call someone an ass, but actually respond in a way that is, which really makes a clear statement about what their views are and why they disagree or, or whatever it is. So yeah, I mean, perhaps you could just, yeah, speak a bit about what those conversational spaces that you've been creating for young people in schools and how is that work evolving?

Yeah. You know, my, as an educator and as a mother, I would love for our students to leave our school not ready for university, because I know they're ready for university. You know, if you work hard, you get the content, you get through the exams, but ready for the world out there. That they leave our school together with a partnership with the parents where they are mentally strong. And in order for kids to be mentally strong, they have to go through challenges. They have to go through discomfort. So my My concern is that oftentimes now we overprotect children, and we are so concerned and so focused on meeting every needs of our students to a point where sometimes we don't leave room for discomfort. We don't leave room for those challenges. And all that in the name of student well-being. A huge part of student well-being is mental well-being. And if you're not mentally strong and you are out there in the world and you've got social media with you all the time, it's going to be hard to maintain your well-being. So one thing that I see often and that an example actually even happened today, you have students who have a hard time to have oral presentation, to present in front of students, just as a silly example, maybe.

Yeah.

And they will say that they're anxious. No, I can't do it. I can't do it. Well, some teachers will say, all right, that's okay, you can do it in front of me another day. Okay, for me, I think it's a disservice to do that. I think instead is to sit down with the students and go through some of her fear first. Okay, and explain to them that, you know, I actually believe that you have what it takes to do this, and I don't want to believe that you are too fragile not to get through this challenge and be on the other side and eventually feel so proud of yourself and say, we all go through that. But if you don't give yourself an opportunity to challenge that anxiety, to train your brain, because it's a muscle to tell your brain, this is scary, but actually I can do it. And next time when it happens, your brain will go back and say, we did it last time and you didn't die. You were fine, you know, and, and give them the tools that they need. If it's when you do the presentation, look at me. The thing that I do in my talk class, I will even say, you know, say to the class, I'm very nervous, I'm not good at presentation, so bear with me. Kids will feel empathy for you. Sometimes I prepare the class, let's just cheer them on. And so this is just a tiny example of get them through that challenge. And the beauty is how proud they are when they've done it, you know, so proud. Or the other thing is with conflict, with— I've got a conflict with this person, and then we want to fix their conflict. No, no, no, no, I'm gonna teach you tools how to have this kind of discussions. Why do you give this other person so much power? You know, have those conversations with kids so that we can help them go through those challenges and get on the other side. But if we all protect them and fix everything for them, and because she's anxious and they're anxious, we're not going to do that, well, they're never going to get the, the opportunity to get on the other side.

Yeah, no, absolutely. But I think what it— what I've understood from your work is that it's not It may be a little bit about teaching them, but actually it's not really about content and teaching them how to do this. It's actually creating spaces for them to do this themselves, right? To have the conversations, to enter into the discomfort. Because I do think that's sometimes a mistake that we often make in education is to turn the thing that we desire, the behavior that we desire, or the thing that we're, we're hoping for, for our young people, we turn it into content to then teach them.

Yeah.

And then we wonder why they don't get the thing, but actually what's going on and what, what you've described to me previously is these conversational clubs, which became incredibly popular because the students were seeing something of real value in there because they were practicing the skills of how to sit with the discomfort and how to, you know, speak about things they really didn't dare to speak about previously. Partly because you've created a space there which is safe and which is a culture in that, in that environment, which allows them to not worry about saying things that which other people may disagree with. And that's just really important to me to have those more of those kinds of spaces.

Yeah, absolutely. And, and creating like parameters or norms, okay, where we come together and agree on what is it that we can do here, what is acceptable behavior, what is not acceptable behavior. If you disagree with someone and you think that what they're saying is out of this world, you know, how do we approach this instead of saying, oh, for God's sake, this is nonsense, you know. Instead, tell me more, what do you mean by that? You know, some students, you can see that their body language is speaking so much, and that you teach them, learn about what your body is telling you. You're very agitated, why is it? Calm down before speaking. You know, some things that we did was if someone says something that you don't like or you felt personal instead of saying you're wrong, you can say, when you say something like that, it makes me feel this way. Little things like that that you give. And those are the parameters. Those are the norms so that kids understand that they learn how to communicate in a way that does not distance each other, but in a way that brings people to each other in a way that makes people speak more.

Yeah.

You know, and I've had many times where you have what I would have to stop the conversation and jump in because It was going in a way that is not set to go. And then you debrief. Why did I stop it? You know, what went wrong? And they love it. The, the growth is amazing. They go off to college, they come back, and they still talk about these conversation spaces. And they are able to have those kind of debates because they've been exposed. Yeah, to that. Or they have the words, they are confident.

But it's not, it's not MUN, right? It's, no, I just, and the reason I say that is so for people that don't know Model United Nations, but the reason I say that is because the conversational archetype and role model going on in MUN is about winning, right? It's, it's not about mutual understanding and curiosity. It's about stating your case so powerfully and strongly and rhetorically that you, you win the argument in the very comments somehow.

Yeah.

And I think, yeah, as we said at the beginning, it's just so important for young people to have the spaces where the success criteria, if you like, of that space is not about winning or losing an argument. Because often that's the thing that we do is say, oh, let's have a debate about this controversial issue because that will engage young people in the ideas around this issue. Sure, there's a value in that. I'm not saying there's no value in that, but I think there is an important role for different kinds of conversational environments, right?

