Invitation to the summer online one-day course on Dialogic Education

Dear Colleague,

In a time marked by rapid technological transformation, deepening global tensions, and growing uncertainty about the future, education finds itself at a critical crossroads. On one side lies the legacy of the Kantian Enlightenment, steeped in totalized educational paternalism and hierarchies of knowledge. On the other hand, a powerful alternative is emerging: a vision of education as a dialogic and democratic encounter between consciousnesses with equal rights, as envisioned by Soviet philosopher of dialogism Mikhail Bakhtin and some others.

The Dialogic Pedagogy Society (DPS) is thrilled to invite you to participate in shaping and attending an upcoming online summer course/workshop on dialogic education. This collaborative learning space will explore one or more of the following themes, based on the participants' interests:

• AI-powered practicum: teaching simulator:
  What if a practicum without real school or real students reveals more about teaching than one with them? This course replaces the traditional classroom placement with an AI-powered simulation that stages intense, unresolved teaching situations—bullying, sex education, ethical conflict—where virtual students resist, question, and reshape the interaction. The simulator does not model “good teaching.” It entangles you in events that demand judgment without certainty. You can pause it for reflection and ask the AI for its feedback. The simulator enables group work, inviting collective deliberation—but refuses to settle on what counts as the “right” response. Step into the role of a teacher and confront a deeper question: can teaching be learned without risk—or is risk precisely what must be simulated?

• Positivistic vs./and Dialogic Research in Social Sciences and Humanities
  What if research wasn’t about extracting truths from others — but entering into genuine, unfinalizable encounters with them? This course invites you to challenge the conventional positivist view of knowledge as method-bound, voiceless,  and dehumanized, and instead explore a radically different vision: dialogic research as an art of authorial, value-driven, dialogic engagement. Step into a space where subjectivity, bias, and voice are not flaws to be eliminated, but the very essence of meaningful inquiry, aiming not so much merely at the production of knowledge but also at… (to be discussed in the course).
• Democratic Dialogic Higher Education
  What if university classrooms weren’t ruled by syllabi, grades, learning outcomes, or power-hungry technologies—but by genuine student voice, mutual authorship, and unfinalized dialogue? This course opens the door to a radically democratic vision of higher education, where students choose their learning paths, challenge benevolent dictatorships, and co-create meaning in defiance of institutional cages. Come explore the promise, paradoxes, and provocations of dialogic teaching in the heart of the conventional academy and the history of Democratic Dialogic Higher Education.
• Introduction to Dialogic Education
  What if education weren’t about transmitting knowledge, but about co-authoring meaning in unpredictable, surprising, and deeply human ways? This course invites you to reimagine teaching as an ontological encounter—where every question, every silence, and every disagreement shapes not just what is learned, but who we become. Join us for a journey into dialogic education, where education is not just dialogic in form — dialogic in essence.
• Mapping Dialogic Pedagogy
  What if the future of education depends not on better tools for teaching — but on redefining what education is? This one-day course invites you to explore the rich terrain of dialogic pedagogy, from instrumental uses of dialogue for learning outcomes to radical, non-instrumental visions where meaning lives in dialogue itself. Join us to map these divergent paths, challenge conventional schooling, and imagine education as a deeply human, ontological encounter.
• Authorial Education
  What if education were not about mastering fixed curricula, preset by the teacher, but about becoming the author of one's own study — shaping ideas, challenges, and meanings in unpredictable and irreducible ways? This course explores "Authorial Education" as a radically dialogic alternative to standardized schooling, in which teachers and students engage each other not as transmitters and receivers but as co-authors of meaningful, transformative practices. Join us to reimagine teaching as art, learning as improvisation, and knowledge as a living, shared authorship.
• Politics in young children’s play
  What if young children’s play is not preparation for life—but life itself, lived politically? This one-day course invites a radical shift: from viewing play as developmental activity or cultural participation to recognizing it as a space where children already govern, exclude, persuade, submit, resist, and organize their public life with peers. Through this lens, we will challenge familiar frameworks and ask: what if play is not merely rehearsal for future social worlds, but an ongoing enactment of political contests—over power, recognition, legitimacy, and collective life—that may align with, disrupt, or ignore adult ideals altogether? Step into the unsettling possibility that children’s play is not something adults can reliably steer toward preset goals, but something that is, and already, irreducibly political for children themselves.
• Democratic Dialogic University-Afterschool Programs: A Dialogic Perspective
  Can universities move beyond classrooms and become sites of public, participatory, and transformative education? This one-day course explores how dialogic university-afterschool programs challenge hierarchical norms, resist cultural essentialism, and cultivate vibrant, creole educational communities rooted in voice, conflict, and co-authorship. Join us to reimagine higher education as a dialogic commons—where learning emerges not from control or consensus, but from the messy, generative friction of critical dialogue in action.
• Post-Enlightenment Self-Education: Toward a Dignity-Based Society
  What if education were no longer a means of survival, credentials, or labor preparation — but a form of leisure, authorship, and human dignity? This course invites you to imagine a post-Enlightenment world where self-education is not imposed, standardized, or measured—but freely chosen, dialogic, and rooted in the existential need for self-transcendence. Join us to explore how post-work societies can foster not conformity but flourishing — where to educate is not to shape the future worker, but to liberate the present self.
• Bakhtinian Dialogic Education (Progressive and/or Democratic)
  What if education were not about answers, but about unfinalized questions — lived between diverse voices in tension, ambiguity, and co-creation? This one-day course invites you into the world of Bakhtinian dialogic pedagogy, where students and teachers are not mere transmitters of knowledge but co-authors of truth in a polyphonic, ethically charged learning space. Come explore how education can resist monologic closure and cultivate meaning born not in people, but between them.
• What does Democratic Education mean?
  What if “Democratic Education” wasn’t one idea — but five radically different visions of what education can be? In this course, we unpack the layered meanings of Democratic Education: from civic curriculum and managed participation to instrumental solutions for social problems, to democracy as self-governance, and, finally, to self-education rooted in human dignity. Join us to explore these clashing and coexisting paradigms—and to ask, what kind of democracy do we really want in education?
• Diverse Models of Social Justice in Education
  Is social justice in education about equal access, equal outcomes, or something radically different—like honoring each learner’s uniqueness? This course dives into the tensions among equality, equity, and a third, lesser-known model: educational justice rooted in human dignity, authorship, and dialogic responsibility. Join us to rethink fairness in education—not as sameness or support—but as the right to shape one’s learning on one’s own terms.
• Teaching as a Dialogic Art
  What if teaching were not a craft, a science, or a skill — but a dialogic art form? This course explores teaching as an ontological, improvisational, and deeply aesthetic practice, where meaning emerges through dialogic provocation, surprise, puzzlement, conflict, and co-authorship between teacher and students. Join us in reimagining education not as delivering knowledge but as creating a shared work of living, breathing dialogue—one that’s as unpredictable and moving as any great work of art.
  
