Creating Strong, Open, Inclusive School Cultures with Dialogue

I ran for my local school board in 2018 and was elected. I use the skills in our meetings, whether I’m chairing the meeting or not. This makes the meetings much more productive. We don’t go over the same topics over and over again.

EP's approach is flexible enough to support educators working across diverse contexts and parallels work that they are already doing to support students' social-emotional development, create trauma-sensitive classrooms and schools, and differentiate learning experiences to meet the needs of all learners.

Student facilitators flip the script. When students lead, you can see a change occur, a shift as they understand the difference between being a participant and being a facilitator, as they work to hear and address the needs of their classmates and community.

The dialogue training allowed me to push myself to speak up first. In an informal conversation, I’m not usually the first person to voice my opinion; I usually end up listening, rather than taking a stance on sharing my opinion. But the dialogue training empowered us to decide if we want to say something now or listen. It really made me feel part of the conversation, rather than being on the outside, observing.

EP's approach allows all the students in the room to speak and be heard, to think about different perspectives on the issue without getting into arguments or fights.

Essential Partners's dialogue initiative is, literally, the best forum I have attended during my time at Cary Academy. The openness and sharing in our group led to genuine connections. I’m not sure words can express how meaningful this event was to me. Truly priceless.

I felt an amazing sense of accomplishment when the Essential Partners training ended; that I'd done something important for my community and something important for me.

What surprised me was how much you could transform a relationship during a three-hour conversation.

I’m a world history teacher… now I feel I’m more empowered about how to make connections across differences. I have a better skill set to facilitate connections.

The most significant thing I've learned in this program is that having an open mindset when listening to others' opinions different from yours to understand their perspective instead of finding the flaws to oppose their opinion to try and change their mind.

Together, we married our ideas to create a dialogue model that took into consideration our young people’s particular needs, and our culture.

Vulnerability is the key. A lot of perspective-taking is based in vulnerability. It’s the key ingredient in a good structured dialogue. It’s crucial to the ‘meet me in the middle’ experience that dialogue is all about.

EP's questions of understanding exercise felt like the debate that we wish the presidential candidates would have—instead of having to listen to two old guys yelling over each other.

Having an environment that gives you that space to listen to others talk about their experiences and understand how those experiences have led them to the opinions that they have—it is truly eye-opening.

The dialogue setting created an environment where people weren’t afraid to open up and share those things that they might not always share out loud. It made us feel closer and provided a stronger sense of trust. It allowed me to be vulnerable to people outside of my community and to be open to sharing.

Dialogue not only teaches you how to interact and understand more deeply those around you, it also teaches you more about the world around you and yourself. I think dialogue is super important to my growth as a student, a global citizen and a human being. I have learned to listen, I have learned to speak out, I have learned how to access my stretch zone (where I feel uncomfortable speaking but not turned off) and I have learned where my limits are.

It honestly surprised me that we were doing [dialogues about the 2020 election] in the first place. I have gone to this school since Kindergarten, and I have seen the recurring pattern of the faculty and staff looking to keep politics out of school discussion, which is completely understandable. Growing up this way has built a sort of stigma around politics that I feel like affected my experience in these activities. This also prompted me to learn more about how I feel about these topics.

Simply changing the wording of a question can invite a completely different personality and emotion around a question. You can learn so much more and have a better understanding of someone's perspective by changing your question.

I can't even begin to explain the gratitude and fulfillment I felt from participating in this Essential Partners COVID-19 dialogue. It helped me better understand myself and what I hope to accomplish throughout this period of uncertainty.

I learned that through productive dialogue, you can make relationships and friendships with people through talking about your differences and similarities.

I did not anticipate having as many concrete takeaways as I do. I feel there is an immense practical application.

I’ve gained not only confidence but tools. The Essential Partners training was worth every penny.

Dialogue changed how I think about the way my school runs.… now I know the people running this institution. I know their values. I know their story. There's a whole new level of trust in the institution itself.

The dialogue setting created an environment where people weren’t afraid to open up and share those things that they might not always share out loud. It made us feel closer and provided a stronger sense of trust. It allowed me to be vulnerable to people outside of my community and to be open to sharing.

Facilitated dialogue creates a classroom atmosphere in which exploring uncomfortable issues and asking difficult questions is an expected part of the process, and it allows students space to engage each other without fear of the vitriol common in our public discourse.

Instead of demonizing and dehumanizing the other, we built a deeper connection. The fact that we disagree matters much less. It matters much more that we are neighbors in this community.

Essential Partners does the best work in the field of dialogue and communication.

The community dialogue was instrumental in helping us create a new policy around class rank. Though a controversial topic in the community, the dialogue EP helped us run ensured all voices were heard and valued. Regardless of how people felt with the final result, one parent summed it up best for us, ‘sometimes the process is more important than the outcome’.

EP's approach has given me some tools to deal with what comes up in my classroom. I teach classes about charged topics. As I’m thinking about and exploring ways to broach these conversations with students, I use this.

This wasn’t a policy debate [about guns]. Instead, two people whose backgrounds and views diverged in almost every way possible shared a moment of honesty that struck at the heart of the matter.

This is the best adult learning experience I have had in the past five years. I wanted to learn new skills—I did!

The thing that surprised me, was the amount of respect given to each person while speaking in the meeting. I thought that discussing politics would eventually cause problems, but it did not.

When a debate occurs, you never feel like you get to hear a person’s full point of view. But, through dialogue, you get to learn someone else’s perspective without any competitive need to win an argument. It leads to mutual understanding; listening to each other helps us chip away at our differences.

It's incredible to really see the evolution and the change of these students, once they're given the tools—and Essential Partners has really helped me do that.

Here safe space was created for pastors and church leaders to wrestle with topics like evolution which are all too often “off limits” or believed to be antagonistic to the faith.