CIVIL DISCOURSEupdated March 26, 2018
1. Why is activity in this area needed? http://glenn.osu.edu/dialogue/dialogue-attributes/Civil%20Discourse.pdf
2. The social value of civil discourse by the President of Colgate University http://www4.colgate.edu/scene/sept2005/president.html
3. Three Methods for enhancing communication between people with different and/or conflicting opinions that I am suggesting that CAA’s consider using.
a. League of Women voters: Civil Discourse Facilitation. Methods for bringing people together for public deliberation. Here is the university department, the National Institute for Civil Discourse, that provides the theoretical framework. https://nicd.arizona.edu/about I have a workbook and set of handouts from the LWV workshop I attended last month to train facilitators. The Sonoma County LWV is talking about using this methodology to discuss rebuilding after the fire damage, and to duscuss how to increase the amount of affordable housing. One of the particpants from the Marin LWV was thinking it might have some use to discuss pension reform.
b. Better Angels
A description of the Better Angels curriculum.
Here is David Brookes column on Better Angels and using their methods to discuss guns.
c. Courageous Conversations training at Berkeley Rotary
I have the workbook and PPT from the workshop we had at Berkeley Rotary, where 130 people attended. We are going to use the Courageous Conversations methodology in Berkeley and also Living Room Conversations
d. Future Search. Sandra Janoff and Marvin Weisbord developed this approach, and they claim that you can get any group of 70 strangers to agree on a course of action if you can lock them in a room for 3 days and use their methodology.
4. The role of higher education in promoting civil discourse.
“A Crucible Moment: College Learning and Democracy’s Future, commissioned by the US Department of Education, was published by the Association of American Colleges and Universities in 2012. Representing the work of the National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement (2012), the report builds a strong case for higher education’s responsibility, in collaboration with the larger society, for assuring that all students have the skills and knowledge they need to become informed, civically engaged citizens.”
Here is the Crucible Report
5. Religious leadership, civil discourse and democracy. https://wagner.nyu.edu/leadership/research/projects/public#
6. Method for introducing these skills in the elementary school curriculum/
“Educating for Critical Democratic Literacy: Integrating Social Studies and Literacy in the Elementary Classroom” by Kathryn Obenchain and Julie Pennington, 2015, Routledge Publisher
7. The American Assembly has an approach for promoting civil discourse on a national scale. Invented by Dwight Eisenhower and housed at Columbia University:
As an OEO Field Rep, I attended an American Assembly on Black Economic Development in 1968. Wayne Thomas my supervisor told me I was going. I replied “But I don’t know anything about Black Economic Development”, and he replied, “Well then, you’d better learn.”
8. Other resources:
Senator Susan Collins herself useda "talking stick" during the Congressional Budget negotiations. It's a simple idea: If you're the one holding the stick, you're the only one allowed to talk. Collins apparently isn't the first lawmaker to use the decorative stick. According to CNN, she received it from another member who was involved in previous tough negotiations.
Institute for Civil Discourse and Democracy https://www.k-state.edu/icdd/
Everyday Democracy
International Association of Public Participation
Institute for Civility in Government
Living Room Conversations
National Issues Forum Institute
National Coalition of Dialogue and Deliberation
Public Agenda
Public Conversations Project
Sustained Dialogue Project
Teaching Tolerance
Episcopal Bishop Swing started "Cooperation Circles" that recruit
people from different religions to discuss various topics
Episcopol Church on Advocacy.
Their curriculum, 31 pages, over five meetings (theysuggest weekly meetings):