Towards a Better World: Discovering Educational Synergies for Building Human Bridges

• In Event: Speaking, Listening, and Learning across Cultures

Proposal

The Human Bridging Project
Overview
This paper presents harvests from a funded project (2023 – 2024) focused on building “human bridges” in a university in Hong Kong. Initially, the project was a response to UNESCO’s (2021) call to re-imagine futures together with a new social contract, by involving undergraduates of the university to join the global discourse and mission on the futures of humanity. “Human bridge” is a metaphor for connections via dialogues and personal action choices that contribute to social responsibilities, and citizenship. By inter-generational co-construction, postgraduates from other universities gradually joined the dynamics. The project’s conclusion in April 2024 led to a new phase of harvest via essay-writing that subsequently fostered a learning community among authors that sustains in dialogues related to personal and social peace, such as:
• the impact of the assessment-oriented elitist education
• from apathy to social connectivity
• awakening to personal freedom and responsibilities for evolving value systems.
Solidarity of a learning community is never simple, when all participants are struggling with competing deadlines, yet small steps can be made towards personal changes which will in authentic ways inspire cultural transformation within and beyond the community.
Theoretical foundations
The project was dynamic in responding to unpredictable circumstances, and inclusive in the informal space. The progress is studied in the light of grounded theory (Oktay, 2012) and phenomenology (Van Manen, 2023). The emerging learning community can be related to research literature on the informal dimensions of education (Bekerman, Burbules & Silberman-Keller, 2006), especially in the growing attention to ‘minjian’ (民间), a Chinese term meaning ‘among the people’ (Veg, 2019). Minjian often occupies a marginal position, overshadowed by dominant discourses and rendered invisible alongside powerful formal or official structures (Edwards, 2017). Yet it carries vitality to generate alternatives to the dominant frameworks from within. In recognition of the significance of challenges amid uncertainties, the inquisitive energy flows are converging as synergies in creativity.
Two Phases of the Project
Phase 1: An experiential venture as a collective quest
The project recruited 36 undergraduates who were selected for curiosity to engage in a collective quest into the significance of social responsibility and citizenship. The field trip to Shanghai offered a study of humanity expressed by three Chinese historic figures who made significant contributions to societal well-being. Their life narratives can be portrayed as human bridges. Participants were challenged to see their own potential leadership roles to make a difference to the betterment of our world.
The field trip was preceded by independent readings on the life narratives of three historic figures from psychological, sociological, philosophical and UNESCO perspectives (Greene, 2021; Kishimi & Koga, 2013; Sandel, 2020; UNESCO, 2021). Insights were shared in two major online meetings, first as 12 teams and second as four groups (3 teams per group). This advance reading and discussion prepared participants for refined observations during the trip.
Phase 2: Cultivation of synergies from essay-writing
Participants persevere in robust revisions of personal essays leading to a book that documents authentic voices among three cohorts:
(1) Undergraduates’ responses to readings and the field trip
This is a selection of six personal essays by the undergraduates who engaged in the follow-up writing venture. Each author has sustained in rounds of revision in response to questions from peer reviewers. Essentially, it is not a one-off individual self-expression, but a discovery process via intellectual exchanges.
(2) Co-walking for the journey of further self-discovery
Six critical friends of the undergraduate authors came in, as postgraduates and research scholars in other universities. They became authors of six further essays, as they contributed to analytical responses to the voices by the undergraduates. Emerging is horizontal connectivity for steady progress, with growing pivotal leadership and mutual support depicted in a concept of ‘lifelines’.
(3) Convergent footprints in discovering educational synergies
For harvests of the insights from the undergraduate and postgraduate authors, a series of six seminars is planned for review of the 12 essays, open to new critical reviewers from school educators and university academics. Some are inspired to engage in further essay-writing to add voices. The new converging voices reveal a scope to draw pedagogical implications for cultivating social responsibilities and citizenship at a personal level, and as communities.
Analysis and Findings
While the project was an applied endeavour that engaged undergraduates and academics in a learning community, data were naturally accumulated from participants’ personal essays and voices in online meetings. Research questions can be identified to analyse the data:
• What can be pedagogically steered to capture young voices during formative university years?
• How significant is the listening to young voices?
• What may become channels for converging voices as mobilizing positive energy for desirable social changes?
A major theme from analysis is: building bridges from within and beyond. The community offer a space for individual authors to build internal values through various modes of dialogue. In a safe educational environment open to inquiries without hasty judgements or simplistic advocacy, the dialogues can go steadily at deepening levels to reveal dilemmas and critical choices essential for personal growth. In the enriching personal language, inter-generational young people can share ownership of challenges and opportunities, ready to build human bridges with orientation to public and common good. The scope for journeying towards a better world is promising, when problems can be discerned as signposts for social responsibilities to be carried. Inter-generational dialogues reveal a prospect that all participants can stay young forever in the quest!
Contribution
This project innovatively developed the concept of human bridging as an approach to cultivate social responsibility and citizenship among young people, carrying significant implications for peace education as it demonstrates social transformation in informal learning spaces. These spaces, theorized on the basis of ‘minjian’, could be subtle but robust. While such framing is located within the context of Hong Kong, it can project broader prospect for building peace awareness in other societal contexts.

Authors

• Ora Kwo

• Baiwen Peng, University of Minnesota