Jane Vella’s On Teaching and Learning is a magnificent follow-up book to the principles of dialogue education she laid out in Learning to Listen, Learning to Teach (2002).
In this book, Vella takes the principles of dialogue education and shows what it looks like to put them into action through both the traditional face-to-face educational setting and also in an online setting.
Dialogue education is not merely a pedagogy; it is more importantly a way to make society a place of peace (xix). Thus, teaching with dialogue education involves listening to learners, empowering them, and respecting them (xix). Consequently, the following statement appropriately sums up the necessary subconscious of dialogue educators – “the dialogue is not a dialogue between teachers and learner, but among learners, of whom the teacher is one” (xxi).
Learning is not merely about information transfer from the teacher to the student. Learning is about transformation – transformation of certain aspects of one’s life through the content and also of one’s context using that content. In order to facilitate this, teachers need to humble themselves and accept their new role as “listener, designer, researcher, knowledgeable resource, teacher, learner, coach, and judge” (211).
Thus, in dialogue education, the teacher is as much of a learner as the student, and the student is as much of an instructor as the teacher.
This book will be frequently revisited, as I continue to design small group material, discussion guides, and leadership training for the entire group ministry of my church.
I give this book 5 out of 5.