Engaged Dialogic Pedagogy and the Tensions Teachers Face

Book review: Fecho, B., Falter, M., & Hong, X. (2016). Teaching outside the box and inside the standards: Making room for dialogue. New York: Teachers College Press.This review highlights the editors’ vision of showing the power of engaged dialogic practice in classroom contexts that are at odds with the push for the standardization of schools and learning. In particular, this review will show how the individual stories of the four teachers highlighted in the book along with the experience of the university researchers created a dialogue from which readers can take hope that their choice to engage in Bakhtinian dialogism in the context of their classrooms is a worthy pursuit. According to the book, this is true even when that choice puts them at odds with other teachers, administrators, and state or national standards. This review will show that the editors and the teachers whose stories are told do not intend for their readers to come to this text ready to join the fight against standards, but for them to be able to see how dialogue is exceptionally important in working in standardized spaces. The book itself is short with only six chapters and just over one hundred pages, therefore, the review will address each chapter individually and its overall engagement with the purpose outlined above. Each chapter ends with the author’s suggestions for action which can help the reader new to dialogical pedagogy grasp dialogical strategies.