Transformative Education for the Future of Ukraine - A Conversation with Yuliia Naidych, Marie Teich and Anastasia Tarasova

Welcome to the Future Learning Design Podcast.

I really value this idea of higher education that the process of inquiry and the process of education are one. So research and education could really not be divided. If you're a researcher, you're inviting students into a process, and that's what gives them the possibility to learn the matters. So you're actually also inviting them to become equals or even outgrow.

Hi and welcome back to the podcast. My name is Tim Logan and the podcast is produced by Good Impact Labs. How do we as educators respond in times of urgency and conflict, not just in teaching but also in exploring potentially transformative ideas, ways of knowing, and practices in such moments of great challenge but also lots of opportunity? I had the huge privilege this week to talk with 3 amazing young people who are doing just that in the context of the ongoing conflict after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine just just over 4 years ago. Yulia Naidych, Maria Takh, and Anastasia Tarasova have responded to these questions in deeply inspiring ways to develop what they are calling Third Floor, or the Center for Transformative Research. It's an emergent organization that I first heard about through Ivo Mench's article in Perspektiva. But they are inquiring into questions about how to prevent the brain drain of young, inspiring researchers leaving Ukraine for opportunities in other universities around the world, but also how to build bridges between the academic ivory tower and the world practitioners in entrepreneurship, local government, education, and other sectors around Ukraine. And even what does it mean to do research in transformative ways that might support and enable some new ways of being and acting in the world. You can find out more about their incredible work in the links that I'll share in the show notes.

Hi everybody, my name is Yulia Naidych and I call myself actually like the last, I don't know, like at least 5 years a person of education because all my time like in different roles in system and I'm engaged in a topic of education. Currently I am a master's student of theology and political studies and also co-founder of the Center for Transformative Research, third floor. So yeah, that's me.

And my name is Marie.

I grew up in Germany, but my parents are from Kyiv and they immigrated there before I was born. And now I'm back in Kyiv and I live here since more than one year. I teach and work at the American University in Kyiv, but the center that we built up is independent of this. And I studied physics, so I come from the sciences, but then I migrated through closer to complex systems science with interest in philosophy, and then did a PhD in digital humanities.

Okay, amazing. And Anastasia, you'd like to say something or you prefer to listen?

Yeah, I'm sorry. I think the situation is not so bad that I can't speak because I think just I have some problems with connection and so on. So maybe I will be not really overspeaker today. I will start with my, I don't know, education path. I'm a current PhD student in Kyiv. I'm studying philosophy. I'm also joining a pre-master program in St. Ignatius where Yuri is leading Byzantium department today because I always was interested in theology also, and I think it's really strong connection between philosophy and theology. And yeah, my main academic research is William Morris, John Ruskin, and Pre-Raphaelites, like all British aesthetic tradition. And maybe that's all, I will be short in that.

Oh, thank you so much. No, such a pleasure to meet you all and thank you so much for doing this. Yeah, I was just, as I said to you off air, but I was so interested in the work you're doing with the Center for Transformative Research through the article that Ivo Minch wrote for Perspectiva. And so just, yeah, so, so curious and interested to hear more about the work that you're doing there. But if it's possible, if you wouldn't mind, just to start with, if we could I'm just conscious of, obviously you, all three of you are there in Ukraine in the situation that you're living through there. And it may be just the audience for this is all over the world. And so just if you are comfortable sharing a little bit about, just to orient listeners about, you know, what is life like for you right now as you're doing this work of thinking about the future of education in Ukraine? Maybe it's an illustrative story or just something to describe. I think it's very cold there from what I've heard right now, deep deep winter. And yeah, so any— anything you feel comfortable sharing just to give people a sense of the place in which you are working would be really, I think, really interesting.

I think the situation is changing right now with this venture even more. So it's— there are different phases of this war, and I returned from holidays and the European Europe back in Kyiv a little bit more than a week ago, and I realized that it has become more difficult. People are really, really exhausted. People are talking even more explicitly about the war in almost all everyday interactions. And especially Kyiv, I don't know about other places so much, but I perceive Kyiv right now as a real, real strong place of contrast because some people right now might have private buildings with heating, light, and everything. Others cannot be at home without seeing their own breath because it's so cold. And I perceive right now this as a modern way of— how do you call it when you're, um, siege? So you would try to stop anything getting out or inside of the city.

