Anchoring the Boat — Leaving a Journey of Regenerative Higher Education
This is the penultimate post in the Mission Impact study, that traced the better part of two years of design-driven autoethnographic work as a teacher trying to engage with regenerative higher education at The Hague University of Applied Sciences in The Hague, The Netherlands. In each episode, we share our experiences over a 3–4 week period. In this episode, we dive into the student reflections of the third phase of the course, and I reflect on my own learnings and failings as a teacher in this period. As always, these are shared in the commitment to open science and may contain language or other errors. I hope you enjoy it and find it meaningful.
Another Lockdown
The last few months have been us being thrown again into what feels like the millionth (it’s actually the third or fourth) lockdown in the Netherlands. The overwhelming feeling is frustration and tiredness, as we are about to go into our Christmas hibernations and have to recharge, rethink, and redo once again. Of course, we were hoping that this entire iteration of the course would be hybrid, so we could keep getting the students together to learn and be with each other as a supportive ecosystem. However, covid has once again decided to say fuck your plans and let’s change them all.
We quickly decided not to wait for our government, which has been struggling along from partial lockdowns to partial lockdowns. Instead, we quickly decided, partially because we have so many international students, to do the rest of the semester digitally. With the caveat that if it is allowed we may go back to hybrid but will be sure to allow everyone to participate. I really thought it was quite difficult to deal with the sudden switch once again, although at the same time I was so tired and looking forward to a much-needed holiday break that the full difficulty didn’t really hit me until after the holiday. In contrast to last year, when the course ended at week 15 or with the holiday, we are now going into the fourth phase. I don’t know if it's the holiday in between, these additional weeks, or my own physical distance (teaching from Berlin) I feel a strong sense of disconnection. As if the course has already run its course when clearly, it has not. In a way, the regeneration that occurred during the holidays (in Spain, the Netherlands, and Germany) is partially negated by a disconnection with the Mission Impact course. Perhaps, this is also because I have other large projects that are coming up now and that was more in the background until now, like the national hackathon circular economy and a period of taking over as the interim program coordinator of the Mission Zero research center.
Namely, when we had to teach I was very sad I was once again looking at black screens. I didn’t go into education to blankly stare into endless Microsoft Teams calls. I understand it, and also prioritize health, but it was really difficult to switch back to that reality. We also decided to make a number of switches to the course with the students. Namely, to stop using the remainder of the Notion expedition guide and to use the Living Spiral Framework instead for the personal dimension of sustainability. This is the same framework we used last year and indifference to last year, we are going to go through the framework together over the next few weeks so they can experiment and play with their experiences as they finish the course. To say I am excited to discover what they will find out is an understatement. I will be back in the Netherlands this weekend (I hope as I just got a message I was in contact with a covid-19 positive case but am Tripple vaccinated). I think that may also help in feeling more connected with the course, it would be worthwhile to experience and lean into these feelings when I am on my writing retreat from May through July and will be physically independent as well.
Learning from the students
As we are now back to digital education, I draw additional lessons from my students. Even though I do not see or discuss with them as intensely as I did before. Through their sharing, vulnerability and openness, hold a mirror in front of me as a teacher and as a person. For example, in their individual reflection guides one of them notes ‘The connection between me and my father has caused me to become very competitive during a discussion or or a disagreement. I tend do the same and I also over do it sometimes. As you might imagine this has quite an impact on how I function in a group especially in an argument’ while I never really had a particularly competitive relationship with my own father (we are really in totally different fields) competitiveness is something that runs rampant in my own family. As such, I can relate strongly to this reflective comment. I believe many people find it difficult to bite their tongue in those types of situations. In the next sections, some of the major themes of these reflective works are highlighted. As they will show, besides learning or studying a course, most of the learnings relate to life. In what I like to believe is the existential domain of higher education. These are mostly lessons from life about living a life with meaning. Some of the reflections are truly awe inspiring. And I consider it one of the great priviledges of my life to be allowed to have played a small part in their ecologies of learning and having had the pleasure (and the challenge) of helping to temporarily guide them along their paths. As I move towards releasing the anchor on the journey (which I have elsewhere described as a kin to deep-sea sailing) that is Mission Impact, and with that the end of my design-driven autoethnography into regenerative higher education. I am reminded of an old amage about education. The best education is perhaps where the teacher learns more from the students than vice-versa. Taking a look at the wisdom and beauty that is hidden in their reflective journals, I can confidently say this is the case. While this experiment has been a part of my PhD, I cannot say I am the same man that I was two-years ago when we started. I hope that in two-years from now I the participants can look back on similar realizations.
