Transcriber: Trần Thái Hưng Reviewer: Rhonda Jacobs
Can you think of a time when an assumption that you made about somebody else
turned out to be wrong?
Can you think of the last time you learned something new from someone else,
who you perceived as being different to you?
Maybe because they are more junior,
or you perceive them as less experienced than you.
Can you think of the last time you had a light bulb moment of realisation
that stuck with you and has changed you as a person since?
I wonder how easy or difficult you found it to think of examples
to answer those questions.
And let me try and convince you why it’s important
for us to have answers to these questions.
When I came to academia, I had all the hallmarks of being an imposter.
I come from a legal background.
I was formerly a corporate lawyer,
so I came to academia without a master’s or a PhD.
And I come from a working class background,
and I’m first generation in my family to go to uni
or to have a professional job.
And none of these things are very typical of academics
or corporate lawyers.
So since I left my hometown of Hull, almost 14 years to the day,
I’ve existed in a lot of spaces
where I haven’t felt like I truly belonged,
where I didn’t fit a mould that seems to be expected of me,
where I struggle to be my authentic self.
That was until I started listening to others,
and I discovered so many other people feel that way too.
I wonder how many of you in this room have felt that way before.
So I came to academia, desperate to learn how to be a good educator.
I didn't have any teaching experience in my previous roles,
and I assumed that this was something that I could be told how to do
by people more senior than me who had loads of experience.
So I started with listening to them,
and of course I got loads of really good tips.
But I was also quite shocked at how much stereotyping and negativity
I had about students.
People were just telling me in a really straightforward way,
‘This is what students are like.’
They would say things like, ’Students from Nigeria are like this,
but students from Canada, you have to teach them like that.
Mature students, they're all like this,
but the ones who come when they’re 18, oh well, they’re all like that.′
And I thought, ‘Okay, well, what do I know? Classic imposter style.’
But over time, I started to question as I got to know these students,
and I thought, ‘Hang on a minute, am I missing half of the story here?’
Maybe to be a good educator,
I should actually listen to the people
who I am attempting to support in getting their education.
So that's when I made a commitment to start listening to students.
And through that, I was exposed to so many different stories,
and I was surprised by how many parallels student experiences had with my own,
but also so many differences that I had never, ever considered.
I was exposed to stories that just to me,
some of the barriers students had experienced
just seemed completely insurmountable.
And they faced these barriers because of who they are,
who they want to be, who they used to be,
who they love, what they look like,
what they believe in, what they sound like.
At every turn students were being shown a sign that says:
you don’t belong here if you don’t fit our mould.
And once I knew about these stories, I couldn’t continue being complicit
in upholding this idea of a traditional mould.
Their stories became my story.
And those stories consequently became the purpose for my research career
as I started to research into this concept of reverse mentoring.
And over the years that I’ve been doing that
hundreds of students from different underrepresented backgrounds
have worked with me
and have mentored academic staff, support staff, university leadership,
campus police, senior legal professionals.
Reverse mentoring is about the intentional flipping
of the power dynamics that exist in the traditional order of things.
So in the student-teacher relationship, the teacher becomes the mentee,
i.e., the person who has much to learn and to gain by understanding
the lived experience expertise of their students.
And it puts the student in the position of mentor -
being the expert.
And this challenges those deficit narratives
that so many students from underrepresented backgrounds
have to deal with every day.
It places them as the expert.
It seeks to empower those who feel disempowered
when we uphold traditions, norms, hierarchies.
Because we are all experts,
despite this chronic onset of imposter phenomenon that so many of us feel.
We’re all experts in our own lived experiences.
Nobody knows you better than you.
But how much do you know about other people?
Or how much do you try to know and understand about other people
who you perceive as different to you?
And if you are, or if you ever become someone who takes up space as a leader,
as someone who has power, authority or influence,
what do you do or what will you do to embed the voices of people
who feel underrepresented in your organisation
in the decisions that you make?
Because that is part of all of our role.
So in listening to students, as I say, I was exposed to all of these stories,
and it changed me in terms of how I feel
and how I think and who I am as a person.
What I like about reverse mentoring is its adaptability to different situations.
So I talk about in a teacher-student context,
but reverse mentoring can really be useful
in any situation where you’ve got a power structure,
where there are people at opposite ends of that power structure
who would benefit from mutually understanding one another better
to improve culture.
You can think about reverse mentoring really as whatever you like.
I use that label, but it’s hard.
It’s about those who have power in the traditional order of things
ceding that power intentionally
and handing the mic to those whose voices are less often heard
within an organisation or a community.
And yes, it has to start with that intentional act
by the people who usually hold the power.
But there is evidence
that over time, reverse mentoring can have a trickle effect,
a trickle up, and a trickle down effect
that over time, results in that power being maintained
amongst people who have originally felt underrepresented
within an organisation or a community.
So it’s been my mission over the last few years
to try and spread the word about reverse mentoring
and its role in institutional and departmental culture change.
And in doing that, I’ve had the privilege of being able to work with students
from all walks of life.