Okay.

Right now, Russia is simply not able to stop food income getting in, but they can try to prevent warmth and electricity from getting in. So it's a, it's a really dramatic situation in some way, really more so than in the time before.

Yeah.

Thank you for sharing that.

And to be clear, right now I do live in Stockholm, so I moved to Stockholm like 2 years ago or something like that.

Okay.

So yeah, like it's better. Marie and Nastya will talk about the situation, but I also would like to say that like being Ukrainian outside of Ukraine, it's also like emotionally super, super difficult.

I was—

I'm looking like I do have like daily connection with the people there and I can't help anything. So like I feel like helpless and but I want to contribute. So actually right now, like I'm thinking to visit Ukraine for a week or two. So I'm trying to find a date where when it will be possible because I would say despite the like difficult condition, I feel that there was like this, like very alive spark in Ukraine and it what I am lacking a lot, like being, for example, in Sweden, in Stockholm.

Yeah. Okay. It may be different now, but just to reflect one of the things I met some Ukrainian people in the Netherlands last year and they were reflecting on the fact that there was a really interesting cultural, like you talk about that spark, Julia, but this almost like a cultural renaissance. I think in Kyiv particularly, but also maybe around, all around the country. But they told me about like queues of people outside theatres to watch new plays that had been written. And that kind of thing to me was just like, there was some kind of cognitive dissonance, 'cause that's not quite the picture you would have, right? Of someone ignorant of the situation, living outside of Ukraine, never having visited, and you imagine a war, and then this idea of people going to the theatre and So I just wondered if that was a— I don't know how you would reflect on hearing that.

Yeah, I would probably like start to share like with my own story that Masha and Nastya will add, because I felt when I moved to Stockholm like 2 and almost a half year ago, I went to the like biggest bookstore in the center of Stockholm and then like I saw the history shelf and it was like a section dedicated to Ukraine. And all the books were like super, super new, like the year of publishing was like 2022 or '23. And all of them were somehow connected with the war. And in that situation, I had like very strong sense in my body that I don't want all the world knows about Ukraine only because of the war.

Right.

Because we do have like so much to be proud about, to share with the world. So I think this, like, right now what's going on, so like we are discovering our culture by ourselves because it's something that we are fighting for, because like we are fighting actually for the right to exist, for the right to have our own culture, to have it for ourselves and to have it for the world. So like probably it is like, how do I explain what did you call the cultural renaissance?

Yeah.

I also had a situation which helped me to reflect because I perceive exactly what you were describing also really, really strongly. I was going with the train from Kyiv to Poland and the train was late, so it arrived in Przemyśl, which is this in-between station, a bottleneck, really late. So there were absolutely no trains going further to Kraków. And I had the waiting lines at the border. I got to know three Guys who were, yeah, men traveling. So it was probable that they could be non-Ukrainians. So I started, and I started to speak with them and they turned out to be 3 people from the Norwegian Pen Club who were before visiting a yearly book festival in Kyiv. And their reflections, immediate reflections helped me to understand 2 things, which I also perceive. Because they were saying like this book festival, you never have the, the book festivals we visit in other countries, they're never in this sense festivals.

Okay.

Like, because people right now are really celebrating and it's truly amazing and it's a lot of hope and light in this. And the other thing that one of them reflected was that he was earlier, when the Balkan War was going on, visited there and also actually in Chechnya and Ukraine is different for him because when you are far away from the frontline, between the people, between Ukrainians, there's civil life. The criminality is low, you feel secure. From the inside, only the danger is only coming from the outside. At least I perceive it like this. It's really a lot of civil life. And I think this is not self-evident, this way Ukrainians are dealing with each other. It is hard and it's maybe becoming even harder and maybe there are leaps of it, but in total, it's also, this is amazing.

