Why Coffee Discussions Work

As many of you know, I am a strong advocate for utilizing the power of small group conversations (ie. coffee discussions) to help restore local control of Ohio’s public schools.  In Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age, author Sherry Turkle explains why bringing people together to discuss important challenges and opportunities works.  She writes:  “We live in a technological world in which we are always communicating and yet we have sacrificed conversation for mere connection.  We turn away from each other and toward our phones.  We are forever elsewhere.  But to empathize, to grow, to love and be loved, to take the measure of ourselves or of another, to fully understand and engage in the world around us, we must be in conversation.  It is the most human – and humanizing – thing that we do….Our passion for technology tempts us away from face-to-face conversation, but conversation is the cornerstone for empathy as well as for democracy; it sustains the best in education and in business it is good for the bottom line.”