Matt’s story

After observing a student workshop Matt, a Senior Lecturer at the University of Westminster, did a Grit workshop for staff.

Grit has been revelatory. It revealed a lot to me about myself.  It revealed a lot to me about students, about how – when they are given an opportunity like this – they really engage with it and rise up to meet the challenge. I was enormously impressed by how significant it was to students, especially those we might normally struggle to engage. They felt seen, heard, and validated. Grit has changed the way I work with students.

I’ve always been skeptical of this sort of thing but ended up throwing myself right into the Grit workshop - not something I normally do! I talked about myself, I talked about my work. For me it became a session about my own motivations and career indecision. It showed me how rare it is for someone to have the experience of being listened to: of being able to speak and be heard.

As a Personal Tutor I was immediately trying to find “fixes” for my students: signposting and advising, always moving straight towards a solution.  Now I see the power of an encounter that doesn’t have a particular agenda, an encounter with students that’s about relationships. Now I’ll start with “how’s it going” to get a conversation going, I’ll ask them what they want to get out of their course or where they want to be in one year’s time or in five year’s time. It’s a chance for them to reconnect with the reason they came to university in the first place.

It opens a space for connection. And when you connect with your students you see them sit up instead of slumping back: they lean into the conversation instead of away from it. They feel affirmed, validated, and so it cuts through a lot of the barriers. We are building a relationship based on trust, beginning with where they are at.

So students are much more likely to open up, to talk about things I’d not normally be aware of. It gives me a much better sense of who they are, means I’m much better placed to support them, and they are more likely to come back to me again for support.

When students are not responding to emails and other communications, or telling me that “it’s all fine,” it’s such a simple way to really engage students. It creates the opportunity for a conversation based around what’s really going on.

For example, I have a student who has had health issues and other difficult personal circumstances. Their studies have been interrupted, they have deferred regularly but now they are running out of extension time. It’s not about academic support (there is no doubting their abilities); it’s about providing them with a sense of connection at a stage in their studies when they are mostly working on their own. It’s about helping them manage their anxieties, focusing on what they have already achieved and the small steps necessary to succeed.

So we meet once a month, just to see how things are. I support them to reconnect with their own sense of purpose, to see how they already have everything it takes to complete the course, and to remind them all they have to do is prove it. Together we reframe the narrative to one of success and I’m there, every month, holding them to account. And I can point to Grit for revealing the importance of this to both of us.