A lot has happened in the past weeks. It felt like a rollercoaster. There were timeswhere we were high up in the skies but there were also times where it felt more like a highway to hell. There were times where frustration led to disbelief and doubts not only about our vision, our mentors, but also ourselves. It was hard to stay motivated. First we fought with the tunnel vision next we found ourselves in a labyrinth and had a hard time coordinating our project through it. There were so many uncertainties I started to wonder what’s the point. We sharedour fears and hopes, our feelings as well. I’m glad that Nicolas gave us the opportunity to share our thoughts and that these were listened to. You could summarize this phase as pretty grey in our vision. With some green spots here and there It’s safe to say it turned out great in the end…. My personal challenge was to find a way that it would still feel right for me to work on this project. A big part of the challenge that we identified was that we want to support the [place] in achieving their vision. However, after the [place] event I had the feeling I don’t really want to support these plans. To me it felt like they want to relocate the houses and build clusters of greenhouses to use the space more efficient so that they can place even more greenhouses there. In the first week I gotthe impression that sustainability and regeneration would be big part of the [place] transformation but whose aspects were not really visible for me anymore.
I think the above captures some of the resilience that has been required by the students in the course in the last phase. And at least personally, I can strongly relate to some of those frustrations. It also made me realize that perhaps the students place too much pressure on themselves to fully transform the place within the timeline of a single educational course. I have been impressed by the adaptability of the students, especially with some of the challenges they have faced in connecting with the places and communities they are working with. These both represent major improvement and learning points for me, to focus more strongly on connecting the different stakeholders from the beginning, as well as making it clearer what they are tackling from the get-go, and a bit of expectation management about what is possible to be done within the time frame that we have.
Life-centered design
A lot of the reflections from the students are related to life-centered design, and how this is different and challenging for them coming from human-centred approaches. What I find particularly interesting about this is that many of the students are already quite passionate about sustainability before coming into this course but still find this transformation a challenge. To be clear, by and large, this is perceived as a positive expansion of what design ought to be. Throughout the course we engage with regenerative design in line with the work of Daniel Wahl, so take a more ecological and life-centred approach to working as a designer. This is in line with the relational paradigm that is becoming more strongly pronounced in sustainability sciences.
Human-centered research and design has always appealed to me. I was introduced to the concept of all life-centered research at the start of this semester, which greatly broadened my perspective. I’m more aware now that everything we design has an impact, and that if we want to serve the Earth, we must consider everything around us, not just ourselves. It evokes compassion and care in the creative process.
What makes this transformation even more challenging has been the ongoing covid-19 pandemic that is calling for a lot of flexibility. As many of the students initially intended to create physical designs that could create dialogue in the places they are working with. Obviously, with ongoing lockdowns, these plans have to be adjusted.
My artefact ideas is an interactive wall targeted to the members of the [place]. The wall will be an interactive way to present them our research findings about aspects and stakeholders that we saw as under-represented in their plans for 2040. I am not sure yet where the wall can be placed. It needs to be a location that is accessible for everyone and that people often visit. It could also be possible to have this interactive wall as an online tool, maybe on the Broekpolder website. I wanted to create an interactive artefact, because for me personally I feel more interested in objects that I can actively engage with.
However, it is clear that part of becoming more life-centred as a designer also extends to being flexible enough to adapt to these changes in conditions. As the students are about to leave the course and have a full career (hopefully) of being able to create more regenerative futures.