  

We would love to have you as a dialogic partner in shaping the course content and structure. We invite you to rank these topics according to your interests. Please let us know:

• Which of the above topics resonates with you most? Feel free to rank them in order of interest, or suggest additional themes.
• What is your availability for the course? We are planning the course for sometime in late July and early August. This will help us schedule the course to accommodate participants from different time zones.

What to Expect:

• Engaging presentations and case studies from experienced dialogic educators
• Interactive workshops and opportunities for live dialogue
• Exploration of key concepts: dialogic space, voice, agency, Bakhtinian perspectives, AI technology in Dialogic Education, and beyond
• Practical strategies to implement dialogic pedagogy in diverse learning environments

Facilitators include: Eugene Matusov, Professor of Education, University of Delaware; Ana Majranovic-Shane, Independent Scholar

The fee for the summer online one-day course is $30. The proceeds from the course will support the Dialogic Pedagogy Society (DPS). The one-day course lasts 3 hours. The enrollment limit is 20 participants, not including the course facilitators. 

Who should attend? You, if you are interested in one of the above topics, or want to create a new one. Please respond to the survey about your interest in such a course, interest in a particular theme(s) of the course, and your availability.

Survey: https://tinyurl.com/8ez34ar9 (feel free to share this invitation and the survey with whoever might be interested - thanks!) The survey will be open until May 23, 2026, in all time zones.

Together, we hope to create a space of mutual inquiry, experimentation, and meaning-making that reflects the spirit of dialogic education itself.

 

Warm regards,

Eugene Matusov
Ana Marjanovic-Shane
Mikhail Gradovski

Dialogic Pedagogy Society