1. Who’s here? How do we see the world? Why does this matter?

We start by listening.

We are coming together as a collection of nearly forty people, many of us strangers to one another. How do we start the process of becoming a single group of learners, with enough mutual trust to have honest discussions and playfully create together? Who is here? How do you see the world? What’s going on? We’ll learn about each other, and we’ll start to identify the many stories we each bring into the room — stories we use to make sense of our surroundings, our work, and our ability to affect the world.

This is a class aimed to create a better world. Let us identify the harmful patterns have we inherited from ideologies like capitalism, colonialism, paternalism etc.

Lecture and activities

• Introductions: the course, the professors, the syllabus
• Activity: meet a lot of people in a really short time
• Activity: use drawing and people-grouping to get our beliefs out where we can see them. What is our scope of influence? What state is it in? What is our relationship to it?
• Lecture: reflection and framing — We see through our beliefs. What’s actually happening supports many different beliefs, depending on the lenses and stories through which we see the world. We have inherited a world that works for some at the expense of others, how do we shift this pattern?

Key concepts

• We each see and understand through a set of stories and beliefs
• Moving quickly from surface chat to defining stories can help a group develop trust
• Oppression and intersectionality