Why Civil Discourse Matters to Teaching and Learning?

Facilitator: Randy Boyagoda, Vice-Dean, Undergraduate, Professor, English Department, FAS, Provostial Advisor on Civil Discourse, University of Toronto

In this talk, Professor Randy Boyagoda, Provostial Advisor on Civil Discourse, will discuss the importance of civil discourse at university as a way to overcome divides, conflicts, and extreme positions between members of the same academic community, and particularly within classroom settings. Civil discourse, Professor Boyagoda proposes, is a commitment to thinking out loud together with others in and beyond the classroom. Civil Discourse matters because it provides a way for people to recognize and reckon with difference and disagreement, and to see this as a way of increasing mutual understandings and also shared understandings of important issues and ideas. All of this depends upon and indeed supports strong and effective teaching.