Wow. Yeah. No, thank you so much for sharing that. Amazing. I mean, some kind of unity in it, I guess. It's just, yeah. Wow. Thank you so much. So then if we just thinking about the work that you are doing, part of what, as I'm sure you can imagine, really resonated with me was what Ivo wrote about the fact that you would kind of reflecting on the, the situation of the education system in Ukraine and how the kinds of social transformation, as he talked about, that the country needs at this pivotal moment in history was what he said in the article. I wonder what it's like at this moment to be thinking about that idea of social transformation and what kinds of educational institutions would serve the future of Ukraine in the best way. And I think that's somehow, if I'm correct, the, the inception of this work that you are doing. But maybe I'd love to invite you to, you perhaps reflect on what are the things that you see from the education kind of stuck in an old paradigm in Ukraine, perhaps that you think you are trying to design differently or build differently from? So before we get onto the, maybe the future concept or the building work, but what is it that you are seeing that is perhaps not going to serve Ukraine into the future in the way that Ukrainian education has been?

I would probably start like the common ground, not only for Ukrainian education, because how do I define an old paradigm in education? There is education about repeating and transmitting something. And yeah, before you said like be a part of mainstream, but not in a positive sense, like just like repeating the norms and the culture. And I can see this old paradigm like both in Ukraine and in Europe. But the only difference that in Ukraine, because of the war, I mean, it's about survival and there is this like sense of urgency and people do understand like we need to change something. And like it's because of from one side of the institution, like are kind of falling apart and we don't want to repeat the same kind of institution, but we want to have the different one. And actually like the same in Western world, I would say that like lots of old processes don't serve the reality right now, but there is more the sense of urgency because like life is still like more or less safe and comfortable. That's why like people are not able, like I would say, to go beyond the conventional norms, like within education or within any other system.

Yeah, interesting. Yeah, it's almost like it's not urgent enough or not like acute enough in the Western countries you're talking about. I, I would Resonate with that. Definitely. Yeah. Marie?

Okay.

Maybe I can add specifically related to higher education also, because I think especially Julia is also passionate about school education, but what we are doing right now is related to higher education and research. And I would refer from any general critique because people in many, many different countries inside of different systems do amazing work and reflect on what they're doing a lot and are changing a lot. But when we speak on this really general level, I really value this idea of higher education that the process of inquiry and the process of education are one. So research and education could really not be divided. You're in— if you're a researcher, you're inviting students into a process, and that's what gives them the possibility to learn the matters. So you're actually also inviting them to become equals or even outgrow As Julia said, you're not transmitting anything or a part of something. And then there is this two sides that if there is this meaning of it, this meaning is something that, that one can actually, I think, only do if one is passionate about it. So on one side, is there this, this real inquiry in the passion? And on the other side, this is also not enough. So if an infrastructure should give stability and hope to sustain yourself, if you're passionate. And I think in Ukraine, it's, it's quite divided. There are people who are really, really passionate, but the system is not giving them enough stability and means and simply also finances to build it up. Or on the other side, you can have a lot of stability, but sometimes it gets emptier and emptier because you forget what the system was actually designed to enable.

Right.

Yeah.

You're just almost performing the duties of the thing, but not remembering why or— Yeah. And I mean, I'm really curious, what was it for you? Because clearly you, I mean, you stepped into this role somehow of building is maybe a tricky word to your point about inquiry, Marie, maybe it's like you are inquiring into what this new form of organizing might be educationally. And calling it the Center for Transformative Research or Third Floor. But before we get onto the kind of what, in terms of what you're doing there, what was it for you that led to you wanting to take that step to actually like do something different?

Yes, I think it's a super interesting question to speak about growing up because usually people do not want to do things differently or themselves. At least it was like this for me. I wanted to find a good system in which I would just be able to do what I would like to do and every— or find somebody else who would build up a system in which I could simply live. But then it doesn't make sense to complain that it's not perfect right now. That's the process of growing up.

Yeah, like, I'm trying to remind myself why I started to define education as my, like, personal field, because it's my, like, very personal story. And I do remember when I was study at the university in Kyiv also. It was like Pedagogical University, and actually it was not so good in terms of actually like general framework. Like the quality was not— I mean, I was kind of demanding student, but it was not the condition from which I could take a lot of interesting things. And it was like the professors, teachers, and students were also not very passionate about like learning stuff and doing something. But then because like my— I started my bachelor degree in 2013, it was the start of Revolution of Dignity. And because of this, we met like different students from different department at the university. We met each other on the Maidan, like during the Revolution of Dignity. And because like the Revolution of Dignity was about freedom, about Western values, like would say, but like freedom, democracy, quality education, anti-corruption, and all this stuff. And because we met each other there, these words were important for us. Then we came to the university, like after the, the Maidan ended, and we continued to implement the same values we were standing on Maidan in our university. And then like I realized like, okay, so like there were also demanding people, demanding students at the university. And probably university will not change if there will be not this like demanding power of students. And that's why, like I was thinking like, okay, if the school cultivated the adequate people, the adequate students, and they from the school, they will go to the university and they said, I will not, I agree on it because I do want higher quality of education. So that's why, like, I started. It was like also personal interest, but I think it is like the context I was part of, and Ukraine is such kind of context when youth can see that their systems don't work in a proper way and you want to live in working systems. So yeah, I think that's my, like, story of how did I step into trying to do things differently.