Absolutely. You know, my students know about the the terms the prosecutor, the preacher, and the politician, because we talked about that all the time. So it's sometimes it will say things and I was like, no, no, no, no, we're not looking for, for prosecutor here. You know, let's just learn from each other. So it's not an MUN. It's definitely not a debate. It's almost like a casual conversations you're having with your peers about issues that really matter. And then it brings people to, it brings the kids together as well. They get close, they connect. You know, they learn about each other, they share their stories in the conversations. So I think it's a great way to actually bring the community together, the student community together. And it became popular because they will go and then they will speak to their friends and then their friends will come. And then before we know it, we had like more than 60 kids and we had to find the other rooms. But—

Love it. It's really powerful. And just if I could also, what you said about Well, a couple of things. One about the embodied aspect. So helping young people to understand and regulate their own physical, emotional being in the space, I think is a huge part. I mean, you know, something that we've all struggled with, I'm sure I certainly have, is when things start getting a bit hot, your body responds in certain ways, right? Your heart starts beating faster or your breath changes or, and an ability to regulate that physical emotional aspect of yourself is just as important as the thing you're going to say next.

So important.

And then what you also said was just those almost like conversational habits that we fall into or debate habits or whatever that we might use when you are giving them, for example, I know you give them sentence starters and as you described it, there's a role for how do you break out of some of those, your standard conversational line that you would use if someone says something you don't agree with. How might you start a sentence in a slightly different way, which takes you on a different trajectory with that next proposition that you say? So I think just those little pointers there, I think, are really important.

Yeah, absolutely. And imagine if we start doing it as early as, I don't know, Year 9, Year 10, and we create a learning model that is conversation-based where we use content to teach those dispositions, you know, the moment they leave school, they will be equipped to get out there and face the challenges that will be thrown at them because they know how to communicate. And most importantly, they know how to advocate for themselves. You know, I have a couple of LGBTQ+ students from the Alliance group who, you know, will come and complain about certain things. And I will say to them, and we have these conversations, and we talked about that you cannot change people's beliefs. You cannot base your happiness on what people are going to think or what people believe. But what you need to demand is respect. That is the basis. Then you decide what that respect is for you. And if people are not addressing you the way you want to be addressed, with the right pronoun, you have the opportunity and the right to remove yourself from that conversation or to tell the person, I am not going to engage with you. So it's little things like that they learn so that they understand that I am the master of my own life. I can control how things will go because I cannot control how what other people are thinking or believe, as opposed to, you know, I'm gonna go and speak to him so he's never gonna speak to you like that. No, because the world is not like that. You're going to meet people who are not going to be pleasant. You're going to meet people who are not going to say what you want to hear. How then do you deal with that adversity in a way that you protect yourself at the same time?

And, and also, I, I wonder whether The worst thing that we can do with really controversial, deeply offensive beliefs is to let them fester in the minds of individuals who think they're kind of normal things to think. So in a way, allowing people an opportunity to express questions or wonderings in safe spaces before they get anywhere near kind of deeply entrenched offensive beliefs is an important thing to do. I'm not saying it's I don't mean it's okay for anybody to say anything. What I mean is, as you start asking questions as a young person about the world, 'cause you are, you know, you're getting strange things on your social media feed from Andrew Tate or whatever, you know, you're a young boy in a school and you're getting these, if no one engages around those issues, some of those ideas just will fester and think, well, you know, it seems like everybody thinks like me 'cause everybody I'm seeing is saying the same thing. So, you know, these deeply misogynistic or racist views must be okay to say because they seem okay to say in this space. But if we're not creating those diverse spaces where people are actually having to say those things, or at least the kernels of those ideas out loud and getting significant pushback from people around them and feedback about the fact that these are really problematic views, you know, that's when things start getting really worrisome for me.

Yeah. I'm so glad you brought this up because I think I think personally part of making schools more inclusive is doing this kind of things, is creating those conversational spaces where kids meet, where adults meet, where we have those conversation, we have a safe space so that these ideas, like you said, do not get so deep and can be challenged early on.

Yeah.

And there is nothing more powerful than storytelling. When someone says— is sharing their perspective through their stories and the experiences, it does something to other human beings. So you're right, that is one of the reasons why I think these conversation spaces are so important for students and for the school community. So they can bring these ideas together so we, we can hear each other and hear the pushback. And although we don't change people's mind, at least we kind of don't let it go into, you know what I mean?

Settle and get entrenched. Exactly. No, absolutely. Thank you, Dolin. I mean, this is, I knew it would be, but it's such an important conversation and such a privilege to be a part of with you. And I just, yeah, I hope we can inspire more people to have more of these kinds of conversations. I think it feels really deeply educational work and and as you say, maybe transformational work. So yeah, thank you for doing it.

Well, thank you so much for having me. And really, the only thing that I want to say to everybody who's listening is, at the end of the day, we want the same thing. We really all want the same thing. It is up to us as educators to find ways where we can sit together and figure it out together, not as different communities, but as one community. And I'm happy that you are part of this work.

Love it. Brilliant. Thank you so much. We hope you've enjoyed this episode. Please feel free to continue the dialogues with our guests, with us on our blog or on social media, or within your own networks.