Dialogues is a Schoolhouse program spearheaded by Sal Khan that brings together students from across the world for 1-on-1 Zoom conversations to exchange views on important global topics like immigration, climate change, and artificial intelligence.

Inspired by the belief that one-on-one conversations can spark curiosity, empathy, and collaboration, Sal Khan launched an initial Dialogues pilot in March 2024.

Over the next year, the Schoolhouse team partnered with a committee of civil dialogue experts to design and refine the program. More than 600 students participated in over 2,000 sessions during the pilot.

In May 2025, Dialogues officially launched to the public.

There are two ways to participate in Dialogues: One-Off Events and Dialogue Clubs. You can learn more about these different program formats by reviewing the Dialogue website.

You can review and sign up for Dialogue events and clubs here.
​

Students between the ages of 14-21 are eligible to participate in a Dialogue Club.

Only high school students between the ages of 14-18 are eligible to participate in one-off Dialogue events.

These restrictions are in place for the time being to ensure discussions are age appropriate.

Only verified Dialogue Club Presidents can publish and lead Dialogue events right now. Please do not publish a series using the Dialogues name or format if you are not an approved club president.

We open applications three times a year for students interested in becoming Club Presidents. In the meantime, we encourage anyone interested in getting more involved in Dialogues to join the existing clubs and events to gain experience.

In the future, we may open up opportunities for learners to publish their own Dialogue events and Clubs. However, for the time being these restrictions are important since the content covered in Dialogues sessions can be more sensitive and controversial.

The Dialogues portfolio is a certificate you can submit to our university partners as part of your college applications to demonstrate your open mindedness, empathy, and communication skills.

Students who participate in Dialogues will be eligible to receive a Dialogues portfolio if they complete the following steps:

Once you have participated in at least 3 Dialogue sessions, your Dialogues portfolio will be visible on your Schoolhouse portfolio. After that, your Dialogues portfolio will update in real time after each session to reflect any additional conversations you do.

The following schools will be accepting the Dialogues portfolio from students who will be submitting their college applications in 2025:

We encourage you to send your Dialogues portfolio to any school, even if it isn't listed here. We've even had students send Schoolhouse portfolios to employers, scholarship applications, and more!

The Dialogues portfolio lives within the general Schoolhouse portfolio.

To access your Dialogues portfolio, select your profile from the top right corner of the Schoolhouse website, then selecting “My Portfolio.” Scroll to the bottom to see the Dialogues section.

After your session, you will be redirected to the series page within the Schoolhouse website and prompted to share two feedback forms:

Yes, you will have 7 days to fill out the post session survey. You can do this by navigating to the series page and clicking “All” next to Sessions. For any session where you haven't completed feedback, you will see a "Complete Reflection" button.

If the original partner you were matched with left after a few minutes, you will still be prompted to give feedback for them. In your feedback, you should share what happened and that you did not speak with this participant.

If the system asks you to give feedback for someone you were never matched with at all, please reach out to user support.

Your portfolio will not automatically include any self or peer reflection quotes. Instead, you must select the quotes you would like to feature.

To feature self reflection or peer feedback quotes on your Dialogues portfolio, click the “Add Dialogues Feedback” button from your portfolio.

From the My Dialogues Feedback page, you can select up to 3 self reflection quotes and up to 3 peer feedback quotes to include on your portfolio. This limit ensures your portfolio is easy for college admissions teams to review and digest.

To feature a piece of feedback, click the star next to any self or peer reflection to feature it so that it shows on your portfolio. Remember that you will need to complete at least three Dialogues sessions and reflections before any featured feedback will appear on your portfolio.

For more recent Dialogues sessions you can use the “Series” tab to view feedback for each session. To view and feature earlier feedback from before our reflections were collected directly through the Schoolhouse site, click on the “Legacy” tab.

You should not feature any quotes on your portfolio that express your personal political perspectives on a topic. For example, if you discussed abortion, you should not select quotes sharing that you are pro life or pro choice. Instead, you should feature quotes that highlight your skills in civil dialogue or how the conversation helped you learn and grow as a person. This will help colleges understand how Dialogues helped you improve at engaging in difficult conversations with others.

No, not at this time. However, you can decide which quotes to feature or not feature, as mentioned above. We recommend taking your time filling out the post-session survey after each conversation to make sure your self reflections are worded the way you want them, since they cannot be edited after.

The Dialogues portfolio shows the first 5 topics you discussed and the top 5 keywords your peers most commonly used to describe your conversation strengths. This makes your Dialogues portfolio easier for college admissions teams to review and digest. At this time, you cannot select which topics appear on your portfolio but we may add this feature in the future.

Dialogues is a unique opportunity at Schoolhouse for students to engage in discussions that not only support academic learning, but also facilitate interpersonal exchange and conversations around contentious topics.

Whereas the standard Schoolhouse policies prohibit in-depth, personal discussions about politics and religion, these conversations are allowed (and encouraged!) in Dialogues.

Dialogues participants have a responsibility to approach these topics thoughtfully and to avoid partisan advocacy or proselytizing. The purpose of Dialogues is to express your views and listen to the opinions of others, not to convince people of your stance.

We recognize that there is a fine line between discussion and debate. Dialogues participants should assume good intent when engaging with others and utilize the Dialogues Resources to guide their approach to discussions.

It is especially important to criticize ideas or actions, rather than groups of people. This prevents harmful generalizations.

Methods of Participation: Dialogue participants must engage in conversations by unmuting. Use of the Zoom chat is not allowed for this program.

Confidentiality: Anything discussed in a Dialogue session should remain confidential, unless you are reporting a policy violation or other concern to the Schoolhouse team.

If you believe a Dialogues participant may be violating Schoolhouse policies, please follow these instructions to report the issue.