Amazing. And it's interesting, isn't it? Because it's like, there's these phrases like higher quality of education, and it's, but also doing it differently. And as you've said, these kind of values driving the aspirations perhaps that you had for the kind of place you want to live in or the kind of, you know, the kind of context you are trying to bring into being somehow. And so is that part of what's forming your wishes for the Centre for Transformative Research in a way? Is that a continuation of those things to say, like, what actually does higher quality education mean for a different kind of society that maybe we are hoping for?

Yeah, like I would, I would say definitely yes, because by doing things in the Third Floor, We are doing two things simultaneously. So like we are trying to create an alternative space for young researchers, like for them to learn how to do good research. And in the same time, we are trying to go beyond the classical academia. So like, and it's very, I don't know, like it's changing, I don't know, your shoes while you are running or something like that. So yeah, it's some kind of stuff that we are trying to do, but probably Marie wants to add more details into this. I think it's exactly what you already said, but it's more.

There may be another aim is also connected to— it's not a really fitting term, but so far I haven't found a better one— saying that Ukraine, also because of this geopolitical situation it finds itself in, needs something I would call intellectual sovereignty. So people who can think and who can also help to facilitate a broad public process of sensemaking of where we are and where we want to go. And this is really difficult and really, really high aim. And we are young and just starting, but we see that if there are, for example, now students or PhD students who, for example, stay in the country or who stay in academia, then it'll be even more difficult to achieve this.

Wow. Interesting. And how much of that is about, I'm not sure I can formulate this thought, but something about how much of the, what you're doing is about the process of sensemaking together in these, obviously in these very challenging situations, but also with this idea of this, as you said, intellectual sovereignty of the, Ukrainian insights and pride and tradition intellectually from watching, for example, your video, which I'll put in the show notes, like a real focus on the process of the sensemaking and the way that you do that being as important as the kind of outputs or the outcomes of the education itself, like the pieces of research, the papers, the books, the ideas. The tradition more, you know, as it evolves.

Yes, I try, and you're correct, that's not going into the direction of what you're asking, but we are really, really privileged in that we are just starting and our organizational team is small and our tasks so far are small, so we don't need to operationalize a lot. That means that right now at this point, we do not need to divide between this process of sensemaking, like asking, what are we doing? What is the meaning of this? We don't necessarily need to agree on this also to have like a result and then hack it into something operational which can then be carried out by the institution. But we can mix. Right now, this is one and the same process. So we are speaking about the next step, for example, whom we will contact and how we will organize something, and then the unfinished process of making sense of what we are doing. But this is a privilege of this first stage.

Yeah.

And I think maybe this is what you're asking about. I'm not sure.

Yeah, it's very interesting. Yulia, I'd love to follow up on that, but did you want to say anything, Yulia, on that?

Yeah, like for me, there is the, I would say, the national perspective because like Ukraine in general, Ukrainian culture is like much more collective cultures. And for example, right now I'm in Sweden, the Nordic culture, or I think like more or less the German culture. It's one thing. And the second, because like Ukrainians, because of our tough history and there is like always this question of survival. So like we need to come to each other in order to survive. But because this is part of the culture, so it's also part of this collective sense-making. But there is the opposition of Ukrainian culture that We do have a saying, I don't know, I'm not sure how to say in English, but like, where there are two Ukrainians, there are three opinions. So like, that's why we also do have like our strong opinion always about how the world works, like what is the right and what is the wrong. And that's why like always we do have, it's not very easy for us to find a common ground or something like that. But regarding like, because of us, we are young and we are trying to be quite humble what we are doing. So that's why we are open to listen to other opinions and all this stuff. So like for us, it's easier to have this collective process of sensemaking because we are learning a lot from the process what we are doing. So like it's not so difficult, but nobody knows in 10 or 20 years.

