A gathering is an informal meeting .
Gatherings are informal and periodic meetings where people interested in the same topic gather to debate, obtain information and share opinions. This is a Spanish custom that was very common in its independent colonies until the mid- 20th century . Nowadays, the contertulios or tertullianos (as the attendees are called) are usually people from the intellectual field who meet in cafeterias.
The gatherings can be of all kinds: literary , theatrical , bullfighting and even of general interest . There is an implicit rule through which the person who misses a gathering is attacked and discredited, which allows none of the regular attendees to miss the meetings and commit to belonging to the group .
It is considered that a good level gathering can be an excellent educational instrument , since the first thing that is learned in them is critical thinking and tolerance for other people's ideas. In addition, the gatherings allow us to foster friendship , strengthen social relationships and enrich the culture of the attendees.
Origin of the gatherings
The origin of the gatherings is not clear, beyond the fact that it was the Spanish who spread the custom of this type of meetings. There are those who believe that they come from the Christian-Roman theologian Tertullian , famous for his ability as a polemicist.
However, the most popular theory is that the gatherings have their origins in the literary academies of the Golden Age , such as the Academia de los Nocturnos (in Valencia ) and the meetings at the Casa de Pilatos (in Seville ).
It should be noted that nowadays we also speak of tertulia to refer to the television programs "of the heart", which are usually broadcast in the afternoons, for hours, and bring together popular personalities who discuss irrelevant topics but treating them as if they were top level. Its participants are also called talk shows , although in this case they are mentioned with contempt by detractors of "trash TV ."
Periodicity is one of the characteristics of a gathering.
The term in education
The educational action that is carried out in Learning Communities is known as a dialogic gathering and consists of the use of dialogue with all students or with those who participate in it to construct meaning and knowledge from that point. . Its operation is based on two other concepts: dialogic reading and the principles of dialogic learning, both based on equal participation in a conversation in which the validity of the arguments prevails over power.
In a dialogic gathering, development takes place thanks to the exploration of the most outstanding creations of our species, in its various fields, such as literature, music or the plastic arts. The direct approach to universal culture and scientific knowledge is one of the phenomena that this form of dialogue promotes, and does not impose barriers of any kind; In other words, the gender, age, origin or intellectual level of the participants does not matter.
The origin of the dialogic gathering is found in Barcelona , where in the 1980s the La Verneda-Sant Martí School for Adults began to experiment with this new way of dialogue to include instead of exclude, to encourage free opinion instead to close the doors to those who did not meet certain academic or social requirements. In its beginnings it was oriented towards literature : it consisted of meetings in which its participants debated different classic works from around the world. The foundations of dialogic learning are reflected in the work of the writer Ramón Flecha .