How can we teach for active hope in times of crisis?

Group Submission Type: Workshop

Description of Session

How do educators maintain hope as peace, human rights, and democracy educators in the face of current escalations of mass violence, wars, and division while the liberal order seems on the verge of collapse worldwide? The purpose of this workshop is twofold: 1) To engage educators in dialogue about tensions among personal feelings about the world and our roles as educators for peace, human rights, and democracy, and 2) To address the theme “Re-examining education and peace in a divided world” by envisioning approaches, resources, and ways of being that can promote education for realistic and active hope in a world beset by crisis.

The objectives are the following:
- Develop sense of learning community
- Reflect on the problem of educating for active hope in today’s world
- Analyze the competing personal and professional voices animating our feelings and roles as educators
- Envision different approaches to educating for hope in today’s world
- Share key takeaways and potential applications in local settings

The plan for delivery is to start the workshop with community-building through two activities: 1) making introductions that include participants’ reasons for attending the workshop, and 2) developing guidelines for small and whole group dialogue. (10 minutes)
Next, we will ask participants to reflect individually and in small groups on the role of hope in their work with young people and the tensions 1) between their own feelings about the contemporary world and their obligations as educators, and 2) among the different demands of their work as educators, for example, teaching honestly about the past and what is currently happening in the world versus cultivating hope for young people. (20 minutes)
We will then introduce Dialogic Self Theory (Hermans, 2001) to help participants name and make sense of the divergent voices giving them competing messages about what to think and feel as well as what to do as an educator in such difficult times. We will engage in individual diagramming and whole group dialogue about these tensions among personal and professional voices. (20 minutes)
In the next segment, we will offer and model examples of teaching for active hope from the disciplines of history and citizenship education, inspired by our own work in (post)-conflict settings and drawing on the work of scholars such as Paulo Freire, Kathy Bickmore and Keith Barton. We will ask participants to respond in small groups and share with the whole group their own ideas, resources, and experiences with teaching for hope in their own discipline. Finally, we will collect design principles for teaching active hope for peace in a divided world. (20 min)
The workshop will close with participants sharing key takeaways, something they will apply in their own setting, people and/or places they can go for support, and something they feel hopeful about. (5 min)

References
Hermans, H. J. (2001). The dialogical self: Toward a theory of personal and cultural positioning. Culture & psychology, 7(3), 243-281.

Sub Unit

• Book Launches and Workshops / Workshop

Chair

• Bjorn Wansink, Utrecht University

Workshop Organizer

• Judith Pace

Presenters

• Bjorn Wansink, Utrecht University

• Judith Pace