Yeah.

What it will be like.

I mean, it's so interesting to me. So interesting. I think I partly asked the question because it was linking to what you said, Murray, about inquiry and just how much that kind of idea of research and teaching both being a manifestation of an inquiry into just trying to understand ourselves in the world and together and ourselves and our identity and all of these things. And I sometimes, it, inquiry is a word that certainly gets used a lot in progressive education to say inquiry-based learning, or let's move towards more inquiry, getting young people involved in inquiry. Inquiry, but sometimes that means a student-centered or a learner-centered route to an outcome. It's not about the inquiry as such. It's more about how do we get to the place we're trying to get to, which is some kind of knowledge or skill or, or output somehow. It's a question that I, I am very interested in is just how much of the educational act itself, in a way, the process of education is a form of collective sensemaking. Actually, like the activity itself is somehow a way of orienting and understanding and sharing ideas between people who see things differently, as you were saying, Julia, with different opinions, but trying to get some, to some, yeah, collective sensemaking process. I don't know if that, any of that resonates with what you feel you're doing.

Maybe I can try to answer. I don't think we are there yet, but I think exactly the proximity of these two things you're describing. In the broadest way it's possible to achieve in the big modern societies. On the one side, this public sensemaking, and the other side, education. It would serve a lot. It would make both sides a lot stronger if we can see how much these things are about each other. So we are thinking about this, but hopefully this is to come.

Yeah. I mean, maybe just practically, could you describe some of the things? So the convenings that you have done already as part of the work, as I understand it, you've had summer schools and you have another one coming up this year. So maybe just to kind of give people a, a more practical grounded sense of what it is you're doing, maybe you could just describe some of the, the actual happenings, like what, what went on at those summer schools and what were you trying to do there?

Yeah, maybe we'll, we'll need to be a little bit more practical about Ukrainian context in this case. And that I thought that Julia will tell the story about how she found a whole generation of Ukrainian researchers because Ukraine is experiencing a huge brain drain. This is simply a practical problem. And this is, I would say, dangerous for a country. So what we wanted to do really experimentally is we saw a few friends of ours, for example, students or PhD students in Ukraine. And for them to stay in academia is really, really, really difficult. What the system offers them is really difficult. At the same time, it's right now also because of the war, because of the international helps, it's super easy to get a position or a scholarship outside the country, and then a lot of problems disappear immediately. So we wanted to offer something for Ukrainian students and PhDs. At first, it was the first step, so we did— the first school was national, not international yet. In Lutsk, 2 years ago, it was named Becoming Human. The name was inspired by a book of Gustav Landauer, De Werden der Mensch, Becoming Human. A human is also becoming through the context in which one moves, the city, the aesthetic spaces, the cultural spaces. And that was what we were exploring in the first school. And the second school in Uzhgorod last year, last summer, was then international, where we did not only invite Ukrainian students but also international PhD students. Also because we think this growing this connection from early on so that Ukrainian students and, and students from other countries are friends, are connected, think together, know each other's context. This is super important so we can use the schools to actually establish this. And maybe just mentioning this, it was— we were really happy seeing that the international students after Ushkurat, after taking part in the school, were visiting their new friends then again coming to Kyiv. And so the second school was mostly centered about haná and vita activa, about action. And this was kind of the topic which also connected a lot of disciplines. And now we are planning the third school in Chernivtsi, similar, also international. What we are also doing is following the second summer school in Ushgorod together with the university where Yulia works. We are making a special issue in an academic journal, so inviting mostly Ukrainian but also international students to write papers to an international journal, learning the culture of academic writing that is a little bit different than the Ukrainian culture of academic writing to be able to communicate internationally.

That's amazing. And the one this year is themed around collective agency. Is that right?

Yeah, it's going to be like our inquiry for the next school. So collective agency. Intentions and conditions. So, and this tension of intentionality, but being conditioned by lots of things, I would say. So like, what is the glue of being able to not only be together, but also to act together? And when we are talking about like action, actually for us, it's not just in every, I don't know, movement or something like that, but we consider action in strong Hannah Arendt framework that action is something new that you were not able to do like before. And like for us, this power of transformation is actually, is a possibility and courage to go beyond and to make step to this novelty or natality of something new. In general framework, because like Summer School is just the beginning, I would say, because in general the vision for the Center for Transformative Research is to make full infrastructure for the research of a new type, I would say. So to have the summer school as a laboratory— Masha is laughing at me because it's loud words, but it's a dream.

