Having taught courses on controversial topics for years, Scharbach Wollenberg observed what tactics worked to get students from different backgrounds to engage with each other (and the professor) with trust, curiosity and respect. After semesters of experimenting, she compiled the innovative “Pluralism Workbook,” a physical book with the aesthetic of coloring books and gratitude journals that many students already employ for personal reflection.

Rather than relying on students to devise the perfectly arrived set of top-of-semester discussion agreements, the “Pluralism Workbook” leads students through a series of reflections and self-reflections on the art of listening, of calming the body when facing disagreement, of getting into the “shoes” of peers through imagination, and so forth.

Its aesthetically brilliant approach primes students for conversations across differences with simple reflection/discussion exercises that are designed to be fun, engaging and manageable. It attends to the anxieties and emotions that students have when discussing controversial topics, but in a way designed to be familiar, warm, playful and creative — a natural extension of reflection activities they might already engage in elsewhere in their lives.

Unlike most course materials students engage with — online, immaterial — this book and its suggested activities connect body and mind, a reminder that empathetic human connection happens most effectively in the physical world.

Above photo:

Rebecca Scharbach Wollenberg, Associate Professor of Judaic Studies, LSA.