I had always heard that law professors principally use the Socratic Method in classroom settings. I only had a cursory (at best) understanding of what was meant by ‘Socratic Method.’ I saw law school as a forum for learning laws, studying cases, and doing legal research. I never really considered how a teaching method could significantly influence the attainment of those objectives and, thus, didn’t spend more than two seconds learning more about the Socratic Method. It meant nothing to me—I had no opinion of it nor any prognostic vision of how it would work in a classroom setting.
After a week or so of school, I have become a huge proponent the Socratic Method in classroom settings. It basically teaches students by asking a series of questions seeking to expose contradictions. In essence, it helps students to identify wholes in logic, thought, arguments, etc. by means of critical thinking.
In law school, the professor “cold calls” a student and has a discussion about a particular statute, procedural rule, or case. The professor simply asks numerous questions about the issues, the ruling, the rationale, dissenting opinion, assumed assumptions, application of the law to specific cases, consistency (or lack thereof) in the interpretation of laws, etc. It is hard. It takes so much more than an understanding of facts to get through one of these sessions. Professors do not let you off the hook if you can’t think through an issue—the whole class is put on pause until you can work through the question.
I love this style of teaching because, I think, it accelerates the learning process SO much. First of all, you have to be prepared for class or else you’ll look like an idiot for 15 minutes in front of everybody. Never have I prepared so meticulously for classes (and yet, there are so many angles that I never even think of that are exposed in class). Second, it forces you to remain attentive during class. Third (maybe a corollary to two), you put yourself in the shoes of the person on the hot seat and see how you would respond in the situation. Fourth, it makes you think on your feet. Fifth, it allows you to develop arguments and presents a forum for presenting them.
I really wish that my undergrad and even high school classes had employed principles of the Socratic Method for the reasons listed above. I really think that I would have learned and retained much more.
P.S. Another great thing about law school is the law library. Unbelievable. While it pales in comparison to BYU’s main library, Oregon’s Law library is a spacious, 4 story library, with (among countless other legal resources) actual attorneys who work as the librarians. And print jobs are $0.01. That’s one cent per job. I compiled a bunch of cases into one document yesterday; 150 pages=one cent.
Impressive. I love the printing prices. I also love how you used the phrase "assumed assumptions." Beautifully non-redundant.
ReplyDeleteI remember reading a story about the Socratic method when I was younger. It detailed how Socrates was able to teach a trigonometric principle to a slave boy without giving him one piece of information. All he did was ask the slave boy questions that led the boy to discover the mathematical principle himself. You are right. The socratic method is WAY cool. The potential is unlimited. In fact, I would love to see real life application of the skill in public education. The method could change the whole framework of the system.
I suspect the Socratic method gets a bad rap because of misuse; some who ask factual questions to which everyone knows the answer imagine they're using the Socratic method, when they're actually forcing the students into a game of chicken against each other (Who can endure the silence longer?) It's all in the quality of the questions.
ReplyDeleteI'm convinced about the value of the socratic method. I have some conjectures about why it is rarely used (in fact, I can't think of any setting besides law school):
ReplyDelete1. Like Wiz says, it depends on the quality of the questions. The quality of the questions depends heavily on how well the question knows the subject. I imagine steering a boat, which requires constant fine tuning. In order for the professor to move the class from a to b, he/she must know all of the "waters" where students might choose to stray in between. When students do in fact stray, the teacher has to gradually guide them back to the right path toward b. The level of mastery required for the teacher (and in some sense, the students) seems higher than most high school teachers (students) have.
2. My second idea is that law is better suited for this style than other subjects. Teaching calculus in this way would waste enormous amounts of time, as students struggled to prove difficult results on the fly. Teaching art technique would also be awkward and quite difficult. These are two extremes: calculus has many correct answers, art technique has very few. The philosophy and approach to math would be very well suited for the socratic method however, as would the theory of art. Unfortunately, I have seen 1 or 2 courses on these subjects at the most, and certainly they were totally optional.
Those who believe in markets (i.e. me) would say that if the socratic method were truly underused, then the market must be broken. I can put my finger on exactly where I think this particular market is broken: non-competition. Teachers do not compete in high school, and even at universities tenure reduces competition. In both cases, being fired is not directly linked to teaching outcomes, and other incentives guide teachers. These incentives would be to receive the fixed amount of pay and do as little work as possible. (My "assumed assumption" here is that teaching is NOT actually it's own reward...)
Hess mentioned that this could change the whole framework of the system, but I posit that a change in the system framework must come first, or the socratic method will never be used to it's fuller potential.
In conjecture 1, I meant to say "how well the teacher knows the subject.
ReplyDeleteAll of your comments made me nod head in agreement
ReplyDeleteOn the redundancy of assumed assumptions:
I started to begin writing this written blog at the midnight hour of 12:00 am. The end result is seen as it appears with little thought and consideration given to the basic fundamentals of phrases and word choice. I failed to give a full and complete review and reread. I urge you to please acceptingly receive my sincere and earnest apologetic request for forgiveness.