Rationale

Τhe issue of discussion/dialogue is recognized as a fundamental one in education as it conveys multiple benefits for the educational/pedagogical procedures. Nevertheless, this very issue is not always recognized and analyzed in all its aspects and complexity in the frame of educational practices. Its philosophical dimension and roots, fundamental acceptation for any understanding and organization of discussional/dialogical events, is not always consciously and systematically incorporated and used or even discernible ( as part of the history itself of the dialogue in the western culture and education), whereas its interdisciplinary character, its anthropological, social, political, ethical facets frequently withdrew, confronted as they are by a rush and an intensive care for the construction of a protocol of steps and rules made to be followed under the reasoned assumption that this construction guarantees the respect of the democratic demand in the frame of pedagogical/didactical settings. In this frame, and against any subsequent instrumentalization of this method, a work of (re) conceptualization, conceptual clarification and problematization is needed to be done along with a critical reconsideration of principles, presuppositions, criteria, techniques and tools related to discussion/dialogue apparatus/models in order to distinguish the quasi/pseudo-forms of discussion/dialogue is also necessary. Furthermore, one can seize and highlight the discussion/dialogue as an active, lived experience and unveil the hidden or even forgotten role of the body and thus understand the discussional/dialogical phenomenon as a singular praxis, as a form of life related to a philosophy of alterity contrarily to a conception of discussion/dialogue stuck in a mainly knowledge-centered, instructional model functioning as a grid of answers away from an education of the autonomous thinking. On the other hand reveal, among other conceptions, the discussion/dialogue as a spiritual exercise (in the Hadotian sense) or an exercise of thought (in the Arendtian sense) or as form of parrhesia (in the Foucauldian sense) or as the main method to form a community of inquiry (in the frame of the “Philosophy for/with Children” approach) would intensify and strengthen the participants dialogical capacity and flexibility by provide them with a wide range of theoretical references with practical edges.

Learning outcomes:

It is expected that at the end of the B.I.P. the participants will be able to:

• Recognize the philosophical dimension, roots and characteristics of possible forms discussion/dialogue

• Recognize and understand the multiple stakes in the concept and the method of discussion/dialogue in education

• Recognize the different layers that constitute this very concept & method: philosophical anthropological, social, political, ethical, pedagogical

• Conceptualize and problematize the different elements that constitute this very method in a philosophical way

• Reflect critically about educational applications of discussion/dialogue

• Μake use of the relevant literature

• Set up the theoretical frame of practices based on discussion/dialogue

• Recognize different forms of discussion

• Set up possible criteria, presuppositions, regulations, restrictions, aims for the organization of a discussion/dialogical activity

• Design discussional/dialogical activities

Prof. Elena Theodoropoulou
Coordinator οf the Blended Intensive Program & Directress of the L.R.P.Ph.