Being in service to the Earth means to me creating awareness for needs of the non-human stakeholders and making sure that they are considered in the decisions we make every day. It means giving back to nature and not just taking from it. In addition, it also means to me to make clear to the people that we only have this one Earth. In the end, we need to protect the Earth in order to survive. When we keep putting our needs first and ignoring the needs of the Earth, the earth will suffer, but we humans will suffer even more. We will suffer until the planet is not liveable for us anymore. Nature has its own ability to regenerate when it is left alone. Therefore, nature is not going to extinct, but we humans will if we do not change.
Living a life worth living
A lot of the reflections were broader oriented towards what makes life worth living. Really reminds me at least of some of the latest work by Biesta on existential education in the Parks-Eichmann Paradox. I am caught by the depth of the reflections about living a good life that can be found in some of these insights.
I began to consider balance to be quite important. When there was no dichotomy in my life, I felt the most uneasy and unsure of myself. I was growing and flourishing when I had balance and a strong foundation. It can be tough to maintain this steadiness for long. Something always happens to knock us out of our pinnacle. Something always will happen. Emotions that influence our behavior will always arise, regardless of what we do. This discovery also discouraged me because I began to wonder whether that was all there was to it. A never-ending cycle of ups and downs, rises and falls, till we meet death. It had a rather grey outlook on life. My consciousness then slipped away, and I began to see life as a continual process of progress and obstacles. It is all about how you interpreted it, what your mentality is and how strong it is. Things will always go wrong and negative emotions will always arise. How we act and respond to them is what matters. You can either experience life suffering or suffer through life living. Balance is what makes suffering sufficient.
Some of the participants have engaged with truly life-changing transformative experiences related to deep senses of loss. Even beyond the difficulty that we all face from the COVID-19 pandemic alone. There have been few texts from students that have touched my heart as much as this one. While I do not personally agree with everything, I do take comfort in knowing that they feel comfortable enough to engage with these types and levels of reflections in this course and with this community.
These weeks have thought me that whatever you receive in life can be taken away from you as quicklyas it was given. I’ve had to listen to numerous people tell me that drastic life changes can be seen as blessings in disguise. I had to convince myself that getting out of bed was something worth doing. I had to convince myself that life had a greater purpose and that the world doesn’t stop just because a minor stepback or inconvenience was thrown your way.
One of the students captured this unfolding difficulty below.
Connecting with place
A lot of the reflections highlighted the importance of connecting with place, something that as you can imagine, is particularly difficult in these times. I also feel this quite strongly. Of course, I can still physically go there but nothing is really going on and I also have a responsibility as teacher to set the right example. I also like how some of the participants reflected that connecting with people, always requires them to provide a win-win. They are used to having clients who are already actively involved in a project. But now, they also have to persuade people to participate.
During the last few weeks, the project was a bit frustrating for me. We had a lot of ideas for workshops and other creative research, but it was very difficult for us to find people that would like to talk to us. Everywhere you go, you always get the answer ”you also need to offer something for them otherwise they are not interested to spend their time with you”. I know that our society works like that, but experiencing it that much in our project was very frustrating and demotivating. It was very hard for me to see how we can have an impact on the Broekpolder if we cannot talk to people from the area to hear their opinions. Talking to my members helped me to begin to overcome this frustrating feeling. I saw that I am not the only one that is feeling like that.
Looking back on my responsibility in this constellation of learning, perhaps I have to intervene more to make sure that they are both actively trying to engage with (as some of my partners have told me they aren’t replying to e-mails or haven’t heard from the students in ages), but also with partners in the field to actively play a part in the course. It’s a struggle I’ve felt quite strongly in both iterations in the course as I also feel there is a lot of richness in the learning that comes with this frustration. Particularly to realize that working with transition challenges comes with these difficulties. On the other hand, I also want them to feel like they are at least able to take steps forward, and perhaps stepping in sooner or more aggressively could have avoided unnecessary frustrations beyond those that are conducive to learning life lessons?
