SELF ENGAGEMENT IN CRITICAL THINKING TO PROMOTE A PERMANENT LEARNING
Traditional methodologies, employed by teachers in academic lessons, have been distancing students from proficient learning more and more. The dialogic lesson, on the contrary, allows students to think by broadening perspectives and not choosing a predefined option which ends up as adopted a-critically. When students are fostered and encouraged to put themselves into the meaningful questions/issues, they will activate the cognitive function able to fix more permanently what the teacher wanted them to achieve and learn. In the specific case, as the philosophy lesson about Wittgenstein and the English literature starting from Tony Morrison’s speech showed, students understood the focus better, avoided shallow learning and got the point from a communal cross-perspective.
CONNECTING LEARNING TO REAL LIFE ( FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE TO CIVIC ENGAGEMENT)
This is a consequence of the above described point. Thinking critically requires filtering knowledge by personal experience. When students are asked to share their points, all deriving from their unique approach, a community of thought takes shape. The final mind-map that sums up all the groups’ work witnesses this synthesis, moving from the individual to the whole. This is an ethical and inclusive methodology which forces the students to respect the other’s approach, to connect different viewpoints and mindset and most importantly to bring life into school lessons.