Last year, Billie Turner worked with Big Change as a weaver. In this blog, Billie dives into the concept of weaving and imagines a world where education nurtures young people as changemakers.
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I found Big Change through a Weavership, an alternative learning and social change programme run by Youth X Youth.
This programme was about building our capacity for activist leadership and harnessing our natural instincts to illicit social change. Throughout the programme, people often asked me “What IS a weaver?”. A weaver is a person who works with organisations, movements and ideas to bring social change and regenerative solutions into the spaces that need it, which in my opinion are all spaces.
Over the months with Big Change, I was profoundly touched by the ways they work together to support projects and systems that help young people thrive.
My weavership with Big Change involved fostering relationships with staff fueled by emergent conversations around the possibilities of regeneration, relationality and revolution within organisations, institutions and networks. Heena was my closest contact from Big Change and we met weekly to discuss shared learnings around social justice development for students and adults across the UK. We shared book recommendations, capacity building events, conversations on shaping the world of our dreams, ideas to support Big Change’s development, practical tools and so much more. We revelled in the freeform meeting, the open ended discussion, the limitless and unravelling agenda. I visited Big Change in London and was involved in community days and office meetings, presenting the gently transformative nature of our emergent partnership.
Big Change asked me to write to you about what I believe in. Through weaving and working with Big Change I’ve been exploring ways education can supercharge social change. I believe in the revolutionary potentials in education. Why? Because I have been schooled typically and atypically and have experienced the difference.
When asked to write about what I believe in, I thought about the gift of deeply accepting the unexpected and adapting and living emergently, a philosophy that introduced itself to me via the tide of unforeseen life experiences. Accepting that this tide shapes our life or floating down the river so to speak has made life richer and affected the way I see changemaking. My twenties were spent working in widely different professional areas; a radio presenter, a shepherd, a social prescriber, a life coach, a facilitator. I've moved multiple times, embarked on wild adventures and constantly challenged my values. None of this was part of a plan, each piece evolved as a result of what came before. Some experiences were challenging but deeply accepting the tide- the events I couldn't control to go with what was naturally occurring, worked. It allowed for growth. It was exciting. I believe opening ourselves up to uncertainty, to change, to the unknown is key to building new worlds. When we dare to sit in the discomfort of birthing possibility, of that-which-does-not-yet-exist, we are already paving the way for entirely new infrastructures, systems and ways of being.
I am fascinated to question what schools would look like if social change was part of the curriculum. What would we be doing now if we had not only been celebrated for but taught how to make effective change from a young age?
Billie
Imagine a world where our schools assess students on the extent to which they enact social change.
I want to see a world where students are met where they are at and encouraged to thrive in who they naturally are.
When young people move into adolescence pushing boundaries, breaking rules and diverging from what's expected are focal behaviours motivated at this developmental stage by the brain in order to appropriately form independence, identity and a sense of self. During this time, young people are expected to move through an education system that requires the exact opposite. This is when schools swim against the natural tide.
But what would happen if they let go, sat back and allowed themselves to float down the river? Imagine if our adolescent brain, currently programmed to question and challenge was utilised. Imagine if we leveraged this organic, powerful force for positive change in the world.
The world we live in now needs you, pavers; and by that I mean changemakers, dreamers, leaders, innovators, creatives, weavers, healers, the list goes on. For a short time I was lucky enough to go to a school that nurtured these internal parts and it was nothing short of transformative. People are often surprised when I tell them that at the age of 8 years old I was excluded from school. Aside from the way that gender expectations clearly played a role in excluding me and that it deeply troubled me at the time, I would now say that being excluded was one of the best things that ever happened to me. This is because, as a result, my experience of injustice led me on a new path; an alternative school with a heart centred, nurturing approach to learning. Here, our individual differences were seen as strengths and my newfound desire to support social change and fight injustices was born and actively encouraged. This was crystallised in one vital and formative moment, caught in the playground with a hand scribbled petition against the school recruiting a headteacher for the first time. Here, rather than reprimanded, I was celebrated for using my power to affect change and told that I “will go far in life”. I didn’t really understand what that meant at the time, and to be quite honest I still don't, but it sparked something in me that has never died.
I am fascinated to question what schools would look like if children were championed for speaking up and taking action for injustices like I was and social change was part of the curriculum. What would we be doing now if we had not only been celebrated for but taught how to make effective change from a young age? Change within our families, our work, our communities, our countries. Imagine if the education system had valued our natural drive to work together, innovate new ideas, facilitate discussion, put words into action, reflect and grow together?
What kind of change would you be making if you believed unwaveringly that it would work?
I would be changing the way schools work so that we would be graduating believing that we can change whatever we put our minds (and actions) to.
Big Change is all about supporting projects to flourish and has launched applications for their big funding and support opportunity The Spark Awards. Think you might have a project idea to help young people thrive? Apply for The Spark Awards! You never know where it might take you
I still have a lot of questions but I’m looking forward to finding out the answers.