Can we move beyond peanuts?
One of the axioms, if one could say so, of regenerative higher education is to focus on small-scale actions that may trigger leverage points for transitions. This, by its very nature, may feel like you are only working towards small changes. One of the students captured this frustration beautifully as working on peanuts. They asked ‘can we move beyond peanuts?’ to indicate the frustrations that go with having to take this, what is essential, a leap of faith into the unknown. Of course, it feels much grander to have huge exposure and shiny results, but the reality is that with these types of transition challenges, many of the impacts are peanuts, invisible, small, hidden. Learning how to navigate this without losing your commitment, or your hope perhaps, that shifting destructive trajectories towards more regenerative ones is possible, is paramount. This would also an extremely interesting research question or line. How can we make sure that people hold on to the leap of faith that is required when dealing with transitions?
This is particularly interesting for me, as the difficulty in this approach to regenerative higher education that we are pursuing lies in the short temporal nature of the course. I consider myself extremely lucky to have a full 5-month semester to engage with this work, but that is still not a timescale on which transition challenges unfold. Will the tangible output, or external output, of the course or any course like this ever lead to more than peanuts? Probably not, at least not directly. But it can be the breeding ground for the most powerful seeds of sustainability that can be planted. Seeds that lead to flowers that change the way we experience, feel, see and live sustainability from within. If the sustainability crisis we experience in our outer worlds are truly a representation of crises within our inner worlds, the task of the regenerative educator, as well as the political task of my experiment with this, is not to transform the outer world within the boundaries of university education. But to plant the seeds within that may lead to a tremendously powerful transformation when they blossom. I hope, sincerely, that when the lessons from this experiment have been identified, we can share those seeds of change as far as the winds will carry them. Perhaps it's a naive, unreasonable, or outrageous dream. But I believe that we can redesign higher education so that every student by the year 2030 across the world, can have such an experience in their (university) education. And while it may not be the most direct way to create a more sustainable future, imagine how brightly the garden could flourish if all of those seeds could bloom.
A Transformative Narrative
We asked a 100 young people about their personal opinion in which year the Netherlands will become fully circular. The results gave a clear picture. The years they named were far away from what the Dutch government is aiming for. Most of the 100 young people do not believe that they will achieve the goal of a circular economy by 2050. According to them, the Netherlands will need 40, 50 or even 1000 years more to reach that goal. Some of them were even so pessimistic that they said it will never happen that the Netherlands becomes fully circular. We started to wonder why they are so pessimistic about the future? Shouldn’t they, as the young generation, be the people that are motivated to have a world that is worth living on in the future? What do they need so that the necessary circular economy by 2050 appears to be a realistic goal? Maybe one part of their pessimistic view of the future lays within themselves as 60 of the 100 young people said that they prefer efficiency over risk taking. Isn’t being brave to take risks, to do something out of the norm, what it needs to go into the direction of a circular economy. If the majority of the young generation does not feel confident to follow new pathways, how can there be a promising future for us?
Maybe they need a good team that stands behind them and supports them on the unknown way. People that are good in communication and listening to each other. People that they can trust. Maybe they also need a good leader. A leader that is determined and organised. A person that confidently brings people with similar goalstogether so that risk takers and efficient people can inspire each other. They couldshow each other how a circular economy enables a more efficient use of resources. Together, they will feel less threatened by the changes that need to happen to create a better future. — The musings of a student.
