Power of One Educator: Stellina’s Story (Part 2)

In an earlier post, I had shared updates from an educator in Paris I’ve been supporting. After more sessions, she sent me this gratitude update. It’s wonderful to work with someone who is open-hearted to connect to her students with more heart and depth, and see the beautiful results.

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My name is Stellina and I teach at engineering schools. The subjects I taught there this year were called ‘working in companies and team management’.

As chance would have it, I was able to meet Vadivu on several occasions and receive her advice and guidance on how to humanise my course.

In previous years, I’d given fairly theoretical lessons and introduced a few situational exercises.

But I realized that what mattered most to me – developing empathy in students, caring for others, sincere listening and understanding – was missing. I didn’t know how to make the students understand that you can’t work with others without taking their emotions into account, and that they shouldn’t be afraid to communicate their own emotions.

Vadivu made me understand that I had to embody my discourse, to learn to take my students’ emotions into account, and not be afraid to transmit my own.

She told me about the evocative power of stories, both those told and those observed in fiction, for example.

Here, then, are a number of events that took place during my classes that reveal the transformation that resulted from my exchanges with Vadivu.

1. One course was about conducting meetings. I invented a case in which they were to discuss the development of a competitor to Neuralink, a chip implanted in the brain. This competitor,  Stentrode, would be designed to help people who were losing the ability to move. To introduce the exercise, I told them about a personal experience. I had a friend, Hélène, who had Charcot’s disease (ALS) and at the end of her life could only move her head. I was lucky enough to be able to help her at certain times, for example by turning the pages of a book so that she could follow what was being read. She’s a woman who inspired me a lot, because even though she was immobilized for years, she always kept her curiosity for others and for knowledge. I spoke about her to my students, who listened very attentively that day. Without Vadivu, I wouldn’t have dared to recount this personal experience.

2. One detail: after telling the story, I didn’t give the students a chance to react to what I’d told them. I didn’t want to burden them. However, Vadivu suggested that I could have asked them what impact the story had on them, precisely to show them that it’s acceptable to tell a true story that reveals our sensitivity.

Thanks to Vadivu, I discovered how to “honor” the word of another: share with them how their sharing touches us, moves us or inspires us, what emotions it brings us, how it leads us to useful ideas for our own lives. I tried to propose an exercise in valuing the other person’s story in a course on intercultural communication, and I saw that this approach was not so customary for students.

3. One of the themes of the course was motivation. To help them assimilate the plurality of sources of motivation, I gave them cards with several sources of motivation (meaning, learning, recognition, interactions). I asked them to imagine a story about a mountain guide who nurtures all the needs of the people in his team to get them to Everest. The stories they came up with were full of messages and positive emotions. Afterwards, Vadivu taught me the notion of Everest goals, which struck me as much more powerful than SMART goals, which are still taught today. I will introduce it in my future programs.  

4. Continuing on the importance of relying on stories, Vadivu also reminded me of a true story that shows just how much an engineer needs to know how to argue and assert himself in service of others. It’s the story of the Challenger shuttle. In a nutshell, this story shows that there was a fatal accident because managers ignored warnings from engineers about a potential malfunction. The political, economic and time pressure was the strongest and cost several people their lives. I used this case to get students thinking about individual responsibility and the ability to make one’s voice heard.

In 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger and her seven-member crew were lost in an explosion soon after launch.

5. With one of my groups, I experimented with an original exercise. An animal was assigned to each team, and they had to create a comic strip. The comic strip had to explain how a start-up could use this animal as inspiration for teamwork. The results were fantastic. They were fast, thanks to artificial intelligence. What stood out was the importance of rich and diverse communication between people. I wanted to show them through this exercise that we can draw inspiration from nature to evolve better – even a little ant can teach us something precious and meaningful.

6. I wanted to get the students thinking about how to manage a team from a distance. Keeping an eye on people even if they don’t see them on a daily basis. I used a touching cartoon about the importance of small gestures. The power of small everyday gestures Le pouvoir des petits gestes du quotidien. And then I asked them what gestures a manager could make for his team members. The first answer was to organize a breakfast for colleagues. Yes, that’s nice. I tried to talk to them about the fact that asking for help, listening to other people’s ideas and putting them into practice is also a form of generosity.

7. I didn’t dare ask my students for feedback because I was afraid of being hurt by critical feedback. This time, I dared to ask for written and oral feedback. For example, in a class of around 40 students, I asked each of them to say in one sentence a point they had retained and/or an impression they had about the course. I was delighted with the result, as the word that came up most often was “Listen”. This is precisely what I wanted them to remember. In writing one of the students thanked me for my Energy. It’s an enormous gift that gives me the strength to continue in this profession, which is so difficult but so full of meaning.

8. Thanks to Vadivu, I was able to talk to my students about two fundamental approaches: “positive leadership” and “servant leadership”. Unfortunately, these approaches don’t seem to be very well known in France, and I hope that through some of these students, they can be spread, like bees carrying pollen from flower to flower to help fertilize new creations.

To sum up, my exchanges with Vadivu allowed me to invite emotions into my classes. This gives my teachings a whole new dimension because it is not only about training professionals who respect others, but also human beings who will have a strong impact on the world. Thank you to Vadivu for her support in this beautiful adventure.