Interfaith Dialogue

Interfaith Dialogue

Religion: general

Purpose: to excite students about talking with people of other faiths as a way of getting to learn about other religions; to raise students' awareness of diversity in the classroom and see it as a part of the learning experience.

Cognitive Skills: knowledge, comprehension, analysis (of results of dialogue)

Learning Styles: active, verbal

Intelligences: interpersonal

Use: in class

For: small groups

Estimated time: 25 - 35 minutes (including introduction, actual dialogue, writing, and debriefing)

Materials needed: none (other than a fairly diverse student body in the classroom)

Note: a good ice-breaker for the first week of class, allows students to get to know one another

The Activity:

Teacher should introduce the concept of interfaith dialogue, perhaps show a video of this in action and/or handout and review basic guidelines for dialogue (see Web resources below) (5 - 10 minutes).
Students can be presented with journaling question prior to actual dialogue experience and given a few minutes to respond (see questions for reflection)
Help students get a sense of diversity in the classroom by taking an informal survey of religions represented by students present (ask for a show of hands: "who here is Catholic? Who is Protestant? Any Orthodox Christians? Muslims? Jews? non-religious? other religions?"). Have students look around and take note of where and who these people are as they raise their hands.
Instruct students to: "locate two to four other people in the room who are from different religions (or none)." Help make sure all groups are as diverse as possible, shuffle a few people around as needed.
Have students spend at least 10 - 15 minutes in dialogue (students often desire more time for dialogue). Direct them to:

briefly go around the group and briefly introduce themselves (name & religion)

ask questions regarding each others' religions until they have identified several things that two or more religions have in common

When enough dialogue time has passed, call time. Have students reflect on several questions (can be written on board while students are in dialogue), writing down their responses (5 minutes):

"What is something interesting or surprising you learned about another student's religion?"

"What is something you discovered two or more religions have in common?"

"What are some differences you noticed between the religions?"

"How did you feel about the dialogue experience?"

Debrief (5 minutes): have students volunteer to share responses to the questions.

Web resources:

The Dialogue Decalogue (.pdf) by Leonard Swidler (teacher can edit or highlight main points to review in class)

Alternative possibilities:

In an ESL course, students can practice their English in dialogue as they learn about each other's cultures or home countries.
A sociology course can draw of experiences of diverse student backgrounds.
An ethics course can use students in dialogue as a way to explore diverse perspectives on "hot topics" such as abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, cloning, etc...