Note to Self: The Genealogy of Internal Dialogue in Educational Material and Practice

• In Event: Roundtable Session 24
  In Roundtable Session: Philosophy, Pedagogy, and Perspective

Abstract

This presentation provides an overview of the history of the "internal dialog" as a pedagogical form whose variations have played a key role in educational materials and practices over a number of centuries. This internalized "practice of the self" has its roots, in pedagogical terms, in externalized dialogue and recitation –enacted through canonical texts, catechisms and other types of classroom scripting. Through the influence of thinkers such as Shaftesbury, the notion of the student engaging with textual questions via internalized responses was introduced into educational textbooks by Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi; and thanks to the work of Mead, Vygotsky and subsequent socio-cognitivist theorists, a similar form and practice is enacted and studied today under rubrics such as "self-regulation" and "self-explanation."

Author

• Norm Friesen, Boise State University