The Art of Focused Conversation for Schools, Third Edition

Book excerpt: Why don’t kids learn? Why can’t students do higher order thinking? Why do educators have endless staff meetings with few results? How can parents and teachers communicate better? The pressure upon educators to teach more, to a wider range and number of students, with decreasing resources and supports makes it urgent to find tools to answer such questions. The Art of Focused Conversation for Schools demonstrates how the Focused Conversation method, widely used in organizations and businesses, can effectively be used in a K-12 educational setting. Each section deals with interactions among students, staff, and parents, and elaborates with over 100 sample conversations designed to make learning more meaningful, prevent and solve problems, and make communications in meetings more effective. Appendices showcase integrated curriculum examples where conversations have been used in unique combinations and list sample questions for each level of the conversation method. With a bibliography and index included, and patterned after its highly successful predecessor, The Art of Focused Conversation: 100 Ways to Access Group Wisdom in the Workplace, this book will be welcomed by parents, students, educators, and school administrators everywhere. The Institute of Cultural Affairs has over 40 years experience in more than 32 nations. A unique facilitation, research and training organization, ICA Canada has provided participatory skills to many thousands of people worldwide.