OSLIST Digest - 3 Aug 2005 to 4 Aug 2005 - Special issue (#2005-210) What are the possibilities of using Open Space Technology in the elementary school classroom?

[ashley cooper]

Dear Alan,

THANK YOU so much for sharing that radio show. I will be creating an 
affective curriculum (focusing on social and emotional learning) for 
elementary school students in the coming months. I was unaware of 
philosophical inquiry and am thrilled to explore it more. I particularly 
like the guidelines for conversation that are offered:

1. Listen to each other well.
2. Build on the ideas of others.
3. Show respect for each other and the ideas of others.
4. There is no single right answer.

With discussion questions: Is there anybody that disagrees with that? Would 
somebody like to build on that? Would somebody like to clarify what they 
think (child's name) said?

And at the end of the discussion: Inviting the group to give a thumbs up or 
thumbs down for how they think the PROCESS went today. Calling on students 
to explain why they chose up or down. Asking if anyone changed their mind 
today as a result of the discussion or thinks about something differently. 
Inviting them to expand.


> There is a lesson in here about using Open Space, and other deliberative 
> processes: if one is not living in alignment with the work, it is just a 
> tool, and nowhere near as effective as it could be,


One more highlight from this discussion is the mention that using this 
process seems to aid in facilitating a way for children to embody what they 
are learning. Here's a quote from the transcript:

*Stephan Millett:* Some work I did a couple of years ago at Wesley showed 
very clearly that if you use philosophical inquiry in the classroom, you can 
improve their moral understanding, you can improve behaviours and interpret 
from those behaviours that they have changed in some sort of moral sense. 
All of that's got little scare quotes and caveats all over it, but the work 
we did was very instructive, to say that on a range of categories, 
particularly in terms of social responsibility, getting involved in doing 
stuff, kids who learn philosophical inquiry, who learn values and ethics 
through this model, tend to embody it much more, they live it, they act it 
out, because it becomes part of their cognition.

Thank you,
ashley

*
*
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