Educational Policy Studies 304: Social Foundations of Education

Instructor: Nicholas Burbules
Office: 378 Education (244-0919)
Office hours: W 10-12 and by appt.
E-mail: burbules@uiuc.edu

Graduate Assistant: Zelia Gregoriou
Office: 372 Education
E-mail: z-grego@uiuc.edu

Overview

One of the social foundations of education is our capacity to communicate with one another: without communication there can be no education; indeed, there can be no social life at all.

There are many forms that communication might take, but one that has been especially influential in educational theory and practice is dialogue. Philosophers and philosophers of education, from a variety of standpoints, have given special attention to this subject.

Dialogue is a useful focus for an educational foundations course because it involves several issues that raise fundamental questions about the nature and aims of education. By discussing the specific topic of dialogue, we will be examining these larger questions:

The readings for this course include dialogues and studies about dialogue as a means of education. Over the semester, we will be considering what different types of dialogue there are, what different purposes they serve, and what roles they might play in education.

I will begin each class session with some general comments and some questions for discussion. I do not plan to lecture. (In a course on dialogue, how could I?) We will have conversations about the material, exploring dialogue in the way that we interact as well as in what we read. This means that your careful reading and thinking about the course readings before each class session are essential to the success of this course.

This semester also includes an experiment in teaching the course at two different locations via a two-way audiovisual link. I will appreciate your patience as we all learn more about making this kind of teaching work.

Network

If you have access to e-mail, or can acquire it, please do. I will create an on-line discussion list for class members, to supplement in-class discussions with exchanges on-line. This will be especially helpful for students who are far apart from one another.

Participation in this network is not a requirement for the course, but I strongly encourage all students to acquire an e-mail account and to check in on the messages regularly. I have found this an exciting and novel way to extend classroom discussions in a somewhat more informal context. This can be seen as yet another way to encourage dialogue.

Assignments

Your preparation for and participation in class discussions will be a factor in my evaluations. The primary graded assignments are three papers, due at intervals during the semester. The length assigned for each paper is short (1000 words, maximum): but you will find that this raises a special challenge for you because you will probably have more to say on the subject that can fit those constraints. Therefore, these writing assignments will place a premium on identifying a clear and specific thesis, writing concisely, and editing your own writing to avoid wordiness and unnecessary repetition. The topics and due dates for the papers are as follows:

PAPER I (due October 9): Socrates often finds himself engaged in dialogue with reluctant partners - people who are less interested in the topic at hand than he is, or people who are actively resistant to the investigation he proposes. How do we see Socrates deal with such people; how does he try to draw them into conversation? Is he right to do so?

PAPER II (due November 13): Different people engage in conversation in different ways; sometimes this results in "talking past" one another. Some people do not feel safe, or are not willing, or able, to engage in dialogue with certain other people at all. Educationally speaking, how should we respond to such situations: Is education simply impossible in such circumstances? Are there non-dialogical forms of teaching we should adopt? Or are there ways to preserve and develop the possibilities of dialogue even under such circumstances?

PAPER III (due December 11): In the readings for November 13, I suggest that there are four forms of dialogue, and that each might have appropriateness for different subject matters. Identify an area of teaching that especially interests you, and describe how different types of dialogue might play a role in helping teach it. Are some forms of dialogue more amenable to that purpose than others? If so, why?

Schedule of readings
(Readings are available in a packet from UpClose, on 6th Street.)

August 28: Introduction and overview

September 4: LABOR DAY

PART I: PHILOSOPHY, EDUCATION, AND DIALOGUE

September 11: Socratic dialogues

Readings: Plato: Apology, Euthyphro

September 18: Transitional dialogues

Readings: Plato: Republic Bk. I

September 25: Platonic dialogues

Readings: Plato: Meno

October 2: Reflections on Plato and Socrates

Readings: Haroutunian: Evaluating Teachers: The Case of Socrates
Hansen: Was Socrates a Socratic Teacher?

PART II: DIALOGUE AND DEMOCRACY

October 9: Dialogue and democracy (Paper I due)

Readings: Dewey: Democracy and Education, chs. 1,2,7
Bridges: Education, Democracy and Discussion, chs. 2,3

October 16: Dialogue and liberation

Readings: Freire: Pedagogy of the Oppressed, ch. 2,3

October 23: Dialogue and difference

Readings: Ellsworth: Why Doesn't This Feel Empowering?

October 30: Dialogue and silence

Readings: Delpit: The Silenced Dialogue
Fine: Silencing in Public Schools

November 6: Dialogue and feminism

Readings: Belenky et al.: Women's Ways of Knowing, ch. 6
Tannen: You Just Don't Understand, ch. 6

PART III: DIALOGUE IN SCHOOLS

November 13: Forms of dialogue (Paper II due)

Readings: Garrison & Phelan: Toward a Feminist Poetic of Critical Thinking
Burbules: Four Types of Dialogue

November 20: Teaching through conversation

Readings: Alston: Risky Business: Teaching and Conversation
Haroutunian-Gordon: Turning the Soul, ch. 3

November 27: Barriers to dialogue

Readings: Alvermann and Hayes: Classroom Discussion
Burbules: Why Dialogues Fail

December 4: Success and failure in dialogue

Readings: Burbules and Holt: A Dialogue on Teaching

December 11: (Paper III due)

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