1st Edition

Educating for Civic Dialogue in an Age of Uncivil Discourse

By Dennis Gunn Copyright 2020
    112 Pages
    by Routledge

    112 Pages
    by Routledge

    Educating for Civic Dialogue in an Age of Uncivil Discourse addresses an urgent challenge—to help students learn the skills of civic engagement—by offering a framework for authentic cosmopolitan education. As an invitation to ongoing civil dialogue with diverse voices in the classroom, the book aims to foster the skills of democratic and global citizenship that allow students to find their voice as local, national, and global citizens outside of the classroom. It suggests practical ways that teachers can promote the skills of attentive listening, intelligent questioning, reasonable positioning, and responsible dialogue in order to encourage authentic civic discourse. It also outlines specific pedagogical strategies designed to foster students’ cosmopolitan competencies as democratic and global citizens.

    1: Broken Conversations: Educating Globalized Citizens in a Polarized World;   2: Globalized Conversations: Teaching for Cosmopolis;  3: Engaging Conversations: Developing the Skills of Civic Discourse;   4: Critical Conversations: Teaching Critical Thinking for Democratic and Global Citizenship;   5: Creative Conversations: Re-imagining Cosmopolitan Classrooms for the 21st Century;

    Biography

    Dennis Gunn is Assistant Professor in the Education Department at Iona College, New Rochelle, NY

    Educating Generation Z, shaped as it is by divergent digital, consumer, and partisan influences, requires teachers to deliver greater dialogical competencies than ever before. Who better to model the essential practices of attentiveness, intelligibility, reasonability, and responsibility than a current faculty supervisor of student teachers who, from his days as a high school debate coach, knows all too well the damage done to genuine learning when open-ended encounters lose out to scoring a point. Dennis Gunn’s response is simple: model the classroom for cosmopolis—teaching to engage critically, creatively, and civilly.

    Kevin Sandberg, Leo and Arlene Hawk Executive Director of the Center for Social Concerns, University of Notre Dame

    This book could not be more timely. Dennis Gunn provides a template for educators interested in moving difficult conversations forward. In an era of "fake news" and Twitter, it is imperative that we find ways to engage meaningfully with each other and to help students do the same. With the goal of helping teachers, "nurture civility, hospitality, and empathy," Gunn delivers an important book. This is a must-read!

    Donna M. Davis, Ph.D.

    Professor, University of Missouri-Kansas City