In Chapter 5: Dialogic Ethics I found the concept of invitations to dialogue to be very interesting. Oftentimes when I am meeting new people or trying to get to know more about someone I am only acquainted with in passing I encounter some difficulty in getting the other person to speak with me on a meaningful level. According to our authors this is because my invitation to dialogue is not being accepted by the other parties. Even though I may employ the dialogic learning model in a conversation by trying to listen, attend and negotiate, the resultant interaction will be without meaning if there is no mutual invitation to dialogue. You just can't force dialogue unless all parties are willing to participate. You can try, but oftentimes it will just turn into a monologue, which may be helpful to the listener if they wish to learn about or from you, but will not much further your goal of learning about them. Meaningful learning is difficult to instigate unless all parties are willing to participate.
I find Martin Buber's insight on the role of images in a relational exchange (p. 84) to be very interesting. Perhaps my exchanges with others are falling short from developing into dialogue because I have too much of an image of myself as as a dialogic person. By striving to fulfill this image of myself I am perhaps allowing image to dominate and am not attending to other aspects of the exchange that could be very valuable. Maybe I am missing some valuable information in these exchanges because I am too "in my head."
When communication comes to a standstill because other parties refuse to accept your invitation to dialogue, it can be difficult to remember Paulo Freire's assertion that dialogue exists as a liberating tool for learning (p. 82). However, by taking a step back from your interactions it is possible to gain some insight into the potential causes of your dialogic success or failure.
Hello! I can really relate to your post especially since i'm an international student and it was and somewhat kind of is still very hard for me to engage and initiate in a conversation especially to Americans. However, I have learned some new things about that and was able to improve and adapt to how people communicate here. Moreover, people are usually nice here and they always try to engage you in their communication which is nice. I'm still learning how to really engage in the dialogue ethics here. There are certain things that are different. For example, in where I came from, Indonesia, one doesn't usually look on the other person's eyes when talking especially to elderly because it will be seen as if we're challenging them. Here, however, looking into the other person's eyes mean respect and trust. It is pretty different and was hard for me to do at first. But I'm used to it and have no problem about it anymore. I really did took a step back and gained some insight about the dialogue ethics here which really helps me to make friends.
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