Making Sense of the World About Us

In essence, what we each ‘do’ in, and to the world about us, is overwhelmingly influenced by how we each ‘see’ that world: how each of us attempts to make sense of what is happening about us as a prelude for doing something in response. We refer to our ‘way of seeing’ in this context, as our worldviews. These reflect complex sets of beliefs and value assumptions that we hold (but which mostly remain in our sub-consciousness). In the process of growing up, and without appreciating the details, we each discover that not everybody has same view of the world as we do. Indeed, we find out, pretty early in life as it happens, that profound differences in worldviews between us often leads to disagreements about events and ideas and opinions: just think politics and polarisation.

The nature and significance of these worldviews are the topics of the conversation in this episode between our host Richard Bawden and Melanie Williams who has conducted significant research into these matters. Melanie is an Associate Professor at the William Angliss Institute in Melbourne where she is the Associate Dean with special responsibilities for Scholarship. Her primary role is to support vocational education teachers as they seek to improve their teaching and learning practice: Getting to Better Together in action!