Teaching rhetoric today: Ancient exercises for contemporary citizens

Abstract

Since July 2013, our research team has been working on a project that aims at reintroducing rhetorical exercises in Belgian secondary (high) schools and at studying their effects on the pupils. Our hypothesis is that the regular practice of rhetorical exercises, inspired by those practised in Antiquity, could stimulate skills like open-mindedness, flexibility, creativity, empathy, tolerance, and proudness, in a multicultural context. The experimental course is based on the principle of the "dissoi logoi" (twofold arguments), an exercise probably invented by the first Sophists, in order to suspend personal opinion during the exercise and to focus on technique and performance. The results of the experiments are very encouraging. After a couple of lessons the pupils were able to apply rhetorical notions in their compositions; they developed richer argumentations, by taking other points of view into account, and skills that, according to the teachers, improve their everyday life at school.

Civic, citizenship and rhetorical education in a rapidly changing world

“…On the other hand, any modern rhetorical education that is firmly grounded on the classical perspective provides a support for the humanities paradigm, which opposes the current profit-oriented education (Nussbaum, 2012) and places arts and humanities (and rhetoric along with them) at the centre of modern education for democracy. Consequently, as it has been known to happen many times before in the history of education (Conely, 1994), the role and importance of rhetoric as an educational topic is again being deliberated in the context of various education systems in Europe, either at the level of integration of rhetoric in the National Curricula as a part of existing subjects (Aczel, 2019, Bakken, 2019Kjeldsen and Grue, 2011), or designing (new) educational content or programmes (Dainville and Sans, 2016;Žagar Ž. et al, 1999/2004Žmavc et al, 2018) or at the level of raising awareness of the importance of mastering rhetoric as a part of 21st century competence and skills (Holmes-Henderson, 2016). However, rhetorical education can hardly be reduced solely to the traditional composition perspective or its current social and civic aspects.…”

English Teaching and the Cultivation of Young People's Cultural Confidence

“…Cultural self-confidence is a strong recognition and pride of the nation, the country and the political party on its own cultural values; cultural self-confidence is the core force to deal with the impact and erosion of foreign culture (Tucker & George, 2016). With the accelerating process of economic globalization, the conflicts between the world's multiculturalism have become more and more fierce (Ellis, 2016). The cultural influences and value belief systems intertwined by different cultural groups have continually impacted China's mainstream values (O'Shea, 2016).…”