For my reflection on the first semester of our course; The Future of Our University: An Interdisciplinary Experiment in Cooperative Learning. I have decided to focus on our medium of association and the ‘consensus decision making’ approach. To help structure the reflection, I will compare and contrast it to contemporary political methods of discussion.

Before the first semester of our course last year, I had never heard of ‘consensus decision making’ as a new and distinctive concept. However it soon became, for me, the focus of the course, and each week I looked forward to participating in this approach to group discussion. Perhaps it had such an impact on me as within contemporary politics voter apathy and political partisanship is so high, but within this course we were engaged and enlivened by the debate. Furthermore, the flaws that plague our current political systems and limit the effectiveness of decision-making were neutralised and allowed wider enthusiasm in our method of association to diffuse. It seemed that what we were practicing each week avoided the problems that our politicians had.

Writing this in the backdrop of the deadlocked Brexit talks in the UK Parliament it seemed that politicians could learn a lot from our experiences and benefit from a reformation of their systems. In addition to this often fraught and unproductive discussion at Westminster and other parliaments, any deadlock was at risk of decaying into jeering and sometimes even violence, as in the case of Kosovo and Turkey.[1][2] In contrast, within our sessions we kept a calm demeanour at all times. Debates became conversations that were never interrupted by jeering from other members, and interruptions were made without comprising the flow and motion of the discussion.

At core, these benefits arose from our ‘seeds for change’ consensus decision-making. This process allows for a request to interrupt the speaker to made though the non-verbal communication of a hand gesture, that also indicated the nature of interruption that the participant wished to make: whether it is a point about a time constraint or a factual correction to the argument made by the person speaking. This method of interruption is superior over other methods of interruption such as jeering or by silently standing; with the former directly impeding existing communication, and the latter doing little to indicate the nature of the objection and therefore its relevance to the point the speaker is making. I found that in our discussions as a group, when someone needed to interrupt their point was always listened to and was welcomed, with their amendment usually being accepted and reinforcing the evident benefits of participation on this basis.

Another important point of reflection in our groups that speaks to this attitude of respect towards interruption, was the respect paid towards each other within in group. If members had missed a session, then a brief recap was usually held at the beginning of the discussion session. This allowed for everyone to be on the same page when it came to meetings and aided renewed participation for those that hadn’t make the previous session. In addition, this re-engagement in the debate was often accompanied by giving, where members would bring in brownies they had made or apples from their garden. This helped foster a more collaborative and friendly discussion with members identifying more as a community than a classroom. It also gave a pause in proceedings, helping to give space for reflection on our ideas around pedagogy and breaking down our preconceptions about education and decision-making.

Bibliography: https://www.seedsforchange.org.uk/consensus

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39aDkdRAwW8&ab_channel=BBCNews

[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36188323

Semester 1 Reflections / The future of our university by blogadmin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0