This reflection, and others like it, are indicative of the transformative narrative that seems to be unfolding within the participants in the course. Primarily, the biggest challenge to sustainability is not external forces, but those between our ears. Indeed, how can we be hopeful about a more regenerative future if we are not brave? This bravery is also shown in their adaptability ‘we’ve made a good leap into the right direction...Organizing the workshop went as planned, but unfortunately, we had to cancel it because of the low attendance. But rather than throwing away the chance we created, we had the option to do adaptive research. With the only participant still willing to talk, we switched our research method to a friendly conversation with the planning of the workshop in mind.’ while perhaps not a heroic type of bravery we commonly associate with Hollywood action flicks. I believe that this adaptability is a sign of courage being done. I believe this is represented in the broader reflections of the participants ‘the past two weeks have been intense, we have planned and done quite a bit in so little. I believe that the word that can express best what I have felt the past two weeks is “Inspired”. I am inspired to see change happen, I am inspired to be able to be a part of it. I am inspired on who I am becoming as a designer/researcher. I am inspired to make change happen. Even though I know that during this minor I probably won't have much impact externally, I know it has impacted deeply inside. Inspired by what is happening in my life and how it is unfolding.’ This also raises particularly strong ethical concerns for me. In a panel a few months ago I argued passionately that unleashing the work of creating a regenerative future by connecting with and working on transition challenges in Higher education without providing the right conditions to engage with this existential work is at best ethically irresponsible and at worst morally reprehensible. This belief has been strengthened lately, we are shoving a lot of responsibility for the future into the shoes of those who have both most to lose and least formal power. As an educator, as well as a young person, I feel like I am caught in a dichotomy where I have to both provide this safe even to do so while experiencing the full brunt of that force daily myself. So in addition to raising ethical concerns for the students in the course, it also raises concerns related to an ethic of self-care that strongly reminds of concerns raised in fields like autoethnography.
In sustainability, although it’s not exactly the same, in the beginning I started so happy and enthusiastic as well, I felt proud of myself and my team, I felt part of something so much bigger than me, but at some point on the way I also felt disappointed and overwhelmed by all the obstacles that we encountered, we are not just another team of students, we can make an impact, even if it’s small, we have a contribution to make too. All I ask is please don’t extinguish our passion.
For the most part, I think (or like to believe at least) that we have managed in creating such a space that helps with the existential work. One student’s reflections in particular highlight for me why I do this work that I do. ‘I believe this semester has been by far the best one I have had, considering I found myself and finally saw the potential in me. I lost the fear and started to take on more and more responsibilities, I started to believe in myself and empower myself to take my ideas to the next step. Finally, during this semester, I feel that I have stepped a bit away from myself as a designer, and have come closer to myself as a person. The exercises, weekly assignments and storytelling sessions have really opened up things in me I didn’t know I had. I now feel much more empowered to become a leader, considering regenerative thinking and skills that came to the surface thanks to the different activities we conducted during the semester. I believe my journey as a designer-now-regenerative leader has been an awesome experience. With both ups and downs, things going really good and things going not so well, both inside and outside Uni life which have ultimately affected my experience. Finalizing this minor, I realize how much I have grown and how much I have to offer to the world. I believe I have truly found my path and I am thankful for every single second of it.’
Elsewhere, I have written that regenerative education ought to engage with both the outer and inner dimensions of learning, as well as the relationships between. I propose that this is precisely the existential work that (higher) education could fulfill. I’d go as far as to say that part of the reason that psychological issues are so rampant amongst youths in many countries now is not just because of the lockdown but because that work has been neglected, or efficiently managed out of the educational system. Bringing that back, or re-inviting, that as part of the socio-political contract that education has with humanity and life, is paramount if we are to play a meaningful part in creating a world that is more in balance.
Finding a better balance as teacher and researcher
There were also critical notes about the programme and about me. There are a few in particular that really touched me. ‘Throughout the previous phase, I often felt like a study object with the goal to find out how to make the minor better next time. The whole expedition guide often feels like it is just about providing data about how students deal with regenerative challenges.The personal reflections are a good addition to the course as you start to think about your own experiences and decisions, but I think they could be more integrated into the lectures. For example lectures about how to cope with feelings of frustration while working on these challenges. I think they could be more guidance from the teachers side how to handle the challenges we come across. If the lectures would be more connected to the expedition guide, then people would also do them in the intended order and not everything during the assessment week. As well as the following; ‘If I’m honest I feel beaten down. Phase 2 was full of uncertainties, which made it so that both teams had a hard time figuring out what to do to gather information. For us it meant that ImpactFest could give us answers we were looking for, but the preparations for it was time consuming.
