Adapted from GLSEN https://www.glsen.org/activity/guidelines-respectful-gsa-spaces
In this section, we will explore listening and dialogue. Sharing, learning how to listen, and learning how to engage in dialogue have been key themes in thinking about educational response to extremism.
This topic is designed as an invitation to reflect on the nature and role of dialogue in your practice. It explores how to create spaces that avoid slipping into and resist the often harmful effects of silencing.
Before we start, we invite you to engage in a short Padlet activity. Using the QR code, post your thoughts on the following “Good Dialogue happens when …”
🤔 Afterwards: Moment for Reflection
Take a moment to reflect on what others have written. Note any new insights and feel free to “like” those views that resonate with you. Keep these thoughts in mind as we move through this section.
Source: Johannesburg City Hall, Bayers Naude Square, 2015
Sculptor: Lawrence Lemaoana https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Democracy_is_Dialogue.JPG
This statue honours the heroines of South Africa’s struggle and is dedicated to all women who have been at the forefront of social and political change. The work depicts a woman protester with a baby strapped to her back. She holds a protest placard in one hand and a candle in the other to light her way.
Part of our reflections through this unit involving keeping in mind the role of dialogue in democracy, and the idea that democracy always involves dialogue, including engaging with challenging and sometimes even hateful positions. It has been said that productive dialogic engagement is the critical means by which individuals build inter-subjective capacities and democratic cultures (Pruitt and Thomas 2007).
Dialogue does not assume that people are the same, speak the same way, or are interested in the same issues. It only assumes that people are committed to a process of communication directed toward interpersonal understanding and that they hold, or are willing to develop, some degree of concern for, interest in, and respect toward one another (Burbules, 1993: 25).
But of course there are those who do not want this. There are those who are silenced and those who wish to silence others. As educators, our own silence about these issues is already a position.
Sources: Pruitt, B. and Thomas, P. (2007) Democratic Dialogue: A Handbook for Practitioners. UNDP. http://www.oas.org/es/sap/dsdme/pubs/DIAL_%20DEMO_e.pdf
The practitioners and policy makers who took part in our workshops were committed to creating cultures that were open, invitational and tolerant. They says the problem cultures which are more likely to silence, intolerant, or that closed down discussion.
They saw the careful creation of such invitational cultures, including surfacing polarised viewpoints, as real and important pedagogic opportunities for growth and community building.
Here we might recall Paulo Freire’s persistent refusal to speak for others and his insistence on dialogic engagement and encouraging the voices of those often silenced.
He felt that if we do not commit to the ‘art of listening’ in dialogue we risk slipping into dogmatism, imposing our views, or monologue.
But how in practice can authentic dialogue happen? What are its ingredients?
Key ingredients include listening, self-awareness, reflection and attention to context. Referring to professional youth work practice, Collander-Brown (2010) also refers to the metaphors of ‘uncovering’ and ‘making space in the mind’ as processes that support meaningful relationships with young people.
Here are some principles that can guide dialogue.
Working in this way provides opportunity for discussion on the lived world as experienced and power relations within them. As a methodology it emphasises the importance of voice and discussion as well a a means in which to capture a view and audit of the lived reality of participants.
This variation on story circle is an activity that supports collaborative dialogue.
The story circle provides opportunity to see that stories are written and can be re-written, and to notice how the stories we might otherwise tell might be told differently by others. It allows for voices often marginalised to be heard.
This strategy enables students to practice discussion in turns, to garner observations and feedback from their peers and to listen to discussion.
It provides opportunity to also reflect on what makes a good discussion.
It also provides useful structure for discussing sensitive or controversial topics, as different perspectives can be listened to in depth before any direct discussion. It can prepare students well for written work, as it enables students to deepen their questions and ideas about a topic.
The basic strategy
🧐 Teacher/facilitator questioning to deepen thinking:
– Summative questioning should focus on enabling reflection by the group and faclitator. It should focus on evaluating the effectiveness of the discussion and what was learnt from it; both in terms of how to conduct effective discussion as well as about the substance of the discussion itself.
This is a variation on the Jigsaw method where different groups are assigned a specific aspect of a topic.
The task here provides opportunity for individuals to work as part of a small group at first and then discuss and share their thoughts and viewpoints with other small groups while also gathering thoughts and viewpoints from them. This method guides students towards producing knowledge and developing thoughts through discussion with others.
Method
Once completed the teacher/facilitator opens up a wider discussion on key learning.