A Reflective Learning Journal

My Student Life and Success (SLS) framework looks at what elements are required for a SLS department in a university to thrive and have great impact. One of the criteria I have named “hyper-human.” During 2023, I found myself engaged in a strategic planning initiative for a previous professional role (high school principal). A respected peer mentioned that schools need to be places of humanity – indeed, he exclaimed that schools ought to be “hyper-human” in direct contrast to our artifical intelligence saturated society. This got me thinking.

We clearly live in an age of artificial intelligence (AI). You do not need to traverse far in digital spaces or in the halls of any post-secondary institution to hear, or read, a reference/nod to AI. What then does it mean to be human when we are surrounded by bots and algorithms that offer so much? What are the elements that a bot cannot do? David Brooks, author of How to Know a Person, says it is to be human.

The context surrounding how to be human in 2024 is also critically important to understand. We do not need our humanness to simply position unique strength in the age of machines (Skidelsky, 2023), we need it to combat significant societal challenges that exist on our campuses. For example, Thompson (2023) shares some sobering thoughts about the rise of sadness in American teenagers. “From 2009 to 2021, the share of American high-school students who say they feel “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness” rose from 26 percent to 44 percent.” The World Health Organization has called loneliness a “global public health concern” (as cited in Morgan, 2023). While my SLS team does not include the oversight for health services, such as personal counselling and medical centres, there is much we can do adjacent to our campus peers in Student Wellness that contributes to campus flourishing over campus languishing.

Lucky for us, there is much written about how to be hyper-human. And no, Google Scholar, it does not include this fun reference to “the bliss of the hyper-human, Tom Cruise” (Dargis, 2018) -although I have now book marked this paper as a must read! The following is a brief list of some favourites and I am certain that I am missing many titles. Please let me know on LinkedIn what other titles must be added to this emergent list. My goal here is simply to get it going…not call it finished or definitive and it is not in any particular order.

bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions (1999) & Teaching to Trangress (1994).

Sara Florence Davidson & Robert Davidson (2018), Potlatch as Pedagogy: Learning Through Ceremony.

Resma Menakem (2017), My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Mending of our Bodies and Hearts.

David Brooks (2023), How to Know a Person.

Geoffrey Cohen (2022), Belonging: The Science of Creating Connection and Bridging Divides.

Sasha Costanza-Chock (2020), Design Justice: Community Lef Practices to Build the World We Need.

Parker Palmer’s blog, On Being.

I am looking for a good podcast…any ideas?