We are more than one story: Embracing creativity and compassion through Learning Together

Abstract

People’s experiences of the criminal justice system and, indeed, higher education are dominated by stories. We encourage service user input across the criminal justice system, and endeavour to understand the student experience in higher education, but we rarely think about how politically driven agendas reduce everything, and indeed everyone, to one experience, one identity, and ultimately, one story. Drawing upon our experience of Learning Together, we utilise the concept of storytelling to illustrate how pedagogical creativity and compassion can recast long-standing narratives about ‘service users’ and students so that new, informed stories can emerge.