Be The Change!
“Be the change you want to see
in the world”
Gandhi’s words apply to our efforts to engage students in deep, meaningful, and lasting conversations.
Whether you are a first-year teacher or a 30-year teacher, it is likely that you have been rocked by that unplanned classroom moment that can only be described as a spontaneous combustion of wonder, curiosity, and thoughtfulness that compelled you to run to a colleague to share the joy of that experience.
“Listening conveys a sense of respect for and an interest in the learner’s contributions. When this is present, students are more willing to share their thinking and put forth their ideas, just as we adults respond more when we know the person we are talking with is interested in us and our ideas.”
So, how do you increase the likelihood that your classrooms, your Socratic Seminars, and your own conversations break out into spontaneous combustions of wonder, curiosity and thoughtfulness? It is simple, yet, profound. Become that all-important, truly interested listener. Isn’t this what you want your students to become? Well, become the change.
“Teachers who find their kids’ ideas fascinating are just better teachers than teachers who find the subject matter fascinating.”
Be fascinated in your kids, it pays dividends!
Thaddeus J Kozinski
5 years ago
Yes, attentive listening is the key to good teaching. The teacher is a midwife of Truth, not its source! Cooperative inquiry, with the teacher as the lead student, is what’s it all about.
Oscar
5 years ago
Well said, Thaddeus! Great Socratic Seminar leadership is more about following than leading, and that starts and ends with close listening.
Genevieve R Arnold
5 years ago
I appreciate what was said about finding our students fascinating. I need to engage that type of thinking with my adult learners as well. Thank you!
Oscar
5 years ago
Hi GENEVIEVE,
In essence, whether a child or an adult, each of us want to be heard, understood, and valued for our contribution. Not for how right we are, but for having the courage to express a new thought, idea, perspective, in front of our peers. It is our duty as leaders of conversations to be certain that participants feel safe and comfortable enough to take a risk.
Scott Harris
5 years ago
This point on listening is really important. Too often, Socratics are each student trying to “say their thing” (while the introverts look for cover), instead of exploring ideas together.
Oscar
5 years ago
Hi Scott,
Thanks for your comment. Yes, listening is absolutely the key to leading engaging Socratic Seminars.LIstening intentionallyl to hear the words, thoughts, ideas, opinions, and confusions of students is vital. We call this the “Emerging Text.” Below are more detail.
Emerging Text
More important than the actual text
A Socratic Seminar is a text-based dialogue with two major goals. The first goal is for students to come away with an enlarged understanding of an idea, issue or a value. A second companion goal of a Socratic Seminar is collective meaning making. An experienced Socratic Seminar leader realizes that these two goals interweave.
While a text of a Socratic Seminar needs to be rich in ideas worth talking about, the ideas students explore and enlarge are determined by the students. Once students read a text and start to bring forth their own words, ideas, thoughts, experiences, interpretations, wonderings, uncertainties, and questions, an emerging text becomes open to all. An experienced Socratic Seminar leader understands that this emerging text is just as, and often times more, important than the text begin discussed. This is because this emerging text comes from the text and it is how we make meaning. We connect the text and its ideas to our own view of the world and to our understanding of the ideas in the text.
An effective Socratic Seminar leader creates an opening question that spark a conversation that elicits an emerging text, and the leader honors this emerging text by putting it at the center of the circle. He or she does this by pausing and creating space so students can make connections to it, by paraphrasing what has been brought forth by participants, by restating the words of participants so that others can elaborate on those ideas, and by asking thoughtful questions about the emerging text. Focusing on the emerging text always leads back to the common text being discussed because the emerging text comes from that text. Humans want to talk about how they see the world. Leaders who “trust the process” and quiet their own “inner clamoring” and focus their close listening on the emerging text of the students will arrive at Socratic Seminars where students have enlarged their understanding of important ideas, issues, or values, and they have done so because they have experienced collective meaning making.
Christy
4 years ago
This was a powerful thread of emerging text. It showed me that a blog could be used as a type of online Socratic Seminar that could be just as effective as a zoom meeting and particularly effective for more introverted students. So much of remote teaching is “online delivery”.
Oscar
4 years ago
Hi Christy,
The pandemic encourages us to experiment with different types of Socratic Seminars. I agree; the contents of a blog can be a text for participants to use in a Socratic Seminars. As long as a text is “rich in ideas, issues, or values,’ much thoughtfulness can be shared.