I love loud words. Loud words. Yeah, absolutely.

So yeah, because like the gift of Ukraine is the context that demands from people And actually it's kind of method that we are trying to use within research because we also by our research floor, we are trying to make a bridge between academia and researchers and practitioners actually. So like during the, like it's academic schools, but also like there are two category of people, I would say, the researchers and the practitioners, like people in Ukraine who It could be entrepreneurs or it can be the local authority or government. So like people of action, like who can implement some ideas, so who are doing some kind of social transformation. And so like we are trying to make a bridge between academics and I would say like reality. So like the intention and big vision is to have this full infrastructure and summer school is kind of laboratory. And then to have through the question and through the cases that are born during the summer schools to make articles and then to have like, to have a conference where that it's kind of more public space of bridging researchers and practitioners and to probably making new kind of narratives around what's going on in Ukraine and regarding transformation and reflecting on the processes.

Sounds completely amazing. Yeah, please go for it.

There's something, because you're asking, and I think you're interested in how this Ukrainian context is in this, the urgency of this context is shaping what we are doing. And also maybe the really Ukrainian-specific societal changes are shaping what we are doing. And you mentioned this word practitioners. And there's an interesting story about this, which I think is unique to Ukrainian context because in Ukraine right now, and many different circles of people, the word "diyertsy" is having this meaning, practitioners, but it's actually a new word. So far we haven't found evidence that this has been part of Ukrainian language before 2004, maybe, but, but so far not. In 2004, that's the first mentioning in literature that we found. It was a translation of a paper from a French sociologist, Alain Touraine, his paper, The Returning of the Actor. And the philosopher who was translating this, Ukrainian philosopher, he did not want to translate it in the already existing words, word diach, because of the Soviet past, this word diach was really much associated with political cadre. Uh, so kind of actual inside of this political system. And so he invented a word, maybe, maybe he's not sure.

Interesting.

He's not sure if that was not an association, if that did not exist before. But I find this super interesting because that it was not there before probably created for him the need to invent a word of diejepce. And if you invent a word, you put a lot of emphasis on it, on it. And reading Hannah Arendt, who is not writing from Eastern Europe, So she writes about this need of a person who sees the public sphere as a sphere where he can or she can act. So it's not a Ukrainian problem, but the Ukrainian context is kind of putting emphasis on it.

Interesting. And maybe that is that like the natality you were talking, like there's something new that is born there, right? By creating a new word, it somehow creates a space. To step into that word and enact that word for people in a way that perhaps is somehow new, interesting. It invites a different way of being, perhaps.

Yeah, but natality is really a lot about people, not about a word. Natality is really like, for example, the person who created this word, natality is about him.

But I guess it's interesting to me though, that the word creates a space for action and then, yes, and then you might step into that space and be changed by the doing of being in that space, but it's just interesting that the interaction with the language there, but it was definitely something I was really curious about because I mean, you talk, there are different people who reflect, for example, in the video about the ivory tower idea of this separation of academia and in the context in which you are living, that could, I can imagine, feel very dissociated, you know, spending time reading and thinking and developing ideas writing papers when there's a war on that, like there's something very dissonant about that. And so it just, yeah, I mean, you've spoken to it already, but I was just very interested about that bridging. And is that where the third floor idea comes from? Is that idea that it's bridging, it's almost like a third space or a, or the bridge between the academic and the practitioner space? Or is it, is it 'cause you were on the third floor in your office?

Many people think this.

Okay, actually we do have picture of floors and we do have like kind of metaphor and why I would call myself the third floor. Because we imagine that there is, yeah, the first floor, very open place where people can meet together and interact with each other. Okay, probably we need to start with the third floor.

Masha, do you want to start this picture here with It's interesting because I think you're always telling the story a little bit different than I, and I always think, should I make my disagreement explicit or not?

You can start and then I can disagree with you.

