Discussion as a Way of Teaching
I've always believed that one of the greatest obstacles to worthwhile discussion is ego. People want to have their worldviews and experiences validated. Their biases confirmed. And when someone says something different to that worldview then the immediate reaction is to invalidate what the other person said.
The issue, is that often another person's point of view is made up of their worldview and experiences that they want validated and damn what they have to do to another person to see it validated and...
We can see how the "Discussion from Hell" happened.
The fact that we live in a politically tumultuous Post-Truth age has only made it worse. The internet forum where I hang out in my free time was chill when I joined up in 2014.
Now its not.
On to the actual subject of this assignment however, the thing I liked most is the little strategies or games for promoting discussion. In particular, I like the Newsprint, Storyteller, and Rotating methods. I like these in part because, due to social anxiety, I crave structure in social interactions and this puts in a good structure that also forces people to engage with different ideas and viewpoints. But it also makes things into a little game. Makes it fun. Student engagement is one of the biggest challenges in teaching and whatever a teacher can do to make the classroom interesting will be beneficial to the students.
The issue, is that often another person's point of view is made up of their worldview and experiences that they want validated and damn what they have to do to another person to see it validated and...
We can see how the "Discussion from Hell" happened.
The fact that we live in a politically tumultuous Post-Truth age has only made it worse. The internet forum where I hang out in my free time was chill when I joined up in 2014.
Now its not.
On to the actual subject of this assignment however, the thing I liked most is the little strategies or games for promoting discussion. In particular, I like the Newsprint, Storyteller, and Rotating methods. I like these in part because, due to social anxiety, I crave structure in social interactions and this puts in a good structure that also forces people to engage with different ideas and viewpoints. But it also makes things into a little game. Makes it fun. Student engagement is one of the biggest challenges in teaching and whatever a teacher can do to make the classroom interesting will be beneficial to the students.
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