Little Universe

In my final year at secondary school, I started a discussion forum. Unsatisfied with the competitiveness of debate clubs, I wanted to create a safe space where people could share and listen to views on philosophical questions and current affairs. This was intended for everyone to benefit from – not just the people who ‘won’ the conversation.

Discussing big ideas

My discussion forum concept was modeled on what I’d read about the ancient Greek democratic system: people (OK, men) would assemble in the town square, share their views and listen to others. In the end, they’d vote on what to do. I respected this raw and uncomplicated process, but what really interested me was the conversation before the vote. Of course, people generally wanted to convince others to come round to their side. But what I was most curious about was the people who were receptive enough to accept being convinced.

We’ve all noticed that the bigger the idea, the more emotionally attached to it we get – sometimes we even attach our identity to it. This is what makes religion and politics such charged subjects. I mean, nobody was assembling at the town square to discuss sandwich flavours (gyros flavours? Did they have gyros in ancient Greece? I digress…). If they were making the effort to come, they’d be armed with their arguments. We all want things to go our way, after all.

Or do we? In order to be open to having our mind changed, we have to show up with some level of humility, the willingness to let someone else be right about something that means a lot to us. And it’s a decision many of us consciously have to make. Whoever did this at the ancient town square exhibited a form of pragmatism: caring more about getting the best outcome for all, than just about being right.

Debate vs discussion

I realised that in contrast to the pragmatic approach, I was more familiar with just one way of discussing big ideas: the debate model. Most of us know the format of school debates, whether we were involved or just saw them on TV shows. The first speaker eloquently introduces the main arguments. The second takes notes and provides scathing rebuttals. The final speaker wraps up the debate with a mic drop.

That’s a fantastic format for developing a number of important skills – research, structuring arguments, persuasion, public speaking, handling pressure, and more. And ‘big questions about big ideas’ are an ideal training ground for people to use these skills, because they are complex, subjective and hard to answer. What I noticed, though, was that outside of the debating context, very few of my classmates seemed that interested in chatting casually about those same big ideas while hanging out at break times or milling around after school.

This mattered to me, because I was genuinely interested in those topics, but didn’t want to have to separate them into a black-and-white, overly simplistic ‘for’ or ‘against’ statement. I wanted to know what other people thought, and didn’t want to engage only by trying to convince others of my viewpoint – what if I didn’t even have one?

I wanted to play around with being for, against, or neither. Sitting in confusion and indecisiveness. Seeing all points of view, and lingering in grey areas. Not winning, while also not losing. And I wanted to do this with people.

This kind of approach could make a conversation less of a competition, and more a form of play, fun and connection. I suspected this could be possible even with big, heavy subjects, as long as everyone approaches it with that mindset.

With my big ideas about big ideas, it was time to, ironically, convince people to support and join me.

The experiment

The easiest part was getting a teacher to be my mentor in bringing my discussion forum to fruition. What teacher wouldn’t want to support a nerdy student who wants to discuss intellectual topics in their free time, and even try to corral other teenagers into it too?

Dr C was one of my favourite teachers – he taught human geography, which had originally piqued my interest in current affairs. As a side note, he also introduced us to TED talks in the mid-2000s, before it really took off globally and before TEDx was a thing (by the way, did you know the first TED conference was in 1984?!). With Dr C’s guidance, I assembled a little team who matched me in being soft-spoken and nerdy but offered a broad range of interests and perspectives to keep things thought-provoking.

Finally, it was time to hold our first session. We booked a room for lunchtime on a Wednesday. We plastered posters around the school with a funny comic we found online. We printed out a couple of interesting articles to hand out for inspiration and mental ignition.

If only I could recall what the topic was. All I remember was showing up to that classroom, flanked only by my teammates, watching the clock tick and wondering exactly how stupid an idea this was. We had moved the desks to the sides and arranged the chairs in a circle in the middle of the room. The idea was to engage without desks creating barriers between us.

Five, maybe 10 minutes after the start time, suddenly students started popping their heads in. “Is this the discussion forum?” they ventured. “Yes!” I exclaimed, going into host mode, directing people to chairs and shoving printouts into their hands. All too quickly, the room was full and we needed to get more chairs from a neighbouring classroom. Although people were a little shy at first, the conversation got going and people became really engaged with each others’ ideas. Not a single fight broke out. By the time the bell rang for class, I was relieved and elated. I couldn’t believe how well it had worked. And I could not wait to start organising the next session.

Unexpected outcomes

In all honesty, my main hope was that the discussion forum wouldn’t be a waste of time for the participants. As it was such a new concept for the school, I didn’t dare imagine people doing more than think “yeah, that was OK,” and then moving on with their day. So, you can imagine my delight when they actually thanked me for doing this and asked when the next one would be.

As with any debut, there were also issues. The handouts were distracting and too long, so we decided to do away with them, provide shorter ones, or make them optional for those who wanted to pre-read before sessions. The chair circle formation, while removing barriers, created an awkward sensation of a ‘black hole’ between us. We discovered that sitting around a table provided a much-needed sense of structure and stability, especially during more vulnerable or honest moments.

I was also asked not to direct the conversation too much. I was trying too hard to control the proceedings so that they would be productive and interesting, but it created the opposite effect. I had to learn to sit back and let it flow, and step in when I had a valuable point to add, needed to provide facilitation or mediation, or opened or closed the session. I’d also taken it upon myself to call on quieter people to speak up, thinking that they just needed a little encouragement. That, it turned out, was unnecessary – if they had something to say, they generally decided when and how they would say it – no direction required.

Agree to disagree

Emboldened by people’s willingness to engage with ideas they disagreed with, I suggested bringing in slightly more explosive opposing views. At that time, the concept of ‘intelligent design’ was being debated in the US – religious groups were insisting this be taught in schools as opposed to evolution. I was fascinated and thought it would be fun to host one of our English teachers, who was a steadfast Christian, and Mr C, a staunch atheist, at one of our forums. (I realise this reveals a lot about what I consider fun…)

The two teachers begrudgingly agreed, and the turnout to this session ended up being one of our highest ever. I suppose many people came just to see two teachers have it out with each other, but the whole point was that everyone had to be civil. By the time the bell rang, though, the English teacher had a distinct pink hue to her face while Mr C was sputtering in barely concealed frustration. Despite this, they consented to being involved in a Part Two and, rather amazingly, were much calmer throughout that second session. Those hoping for a dramatic showdown discreetly made their exits.

I recall that we discussed other topics like whether hijab bans make sense (they were being hotly discussed in France at the time), and possibly euthanasia (also in the news). My memory of the rest is hazy, I regret to say. I will share that at our graduation ceremony that year, I was recognised for this with a ‘Social Contribution’ Award, which was pretty amazing and major validation.

I believe the discussion forum was continued the following year after I graduated. I haven’t kept up with it so I don’t know if it still exists today. But if it counts for anything, I’m glad I did it. It helped me realise the value of creating safe spaces for people to express themselves. A small but surprisingly powerful form of engaging with the community in a deeper way, encouraging everyone to show up as themselves. Looks like those ancient Greeks were on to something after all.