Okay. I think, so we, we are not on the third floor and we don't have physical space yet, but I think the third floor actually stands for a dream for a real, really concrete space. In which different activities would not be separated too much, but still have their own distinct place where they can also hide, but also interact with each other. And I think for me, it's connected a lot with the word practices, that there are different practices in society and these practices happen, they're habits and they evolve because of habits. But it's good if this practice of intellectual academic work is not too far separated from other practices, for example, from deaconic practices or from artwork or also educational in a more classical sense where you have lectures and so on. And in this sense, maybe third floor is where you have a laboratory of writing and thinking, but it's closely connected to a second floor where you have more structured way to, for example, offer lectures, theaters, art courses, and so on. Even more open first floor of kind of the practice of encounter. And that's maybe where Julia started, the most open one.

I love that. Beautiful.

But then you will not continue doing the second and the third, right? Exactly.

Stay on the first floor.

It's too good on the first floor.

So yeah, but the second floor is actually like, I would say it's my floor because like for me it is the floor of education, but in terms of more formation, like character formation or personality. Because, I mean, I realize that I do like to explain the third floor structure from the third floor. So because we have the third floor where ideas are created, and then on the second floor, these ideas can be embodied and you can be formatted by the ideas you live. And the first floor for, yeah, like more mainstream and probably more easy ways of spreading their idea or actually to make something like to build institution, for example, regarding these ideas or to spread books where these ideas can be spread worldwide.

Yeah, it's more like everyday public engagement piece.

Yeah, exactly. So that's why the third floor, the idea, the formation, and the spreadings.

I love it.

I just want to check with Nastya because if you want to say something because Usually the ivory tower is inspired by you and by your story. So if you want to add something in, if you feel it, feel free.

I don't know, actually, I think, no, I think maybe I was too critical, but in academia, like, things sometimes can remind you really the experience of ivory tower. I gained this term from the book The Production of Presence by Gunbricht, in which he described the state of modern university as being an ivory tower. And it really can be so because you can access reality from the building of university. Like you're just sitting in your own work with your own research, which can't have any connection with real world. And this is problem because I think it's really important, especially for humanitarian research, to have this connection with world. And maybe this all leads us to the story of Search4 because I started to be the part of organization team with this issue inside me, like that I really want to understand how to combine the existence inside the world and its issues and the existence in academia. Because here it's like, definitely you need some, I don't know, gap between university and reality. It's really important because if you want to be a good researcher, you need to have this distance to have these special objects, but you need to measure it like really, really properly. It doesn't need to be really long.

Thank you. Yeah, it's so interesting, isn't it? Trying to hold them. And I was also really struck by, I'm going to pronounce his name not fully correctly, but Oleksandr Filonenko in the video when he talked about beauty and fear. And it's just something there. I understand he's a religious leader maybe, or a religious academic, or I'm not sure. No? Okay. But the, the reason I was struck by what he said was because just to your point, Anastasia, sometimes I think we can forget about the, that kind of the deeper human part, the soul, the, the beauty and the reverence in the world. When academia becomes instrumentalized for social purpose, somehow it's like, you know, we want to make it relevant, so we turn it into what do we know about doing research, finding data, What do we know about humans and society so that we can fix problems in society, et cetera, et cetera. But I, what I felt in the whole spirit of everything you're doing was something about also, of course, doing that in urgent times, you know, and taking action, but also bringing this, not forgetting this dimension of, as you said, like from your summer school, becoming human in relation with the world, in relation to beauty and fear and the things that Alexander was talking about. So that felt just in the spirit of what I have understood about your work, never being part of it with you, but just from seeing it from the videos and reading something really also important there about this, I guess you could say a deeper dimension to this inquiry, not just about kind of research and, and then responding to research with implementation, et cetera. So I don't know if, if any of that resonates.

Maybe I can say something about Alexander Volokhov before you start. Oh, I think it's important because he was my scientific— I don't know how to say about it in English— like a supervisor. Yeah. And he is not a religious leader, but it can be seen so. But yeah, he was a really, really, really good university teacher and pedagogue.

Beautiful. So apologies, Alexander, for calling him— maybe he wants to be a religious leader. I don't know.

We are laughing so hard because it makes so much sense.

He's not formally a religious leader, But informally, you could be the one.

Amazing. I'd love to maybe just to finish, any invitations you would give to people in the, you know, who are listening to this, who may feel inspired, or obviously I'll put the links to the things we've talked about, the video, the article, et cetera, so they can find out more. But also, yeah, are there any invitations to participate or to just find out more or to kind of stay updated with your progress as you continue the work?

