A middle school student named Alex visited our blog and suggested that we share this resource he found on the three branches of government. Thank you Alex and we are glad you are learning about how your government works. Keep up your studies – you can find some other cool resources here.
As we mentioned in some of our previous posts, dialogues are regularly plagued with the sorts of oppositional behaviors (finger-pointing, name calling, ridicule) that make constructive solutions to real problems difficult to achieve. Other factors undermining effective dialogue include wishful thinking, simple dismissal of alternative viewpoints, insistent oversimplification, jockeying for credit, and unwillingness to trust in others. If we are to make dialogue a part of our self-governance, how do we go about moving beyond these negative norms?
This is no easy task. What we may require is a sea change in the way we do politics. What must we do to create a truly inclusive and functional public sphere that leads citizens into dialogue, helps them collaborate to develop the knowledge needed to make good decisions, and then results in those decisions being reflected into policy and action?
Louis Brandeis, a former US Supreme Court Justice, stated that “In a democracy, public discussion is a political duty.” But what kind of discussion? What promotes civic capacity?
As the public education reformer John Dewey said “we can have facts without thinking but we cannot have thinking without facts.” How can our discussions be better informed? How can we share perspectives and experiences in positive ways?
Our guides can help inform, and help citizens practice, civic dialogue. You can scroll through these guides on this site by clicking on the titles to the left, or download them as PDFs by using the links on the “Discussion Guides” page (see button on upper right). If scrolling through the electronic copies, be sure to review the “About” page which serves as the intro to each of the guides.
One way to start a dialogue on any of the issues addressed in the guides would be to share the related guide and ask others to think of current examples, and what can be learned from the earlier examples shared. You can find out more about how to build dialogues on The Blog For Building Dialogue. You can also download a PDF of the blog post series “A Metaphor From the Midwest” which will help you navigate difficult dialogues here.
Some of the posts from our early years are set forth below. We wish you well in your work.
American Values Are...® 