Week 7

Learning from the present. Learning for the future.

#AdultConversations #52weeks52speaks

Week 7 Dragana Ramsden

Professional and human connections are flourishing across the virtual space of adult community education (ACE). The Zoom galaxy is brimming with departmental coffee mornings, teams’ gin 'n’ tonic Fridays and virtual staffrooms. In many colleges, Teams or Google Classroom chats have replaced the ‘ideas exchange moments’ formerly shared round the office water cooler. And paradoxically, enforced social distancing has encouraged many more of us to become eager participants in cross-college ACE meetings and projects.

With our ability to transcend geographical and hierarchical distances, we are transported into each other’s houses without needing a formal invitation. We are keen to ask questions and eager to offer our experiences. We can share laughter as our cats pad across keyboards and our children provide unscheduled contributions. Together, we are making sense of a new Covid-19 reality. Tested by the pandemic, we share our vulnerabilities and occupy the same thinking spaces.

It is not that we hadn’t appreciated our ACE connections before the pandemic started. It is just that the value of our interdependence seems more tangible now. A computer screen reinforces our sense of community - a visibly framed one now. We are all - students, tutors, managers, support staff - learning from each other more quickly and more compellingly than ever before. In the neat grid of a computer screen, someone always seems to be holding the puzzle piece you are looking for. Someone else asks a killer question which will turn on a light bulb for you. We are harnessing untapped talents amongst us. We are relying on each other’s creativity and skills. Together, we are determined not to leave anyone behind.

The crisis that we are navigating has intensified our shared purpose. What is unifying is our unwavering ambition to keep our students learning. Our focus is on building their resilience and maintaining the quality of their learning. What equally unities us is our efforts to help the most vulnerable among our students. The relentlessness of the inequalities, intensified through the pandemic, has strengthened our determination to achieve fairness for all.

But what else can we do for our students now? How can we prepare for what they will need in post-Covid-19 times? What lessons are we learning to help us create a more equitable future?

Over time, we will recognise and reflect on the enduring lessons. In the midst of our current uncertainties, it is too soon to formulate definitive answers. However, what we can be certain of now is that our cross-sector relationships are collaborative and trusting. They are grounded in a sense of pride in what we do and unwavering ambitions for all our students.

Maybe the lesson we can be learning from now is the unity that we have rediscovered amongst us. Post-pandemic, this renewed sense of unity has the potential to enrich our external relationships with communities, health and social care services and employers. In turn, the spirit of collaboration and our reinvigorated sense of fairness, diversity and inclusion could contribute to a societal cultural change. Our combined strengths have the potential to create a world enhanced for us all by the many benefits of adult learning.

Want to contribute a piece to #52weeks52speaks? Great! Email your article or creative endeavours to adultconversations2021@gmail.com. We are open to all types of contributions which focus on adult community education. This might be blog articles, academic articles, essays, poems, art works, podcasts, news pieces, stories, films – from either adult educators or students. They might be reflective pieces, sharing of experiences, research pieces, a polemic or a think piece. That’s really up to you. We just ask that you please adhere to our community guidelines on ethos and values.

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