Lesson 3.1 Challenge: Tutor, Buddy, Self

You have answered the Call. Now we hand you three companions for the road ahead.

The first is your Tutor. The Tutor is a teacher at your school (or partner institution) who has been trained through the SPHERE PD-03 programme. They are not your boss. They are not your judge. They are, in the language of the Heroine’s Learning Journey, your wise guide — the person who holds the map of the journey and knows what comes next, but who will not walk the path for you. The Tutor is who you go to when you are stuck and don’t know what kind of stuck you are. They are also who countersigns your Mission Acceptance Statement, who reads your Astronaut Logbook entries, and who, at Stage 8, accompanies you to Alqueva (or the equivalent local site).

The second is your Buddy. The Buddy is a peer — a fellow student in your cohort, often (but not always) from the same school, sometimes from another country in your virtual cohort. The Buddy is who you call when you have something to share that is too small to bother the Tutor with — a half-formed idea, a small win, a small fail, a stupid question that you’re not sure is stupid. The Buddy is also who you collaborate with on the Mini-Lab Toolkit (Pillar 1, Stage 5-6) and who, in many cohorts, defends the poster with you at Stage 9. Buddies are paired by the Tutor in the first week, with attention to balance: different strengths, complementary weaknesses, mutual respect.

The third companion is Self. We mean this seriously. The third companion of every learner-heroine is the part of themselves that knows what they actually need — sometimes earlier, sometimes louder, than they would like to admit. Listening to Self is a skill, not a feeling. The Astronaut Notebook is the technology we give you for listening. Across this Stage, you will start writing in it not only what you observed but what you felt when you observed it. This is not soft work. This is the data that, in the end, makes the difference between a student who finishes the journey and a student who stops at Stage 7.

You now have three companions. Trust each one with what they are best at. Do not ask the Tutor for things only Self can answer. Do not ask the Buddy for things only the Tutor knows. And do not ignore Self when the others are loud.

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📋 In the forum thread for Stage 3, name your Tutor and your Buddy (first names only, with their consent). Confirm you have your three companions in place.