Running a Street Epistemology Club
Roman Tarasov shares practical tips for starting and running a Street Epistemology club based on his experience in Moscow, providing a detailed framework that can be adapted for local communities worldwide.
25 June 2019
People who learn Street Epistemology eventually want to put it into practice. But going out in the street can be intimidating; it's obviously not for everyone. So how can we learn SE and at the same time get feedback from other aspiring epistemologists in order to improve our skills and use them in our everyday life to the greatest extent possible? Start a local SE club, of course! And that's exactly what we did in Moscow, Russia, in May 2017.
The following describes the set structure of our weekly meetings and the work that occurs behind the scenes, with the main intention of inspiring the birth of new SE learning clubs around the world. It goes without saying that our particular structure is not the only one possible and may very well not be the optimal one. And yet the one we have for the moment has gradually taken shape over the months, and it works pretty well for us and our visitors.
Part 1. The Meetings
Start by introducing ourselves
Of course, we don't do that if there are no newcomers present, but there almost always are. So we say our names and why we do SE in a couple of words. This should take less than a minute for each person.
Divide into groups
We divide into two or more groups, one of which is for people who are new to SE. An experienced member gives an introductory speech about SE to the newcomers, answers their questions, and maybe even offers to conduct a demonstration.
Specialized exercises
People already familiar with the method usually practice SE by conducting dialogues with each other or participating in exercises to improve a specific aspect of their SE skill. An experienced moderator is usually needed. Here are a few examples of possible exercises:
- Practice asking specific "How" questions, assuming we already know the belief of an IL, their level of confidence, and their reasons for that.
- Responding to different interlocutor behavior. The moderator can adopt the interlocutor role. For example, being in a hurry, or being too emotional, or talking too much, or frequently changing subjects.
- How to respond to an interlocutor who gives a lot of different potential topics to discuss, and how to decide which topic of theirs is most desirable for conducting an SE dialogue.
At this point, usually about an hour later, we take our first break, and after that, we can mix the newcomers with everyone else.
Role-play SE dialogues
This is probably our main activity. We assign an epistemologist and an interlocutor, and we also assign at least one official observer of the talk—preferably one who knows SE rather well—to give feedback to the epistemologist after the dialogue. Many of the other attendees will also observe the interaction. We time the dialogue (usually no more than 10 minutes), the feedback, and the subsequent discussion (usually no more than another 5 minutes). After the dialogue, the following happens:
- First, the person playing the epistemologist tries to pass The Ideological Turing Test, explaining in their own words what the interlocutor believes and why. The interlocutor gives feedback on their accuracy.
- Second, the assigned observer gives feedback. This feedback has two aspects: one is about the content, such as the particular questions, and the other aspect is about form, such as how did the epistemologist behave, what was good, and could be improved. For example, was she neutral enough? Did she press the IL too hard? Was her wording of the questions good? And so on. Sometimes there are two different observers to assess these aspects.
- Thirdly, all the listeners can freely discuss that dialogue for another couple of minutes.
Such feedback can be tremendously helpful in improving your SE skills. Everyone can look at the same dialogue from different angles, and think of better questions that could have been asked. Combining it all together can be a massive boost for all of the participants.
When conducting dialogues we usually divide into several different mini-groups of 3-8 people. Sometimes we can do it in a group of more people if most of them are willing to just listen for the moment, but usually, there are several people who are eager to participate.
After the dialogues, which can take another hour or so, we have a second break.
Additional Activities
We usually do a second round of practice dialogues, and at the end, we give feedback about the meeting itself. We also have giveaway leaflets with some helpful SE info and links. Here are some more ideas for meeting activities:
- Watch and discuss SE videos together
- Brainstorm SE questions for your real-life situations and dialogues
- Discuss the ways of promoting SE still further
Part 2. Behind the Scenes
Space
It's important where your meetings take place. Not only does it provide comfort to all of you, but it can also contribute to the stream of future participants if there are other visitors of the same place. For example, we are hosted by the local LessWrong community, in their pay-for-minute cafe which holds a huge variety of events for open-minded people interested in personal growth. They are our target audience, so it's very convenient. And we always make sure there are enough of our leaflets at the reception desk. Another important thing is that there has to be at least one separate room where people can practice SE so that they would not be distracted by other people. More rooms may be needed depending on the number of people in your SE club.
Announcements
Everyone interested should have a possibility to be notified about the upcoming events. We have them in FB, VK (Russian social network), and Telegram, so everyone can choose the source which is more convenient to them. Pre-registration should also be considered if the expected number of people can exceed the capacity of the space you selected.
Regularity
It is optimal to have an event regularly at the same time and at the same place so that less mental effort is required to visit it. We've been having weekly meetings at the same time and place for more than a year now.
Feedback forms
You should always try to improve the experience you're giving to your visitors, and in order to get more ideas about what to improve, feedback can be tremendously helpful. We have feedback forms both in paper form and online, and people can anonymously write anything they did or did not like about the event.
Post-releases
Photos, videos, audios, ideas, links should be gathered and kept somewhere, optimally posted on social media.
Team
It's important to have a management team because not much can be done by one or two people. We have about 10 enthusiasts who are ready to help and develop SE in different directions. The team has to have regular conference calls or otherwise contact each other where members can exchange ideas about the development of the community and improving their ways.
Creating new content
At some point, there will probably be at least a couple of people from your team who are able and willing to write their own content on SE and its nuances. It's great to have your own site or social media public page with your own useful content. And it's also great to keep in touch with members of the international SE community and to share your experience with them.
Take care of your visitors
During the event write down all the important information for later – promises of giving some links to someone, important feedback given verbally, the new ideas you have come across, etc. Also, remember to exchange contacts with all the interested people and respond to them afterward, it will increase the possibility of them coming again.
Write your checklists
It's useful to have checklists for all the important things not to forget. You can have a checklist for a host of the event, and another one for a moderator of a mini-group activity, and so on. These roles are not very difficult to perform, and it is useful to have a pool of candidates in place to substitute the primary hosts if needed.
Promotion
It's always useful to promote your activities so that more people could know about them. You can do it online — mostly through social media via posts, videos, links, and management of the community. And also offline — through lectures and workshops.
Conclusion
Please don't be scared by the extensive list of instructions we've given. You don't necessarily need to follow even half of them to start your first local SE club. We started with very few people and very little knowledge of how it's done and what to expect. It was a very long process of creating the experience we are now sharing here. And of course, we're still refining the process.
So go on and create your own local community! We believe that together we can make the world a better place. Well, our confidence level is around 90%, and it's totally falsifiable of course. But you get the idea.
Source: Roman Tarasov
The Street Epistemology Podcast and The Street Epistemology Blog is a production of Street Epistemology International. The views, guests, and topics expressed here (or not expressed here) do not necessarily represent those of the organization.