And these students have come to my projects
and worked as mentors to other people.
They’ve worked with me as co- designers, as sounding boards, as allies,
as supporters of the project.
But if there’s one thing that stands out to me
that all of these students have shown me, it’s the impact, the lasting impact
that one person can have.
And a lot of these students come to my reverse mentoring work
with more negative stories about that sort of impact.
’The lecturer who talks about China to me,
and he said ni hao to me a few times in the corridor.
Well, I’m from Malaysia.′
’That person in class who keeps using the wrong pronouns for me,
even though I’ve told them so many times, it feels like they do it on purpose.′
’I met my personal tutor, and they assumed that I was hung over
and asked me how much I’d had to drink the night before.
But I don’t drink because of my faith.
Why do they make that assumption about me? Is that what I’m supposed to be?′
’The person in the seminar who mocked my northern accent
when I answered a question, I was actually feeling really anxious
about answering.
I think next time I won’t bother.′
These are things that might seem small, but really are not small,
that so many students are facing every day in just trying to get on
and get their degree.
But
if we believe that one person can have so much impact,
then why don’t we think about the good that one person can do?
And that’s why I choose to focus my energy in this work.
So in trying to sort of epitomise reverse mentoring, I was like,
what example shall I talk about? and so many jumped out at me.
But the ones that stood out most prominently to me
was a pair that I worked with.
So a student of colour who also identifies as queer, neurodivergent,
disabled, gender non-conforming
and is estranged from a formerly abusive family.
Universities love putting labels on people and students in boxes.
And that student had had their authentic self stifled
for so long in trying to be put into boxes.
This students said, after they’d mentored a member of staff
who’s worked at the university for a long time,
’I felt so underrepresented my entire life
until I came and did reverse mentoring.
I’ve never felt so included and so seen.
Asking for help isn’t a nuisance. I’ve learned that I am not a nuisance.
I’ve established one of the greatest relationships
I think I could ever have with another human being.
And I never, ever thought that would happen to me at university.′
On the other hand, the staff member who was mentored by this student
talked about this being completely re-energised,
seeing their role through a completely new lens,
having all this enthusiasm and fire
to want to go out and better support students,
having had that little insight into what it can mean
to feel underrepresented.
So through all that otherness and pain and exclusion
that can feel really overwhelming to try to tackle within an institution
like a university,
if we flip the narrative, we can create hope.
And this pair for me and so many other mentor and mentee pairs
really epitomise the power that just one relationship
that is positive and empowering
with someone in a position of authority can have,
when you are someone who has been failed by others at every turn in your life.
So listening to others is really important.
Seek out the opportunity to listen to other people as often as you can.
But is listening enough?
Well, no.
If we just listen, and we are the ones that have asked people
to come and share their vulnerability, their potential trauma,
and we don’t do anything in response, we are part of the problem.
Just listening is a trap,
and that’s why it’s so important that initiatives like reverse mentoring
have a clear purpose for both the mentor and the mentee.
Reverse mentoring is a vehicle towards action,
and it’s the action that we have to focus on.
So a project that I’m working on currently,
underrepresented students mentoring staff leaders,
but through that they are together co-creating proposals
to develop personal tutoring institutionally at the university.
Together as mentors and mentees,
we become micro-communities of underrepresentation.
We are catalysts for change,
and underrepresentation becomes power within those micro-communities.
But if listening without purpose is a trap,
then having purpose but no intention to change is an even bigger trap.
So if you are someone who has power, influence, leadership,
and you ever get an opportunity to do reverse mentoring or something similar,
ask yourself: Are you willing to change?
I know it can be difficult,
if you think you are an expert or a leader,
to admit that there are things that you don’t know.
But there are a lot of things about others that you don’t know and understand.
So ask yourself: Are you willing to be called out?
Are you willing to be part of conflict?
Are you willing to be emotionally challenged?
And if you’re not, take a step back and ask yourself why?
Because you've got some pre-work to do.
So I’m going to go back to those questions that I asked you at the beginning,
but I’m going to reframe them to look forward instead of looking back.
And I’m going to ask: How might you?
How might you create situations
where the assumptions that you hold about others can be changed?
How might you create situations in which you can regularly learn from
and empower people who you perceive as different to you?
How might you bring your community together to create light bulb moments
of change that improve the culture within your organisation or community?
You might try reverse mentoring; you might try something else.
But whatever you do,
think about how you hear and amplify the voices of the people
that feel underrepresented
within your organisation or your community,
and think about what your role is in that.
Don’t think there’s someone else whose job this is; it’s not mine.
It's all of our jobs. And it's important.
So many mentors that have come to my reverse mentoring projects
have described it as a first-time experience.
‘This is the first time someone asked me about who I am.’
‘The first time someone showed me that they care about my identity.’
‘The first time I felt that I belonged to something.’
Those first times are important. How can you be involved in creating them?
So listen, yes, but beware of the listening trap.
We must listen with purpose.
We must act and amplify collectively.
And whatever we do, we must not let opportunities
for those light bulb moments pass us by.
Thank you.
(Applause)