**4.6 Life philosophies**

*Teacher Education in the 21st Century - Emerging Skills for a Changing World*

necessary ability of teachers today.

**4.4 Cultivating one's not-knowing**

since it fosters curiosity and wonderment.

put into "square-shaped boxes."

**4.5 Togetherness**

confirmed in the meta-reflection notes from the students in this dialog.

participants are going on deeper levels of reflection – something that seems to be

One could of course be critical towards this dialog-oriented approach and say that facts about the topic were hardly or not present at all in these Dialogos workshops on sustainable development. But here the absence of well-founded pre-knowledge on the topic with the participants appears to be decisive. Would they all have known all the facts, figures and theories about the topic, the chances would have been high that they would have just ended up in mere discussion, where each participant would have been concerned with defending his or her point of view. And this was not the case in these dialogs, rather – in reference to Socrates – the participants knew and acknowledged that they did not know, or only knew little, about the topic. In other words, having an awareness of not knowing everything about a topic, seems to constitute a vital attitude that is required by the participants of philosophical dialogs. *Not knowing* in a dialog keeps the learning process alive,

As a consequence, one could even go so far and say that if the awareness of one's

Furthermore, based on the reflection notes from this action inquiry project, one can come to the conclusion that dialog fosters the social relationships between the participating individuals. With the intention to investigate sustainable development issues together – with the emphasis on "together" – there never appeared to be the need for any participant to come up with the best argument or "winning" the conversation, as it would be in a discussion or a debate. Rather, because both the teachers as well as the students showed a certain curiosity in the topic, on the one hand, and because this curiosity was rooted in the fact that none of them possessed expert knowledge about this complex topic, on the other, they were willing to listen to the other points of view. And here another positive effect of this educational approach comes to the fore which can be formulated in the words of Richard Kahn ([20], p. 77), in which he states that caring, dialogical, and transformative relations would promote cooperation, democracy, and positive cultural values, as well as promote communication, esteem, and freedom in relation to each other. In other words,

own not-knowing is a driving force in dialogic learning-and-teaching then this educational approach can also be used for other topics, and not only sustainable development. In this way, both the teacher and the students are cultivating their not-knowing - and in a complex and diversified world like ours, where one simply cannot know all, a cultivated attitudes not-knowing appears to be of central value. However, as already mentioned previously, dialogic learning-and-teaching should not replace traditional lecturing. Nevertheless, it appears to be a valuable and fruitful approach when education has to deal with phenomena and topics that cannot be

Even though students listen to the teacher too when the latter is using a more traditional form of didactics, like when presenting facts and knowledge on a powerpoint. However, active listening as discussed here slightly differs from this form of listening. Active listening appears to happen more likely in conversations, i.e. in a dialog, rather than in speeches. And this difference appears to be decisive for the previously mentioned in-depth learning - active listening is prerequisite for this form of learning. Therefore, making one's students listen actively appears to be a

**188**

Another positive aspect of such a dialogic approach to learning-and-teaching might be the following: In the discipline of so-called philosophical practice one can find a key-assumption held by several practitioners, namely that each individual has his or her own philosophy of life – not in terms of an elaborated theory, but in terms of lived values and beliefs, expressed in feelings, attitudes and actions (see i.e. Lahav: [27]). In this respect Næss can be mentioned again who believed that one of the solutions to the world's ecological problems is to inspire people to formulate their life philosophies, i.e. about diversity and how things are connected ([18], p. 31). And when it comes to the dialog processes as described in the present article, then this seems to be what happened. Due to the dialogs, the participants became inspired to reflect and think about their own philosophies of life – or at least about a certain domain of their philosophy of life in terms of questions like "How do I relate to my surroundings, not only on a local but on a global level?", "What are the values that come to the fore in this reflection, that appear to be important to me, and how might I be able to practice them?" In one way or another all these questions – which for sure are only a few examples - seem to have been relevant and even investigated in the dialogs. It has to be mentioned though that working with one's own philosophy of life was not an explicit goal communicated to the participants. Nevertheless, investigating this kind of philosophy – especially in relation to sustainable development topics – appeared to have happened at least with some participants as the meta-reflection notes indicate. The ability that was fostered here is the ability of self-reflection and subsequent selfknowledge - an ability that was already held in veneration in old Greece (i.e. in the form of the Socratic "Know thyself").
