Building Dialogue

Helping you plan and facilitate difficult dialogues

  • Pursuing the “American Dream”

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    In a recent dialogue class for older students we were discussing the “American Dream” and how this concept shifted over time from a dream based in community (“with liberty and justice for all”) to one rooted in more individually focused consumerism, with a particular focus on home ownership. In previous discussions members of the class…

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  • Teaching Democracy Depends on Us

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    “Democracy must be reborn in each generation and education is its midwife.” (John Dewey) How do we teach engaged citizenship and the kind of deliberative dialogue that can lead to wise public judgments?  We can’t leave it to to schools, and we certainly can’t leave it to political parties who promote factionalism and hyper-partisanship.  Each…

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  • Harvesting (From A Midwest Metaphor)

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    from A Midwest Metaphor We reap what we sow. The seeds of hate, factionalism, and greed that affect our current politics were planted and allowed to grow, diminishing our hopes for peace and prosperity. But we can weed, and we can nurture the growth of the seeds that promote community. We can use dialogue to…

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  • Weeding and Watching – Part 2

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      A Metaphor From The Midwest In our last post we identified a number of weeds that are growing in our civic soil, including inconsistency and incoherence, deflection, distortion, and denial.  So how do you weed? Whether you are a citizen or a facilitator, there are a number of tools you can use. Key tools…

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