Yeah, like the first invitation is that we are having our next summer school during August 2026, from 1st to 9th of August. And the year, the topic, as we said before, it is like collective agency. So yeah, it's an open invitation for young and experienced researchers, but not only, because for example, the part of the school like will be also the art practices, like I would say, so like everybody that is interested in creating, I don't know, a new order of things around them, so like very welcome. Yeah, what else? Nastya, do you want to say a few words about YouTube?

Yeah, we have YouTube channel. We're trying to make our best, like during this process, and it has some parts of Ukrainian speeches from the first school and of course the English speakers from the second school. So if people who are listening, they're interested in these topics and these people, how they speak, how they sing, or they just want to research something for themselves, then we really welcome them like in this. And it's really possible to go to the next school to meet with each other and to build strong connections. I think it's really important. Maybe I, you know, during your conversation, I'm listening and thinking about the consequences of the second school because It was really, really magical that maybe 80% of European students, they decided to meet us in Ukraine again in Kyiv. And it was super magical because we understood that this constant dialogue with students started to be a process of shaping the form of the school because they really influenced us a lot. So if, if they're finding something interesting in that, then we are really completely welcome.

Amazing. Thank you so much.

And probably very, I don't know, like practical invitation or, and, and I don't know, like, is it okay, Tim, for you? But also like we do have our work and this developing of the Center for Transformative Research, like for us is voluntary work. And we also like for each of the school, we are like looking for some financial support. Within Ukraine and outside. So if anybody wants either participate during the school or just to contribute to our inquiry and process of looking new way of building transformative research and transformative education in general. So there, there is also a way to support us financially.

Good. I'm so pleased you asked because I think that is, you know, sometimes we, yeah, we don't ask, but actually, you know, as you say, you're doing this work voluntary, it's incredible work and You know, I just really hope people are inspired by what you're doing and would, yeah, I'm sure we would love to contribute. Sorry, Marietta, do you want to?

If it's okay for everybody, time-wise, because you were before asking about the question of this human dimension and maybe really shortly, I think it's a super important topic. So I could try to answer really shortly because I think that's why, for me, that's an open question, but maybe that's why I'm kind of struggling with this formulation of embodiment or implementation of ideas because we don't engineer ideas to be implemented. So this proximity between theory and practice is not in this sense, but it's actually— there is a proximity, but it's really an open question how, because sometimes you have topics and you think, oh, it's important that somebody would think deeper about them, not to simply create ideas and then implement it, but actually maybe to create this openness for us to— I don't like fully like this word, but to, to be reminded of the mystery of the human and to have this, the space of openness. And in, in this sense, it's also really important in some way that existential topics in academia are, for example, not moved to some spooky institutions, but maybe also stay in the middle, that, that academia does offer this space also for existential questions.

Amazing. Yeah, absolutely. The thing that that brings up for me is, I don't know if you've heard of Nora Bateson and the warm data work. And the thing that what you just said brought up for me is this, the obsession with either deductive or inductive thinking and research, right? And a lot of the warm data work is an abductive process. Charles Sanders Peirce and Gregory Bateson, her father, the mystery, right? Where does it come from? And of course it doesn't come from nowhere., but it doesn't come from some mechanistic, either deductive or inductive logic process. And that's one of the things I'm really fascinated by is like, what happens if you bring abductive process into education? That's a really interesting question for me. It sounds totally abstract, but I don't think it is because I think it's life, right? It's like, it's like how life moves.

Yeah.

It resonates a lot. And when I am hearing you, I have a word in my head that attentiveness that actually like in education when we are trying to cultivate attentiveness like to other people, but not only to other people, but to something like to this otherness of the world. And so like we are trying also doing research by attentiveness to the reality and like you can't predict what the reality talks to you or something like that, but like sometimes it disappears. So yeah, like for me the word like attentiveness, like it's very strong, almost methodological word in your inquiry.

Amazing. Thank you so much. I mean, it's been such an honor to be able to, to have this conversation and for you to join me. Just, yeah, just so appreciate you taking the time and just, I really hope I can play a role in sharing and supporting your work. So no, Just thank you so much.

Yeah, thank you so much for having us. It was a pleasure.

Thank you.

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