You are going to have to walk slowly to keep up with me! is my warning offered to those who dare to go for a walk with me these days. Another new axiom I am living by is Keep your eyes off the clock! Both of these speak to my predilection for “busy," for “productive,"...
10 Axioms for Learning Design (and just what IS an axiom, anyway?)
If you’ve been kicking around Dialogue Education circles long enough you’ll have heard a bunch of axioms bandied about. You might have read Dr. Jane Vella’s A Few New Axioms, about the new truths that have become apparent to her during her retirement years, or seen...
Dialogue Education Essentials: The Right Bit of WHAT for the WHEN
"If I only had enough time I could cover this subject!" You may have said this yourself. And I'd be surprised if you hadn't heard other teachers say it! If the content of a learning event is worth its salt in meaning and significance, you'll never...
An Interview with Karen Ridout, GLP Senior Partner
This is the second in a series of interviews conducted by Joan Dempsey, GLP's Dialogue Education Community Director, with people who believe deeply in the power of dialogue to influence learning that lasts. Today's interview is with GLP Senior Partner, Karen Ridout....
A New Axiom: Dialogue Education Creates Friendships
This afternoon I was working on revisions for a syllabus of an upcoming fall course. The course was designed using the principles and practices of Dialogue Education. A large part of this design was honed through the feedback of a dear colleague, Jim Wilhoit (see...
Lavish Praise!
I had the great fortune to take my first Dialogue Education course back in 2001 at Eastern Mennonite University’s Summer Peacebuilding Institute with two facilitators named Peter Noteboom and Jane Vella. At the time, I remember it as a great course, but I didn’t...
The Praxis of Dialogue
One of my favorite axioms is: There are three things that make effective learning happen, in this order: time, time and time. While the wry humor in that axiom always gets a belated laugh, the significance and meaning it offers is not at all trivial. I discovered the...
Don’t Tell What You Can Ask…
When my friend Maria and I get together, watch out world! Sunday, over a cup of tea on the back porch, we struggled with this axiom: Don’t tell what you can ask Don’t ask if you know the answer, Tell, in dialogue “How?” asked Maria. “How do you tell in dialogue?”...