In the January 20, 2014 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education Dan Berret does a pretty good job
of laying out the importance of, and challenges within, encouraging and
facilitating ‘difficult dialogues’ on campus.
He notes that face2face conversations about controversial
and complex issues “can provide great educational value if guided skillfully.” The educational value includes learning to
listen actively to (usually multiple) opposing views or unfamiliar
perspectives, learning the value of considering and re-considering these and
our own views, perspectives and values in a larger context that includes the
best available data.
These skills are important because these are the skills we
expect citizens to use when we deliberate over policy alternatives and
competing candidacies.
Difficult dialogues, done well, provide us with
opportunities to “wrestle with messy problems that have no clearly defined
answer, a skill that will help [us all] as voters when [we] evaluate policy
tradeoffs. It is also a skill that many employers say they value.” Most important political, social, cultural,
even economic questions that make it onto our public policy agenda are complex
and lack a single, clear-cut, data-driven solution. They require us to balance competing demands
and values, in contexts where resources are limited.
This type of problem solving—the heart and soul of
democratic politics—requires nuance and subtlety, data and experience,
listening and finding common ground for moving forward even while we likely
still disagree. Lacking one
uncontroversial solution, these are the types of questions that a
zero-tolerance culture will almost certainly answer badly, but with great
confidence. These are questions where
the solutions depend on achieving
agreement, agreements that are usually tentative, partial, and provisional. Achieving agreements in these areas nearly
always requires us to be uncomfortable, to accept uncertainty, to be willing to
collaborate with other who bring complimentary skills and perspectives to the
conversation.
This type of learning is one reason we value
discussion-based teaching. Doing it well
requires professors to be comfortable being uncomfortable, because they will
not always know the right answer ahead of time.
Doing it well requires us to be ready to be honest in these dialogues
when we are confused or when a question or comment has caused us to re-think or
re-consider. If we are so unschooled in
political conversations that we cannot help a room puzzle through the
difference between politics and partisanship, it is time to be honest: we are the student in this situation, so
simply choosing to avoid charged conversations, because they are charged, is
like refusing to do our homework.
Instead, be present.
Help students puzzle through the questions by doing it with them with a
shared goal of enhancing everyone’s understanding of the questions and
controversies. Ask questions when you do
not know, instead of changing the topic to something you are comfortable being
the expert on to demonstrate that you are interested in the questions and
concerns expressed by the people in the room with you.
The Chronicle
piece concludes with suggestions:
Establish Ground
Rules. This is important because
ground rules help us when conflicts escalate and because the process of
achieving agreement on ground rules is way that a group can ‘be the change they
want to see in the world.’
Emphasize Storytelling. This is contrasted with ‘making sweeping
generalizations,’ in order to focus on each participant sharing what they think
honestly, the questions they have, the areas they are confused or
optimistic.
Frame the Discussion. This focuses on knowing the issue itself and
that is both important and misleading, because a skilled scholar should also be
able to facilitate a productive conversation on a topic outside his expertise…since
all of us are experts in only a very narrow slice of reality and largely
ignorant about just about everything else.
So, knowing the issue is important.
Knowing how to listen and be present and interested in what is being
said, how to engage in the uncomfortable struggle of real world intellectual
inquiry is even more important…and more likely to bring with it the humility
required to contribute toward achieving agreements by appreciating competing
perspectives and finding common ground.
I would add one more:
Prepare to Myth Bust. Any controversial topic will invite
participants to think (and argue) in terms of what they see as new and exciting
insights, but what even a modest amount of research reveals to be competing
sets of talking points that saturate communication channels. This is where a familiarity with the best
available data helps a lot, along with an ability to ask questions that reframe
from positions to interests and encourage participants to tell their stories,
listen, and engage with the data and each other’s stories.
Two sources for more information in the story:
No comments:
Post a Comment