Even though ImpactFest was a big part of Phase 2, we did a lot of other research as well. However, we didn’t get the chance to show this. Our Miro board stated that the design report should only consist of a maximum of 16 pages, which meant that we had to leave some findings out of it and only focus on the most important parts of our research. This meant that we chose to focus on ImpactFest as it took most of our time and therefore represents our process best for that time being. At the presentations we got flamed at for this, and rightfully so. I also think that the design report was a bit lackluster and missed structure, but we tried to fit all the requirements given to us, and this is the result of that. This in combination with all the lectures on how to organise workshops, whilst it not being the main research tool we should do, felt like a stab in the back’.
As a person, and an educator, both of these comments hurt me to read. As you may have gathered from the reflections above, I do, however, take them incredibly seriously and share some of the same concerns. Perhaps the reason I am so strict about the ethical questions above is that I have been failing in my own ethical duty to do them. Of course, I can destroy myself or beat myself down over this, but instead, I choose to engage with a regenerative perspective and show myself kindness. I am not perfect, and that is perfectly okay. Perhaps at times, I have allowed my researcher side to have the reins too strongly at the expense of my students. If that is so, I am profoundly sorry. While I cannot change the past, I have reached out to these for further chats on what I can adjust, both within my own practice and within the course. To make sure we do better. I can also share that reaching out to one of these students has resulted in a better understanding of what was meant, and that it related more strongly to the course design than to me as a person or professional.
Finishing the circle
As I am standing here, holding the release mechanism for the anchor to be released, I look back at the lessons of the students. I am both inspired and ashamed. I hope that those in the course realize they are more than objects of study, that the course serves a dual purpose that is forward-looking but hopefully also life-enriching for them. I certainly hope they realize I care about them. I also realize now, perhaps, how much heavier the burden of engaging with regenerative higher education is. As I get to share in both the beauty and the pain that is experienced along the way. And unfortunately, there have been plenty of both. I noticed that particularly in the holiday periods I have had the extreme privilege of enjoying in Portugal, Spain, and Germany. Perhaps I overestimated my own ability or underestimated the amount of (emotional) work involved in this. To be very honest, it feels even rude to mention or complain about this. I have always noticed I am better at allowing others to engage with their feelings than actually engaging with my own. And being bombarded with them, from outside and within, has at times been overwhelming as a teacher and a person. But I do feel like I am not always able to provide enough time, space, and energy to the community to do justice to the transformative mission. In part, this is the result of a capacity issue that we probably all face in academia. In part, I cannot conclude otherwise that it is a failure in bravery on my end to lean into the work. I thank the participants for their trust and hope that they can take comfort knowing that I will do my best to be braver.
I also realize, at least cognitively, that is not reasonable to expect all participants in a course to be fully engaged with regenerative education, much in line with research from education for sustainability that educational sciences more generally…there are no one size fits all approaches. However, as an ART-ist (Activist, Researcher, Teacher) working actively and activistically towards a more sustainable future, it hurts to accept this reasonable reality. I even question if I will ever be able to fully accept that, although at times I do get frustrated enough I’d be very willing to say ‘F*** This, I’ll just focus on those who get it’. Of course, the problem is that if we all do that we won’t really create the transformative change we wish to engage with.
This whole minor has taught me to be more open with my team mates and tutors, to open up and sharelife experiences, to open up with the good and the bad, also with my fears, to deal with unexpected situations and take active roles. I have learned more about research and creative methods. Most importantly, I feel like a better team member and a better friend.
So, that was it. Almost back at the harbor after being on the ocean for the better part of two years of experimentation and over twenty posts in this series. I think there is only one more thing to do, to go into town and share the stories. There will be one more installment in this series where we engage with the final three weeks of the course and look back at this iteration more broadly. In the meantime, as always, feel free to reach out and connect.
Warmest regards, Bas.
