Human Library: get inspired and learn from human books

Usually, you would go to a library, grab a book and learn from it. However, what if it was a human instead of a book and you could learn directly from them on a personal level? On the 16th of March the Teaching Academy in collaboration with Teaching & Learning Services hosted their second Human Library event as part of Kick-start your Teaching programme. With this, the new lecturers could learn about different themes in education such as bridging the gap between school and university by Annoesjka Cabo, teacher identity by Martin Sand, designing failure in education by Stefan Persaud and many more. 

New lecturers could pick a book, interact with ‘it’, treat it with respect, and put it back on the shelf for the next reader! The event started with a one-minute pitch from each book so readers had a bit more context before deciding which book they wanted the read. Every 15 minutes readers had an opportunity to open a new book and explore its content. 

The main objective of this event was to introduce the new lecturers to our TU Delft teaching community and to provide an informal time and space for them to engage with experienced colleagues across faculties that have a particular interest and love for education. 

Annelies Vande Wyngaerde, a book, whose topic was all things UTQ related stated, “it was the kind of library where it was impossible to pick a book because you want to read them all!” A reader said, “it was inspiring to meet experienced lecturers from different backgrounds and have a moment to talk about things in education that I am passionate about."

The Teaching Academy wants to make this Human Library concept into a bigger event for all lecturers. If you would like to be part of this, either as a book or a reader, please reach out to the Teaching Academy at teachingacademy@tudelft.nl. We wish to sincerely thank our books for sharing their experiences! 

Annoesjka Cabo – EEMCS/TA, Timon Idema – AS, Martin Sand – TPM, Cynthia Liem- EEMCS, Jan Kees Blom – CEG, Stefan Persaud- IDE, Bijoy Bera- AS, Jorge Mejía –BK, Bas Flipsen – IDE, Bahareh Abdikivanani – EEMCS, Bouke van Bergen Bravenboer & Annelies Vande Wyngaerde - UTQ