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Vaccination, climate change, abortion, Zwarte Piet, educational segregation. Topics that not seldom cause feelings of discomfort and social insecurity. On social media and at birthday parties, but also in classrooms. Gönül Dilaver and Leoniek Wijngaards-de Meij developed a teaching method that uses art and game theory to teach students how to improve their skills in talking about sensitive topics. Their proposal was awarded a €500,000 Comenius Leadership Fellow grant*. Now the laureates tell about (the why behind) their plans.

What do you see that calls for education in having conversations about sensitive topics?

Leoniek Wijngaards-de Meij, Dean at the Faculty of Social Sciences, professor of data use for innovation in Higher Education, and co-chair of the Open Science track Open Education: We see that a lot of topics proof to be touchy. Take, for example, children of farmers having to talk to (children of) environmentalists in the same master’s programme. Students are afraid of being criticised for their point of view. There is a lot of discomfort, fear and concern hidden behind this.

Or a lecturer who wanted to discuss the ‘Zwarte Pieten discussion’ in the group. Some students felt this was too personal and refused. Despite the teacher’s explanation that it was not about their point of view - they were also allowed to choose a different position - but about practising to stay in the conversation, one of the students filed a complaint. The complaint? An unsafe situation in the classroom. It is not an easy task for teachers to find the right balance and guide the process properly.

We are busy convincing instead of understanding each other

Gönül Dilaver associate professor at the Faculty of Medicine: Everyone usually has an opinion about everything. We are all constantly deciding what is good and what is not and judge one another. We are busy convincing instead of understanding each other and would rather cancel people than talk to them.

We want to teach students that society is so diverse that they will always encounter people who think differently from them. Whether they will become lawyers or teachers, will work in science or at the municipality; they will have to learn to put themselves in other people’s perspective. We hope to help develop those skills.

And you do this through art and game theory?

Gonul: Yes, we have developed several work packages, which we are going to further elaborate, test and fine-tune. The starting point is to embrace discomfort and difficult conversations and turn this into concrete education.

For instance, games are being developed that allow students to practise different roles in a safe environment - online, on their own. They, for example, can choose the avatar of a farmer one time and that of Shell the next. This way, they learn to empathise, feel discomfort and understand another person without having to immediately throw their own vulnerable point of view out in the open. Later it will be discussed in the group, so the learning activities are built up step by step this way.

Another package in our project focuses on art. When we look at an artwork together, we all see something slightly different. By reflecting on how everyone interprets art differently, you learn - in a non-threatening way - that you can look at things in diverse ways and without judgement. And you can then translate this to other situations: When two doctors look at the same patient, they can also see different things.

If there is any place you should learn to hold a conversation with an open attitude, it should be university

Leoniek: Another work package is ‘game design'. There, the focus is on interaction with others and students have to come up with a joint solution to something from different perspectives. These are all methods to, step-by-step, train students in skills needed to engage in open dialogue. To help teachers to properly integrate this into their curriculum, we also have a work package for teachers in our proposal. And there is an 'evaluation and assessment' package so we can keep improving. 

We think it is important to, in different ways than we are used to now, give insight into the perspectives of others as well as to learn to see where we are similar to each other. Of course, it is important for everyone in society to be able to hold a conversation with an open attitude, but if you should learn this anywhere, then it should be at university. I think this is an indispensable part of academic education.

You received the award together, but the Comenius Leadership Fellow is actually an individual fellowship, isn’t it?

Leoniek: That's right, but I wanted to do the application together with Gönül. Not only because we work well together and the two of us could make a much better proposal,  also because I am not a fan of individual fellowships. You achieve so much more when you join forces. We also managed to get a very nice team together, including people from IT, humanities, educational sciences and biomedical sciences. And students and social partners are also involved.

³Òö²Ôü±ô: It is a large project in which we will work closely with teachers and students with various expertise’s and backgrounds. It's co-creation, so we will use the grant to build something together with others. Working together and helping each other grow; I really believe that one plus one then becomes three. For example, Leoniek and I think the same things are important, but we bring very different backgrounds and experience so we really complement each other.

What do you hope to have achieved with this project in a few years' time?

Leoniek: I will be happy if practising open dialogue has then become a regular and interwoven part of several courses. Using our teaching methods, but also in other ways. Fortunately, this is already happening, like in Community Engaged Learning external link.

Openness and connection prominently feature in Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ's strategic plan, which creates a responsibility towards what we offer students. They have been able to have less contact with each other because of the pandemic, and that has not made socialising any easier. So this might just be the right time to take this on firmly.

³Òö²Ôü±ô: And I hope that students, when they have a job, find that they have developed skills during their education that allow them to better handle difficult situations and conversations where people think differently about things than they do.