On the 5th of March, I had the privilege of attending a seminar as part of the ongoing Rethinking Pedagogy series, organised by Queen Mary Academy. This session, held in collaboration with the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry and Digital Education Studio, featured a thought-provoking panel discussion with Professor Chie Adachi, Dean of Digital Education, Professor Louise Younie and Olumide Popoola. The focus of the conversation? Flourishing spaces in higher education—an urgent and timely topic in today’s academic landscape.
These seminars are always inspiring, but this particular session felt essential. In a world increasingly shaped by neoliberal values, where efficiency and output often overshadow human-centred approaches, discussions like these are crucial in carving out space for alternative ways of thinking. Creativity, compassion, humility, and co-creation should not be seen as mere ‘soft’ skills, but as fundamental, non-negotiable aspects of education—‘hard’ skills that embody the very essence of the human experience.
A key contributor to this discourse is Professor Louise Younie, through the Flourishing Spaces project, offers a crucial perspective on well-being in medical education and professional training. She is joined in this initiative by Professor Chie Adachi and Olumide Popoola, among others, as part of a diverse team that brings together professionals from across academia, clinical practice, student and alumni networks. Their work challenges the prevailing notion of resilience as the ultimate solution to the wellness crisis in medicine—an idea that can extend to many other disciplines. Traditionally, resilience has been framed as the ability to ‘bounce back’ from adversity, drawing from the Latin root resilire, meaning to ‘spring back’ or ‘rebound.’ While resilience training has its place, it has proven insufficient in addressing the burnout crisis among healthcare professionals. Instead, Flourishing Spaces advocates for a more holistic and human-centred approach—one that acknowledges the complexity of well-being beyond individual toughness and recovery.
Central to Younie’s work is the concept of Creative Enquiry, which explores lived experiences through the arts. This approach encourages medical students—and, by extension, learners across disciplines—to reconnect with their values, find meaning and purpose, and develop self-acceptance. It fosters kindness, personal growth, and positive relationships, all of which are essential dimensions of human flourishing.
Olumide Popoola and Professor Younie further explored these themes in their blog, What is a flourishing space and how might they be enabled in higher education? Popoola, aligned with the social justice pedagogy, describes his own journey of flourishing, evolving from pedagogy to philosophy, and ultimately into spirituality. He argues that answering why we teach—beyond just how and what—is fundamental to educational transformation.
Applying these ideas to contemporary education, particularly in blended and digital learning contexts, raises important challenges: How can physical and digital experiences embody the human experience? Professor Chie Adachi references Morris and Stommel’s concept of a cacophony of voices, as discussed in their book, An Urgency of Teachers: The Work of Critical Digital Pedagogy. They argue that critical digital pedagogy “will not, cannot, be defined by a single voice but must gather together a cacophony of voices.” This perspective underscores the necessity of embracing diverse voices and reimagining communication and collaboration across cultural and political boundaries. By fostering a multitude of perspectives, critical digital pedagogy aims to create more inclusive and dynamic learning environments that reflect the complexities of our interconnected world. Through community and collaboration, as well as the recognition of diversity within educational spaces, these challenges can be addressed.
In essence, my personal take away from this webinar was that by rethinking pedagogy, we are not just refining teaching methods; we are actively building a more inclusive, meaningful, and transformative educational future, one where flourishing is at the heart of the learning experience.
By Daniel Pedrosa, Multimedia producer and PGCAP student