The Humility of Socratic Discussion (Reprise)

If we have had the practice to ask again and again what the author meant, and the discipline and training to return to the text and say, “How do you know? I want to understand,” how much more patient will we be (one hopes) when faced with another living, breathing human being who holds an astonishingly different opinion from us?

-Kristen Rudd, Center for Lit.

It is the final week of February and we have an article to share with you today that touches on our character trait of the month, humility. This article was written by Kristen Rudd of Center for Lit back in 2016. Down Home first shared it back in 2019. We feel it is worth re-sharing!

SLOCA defines humility as knowing, accepting and being who we are while demonstrating modesty about our accomplishments and gifts, admitting mistakes and valuing others for who they are and for their input. This month’s catch phrase is: Admit mistakes and cheer others on. This article focuses on the last part of the definition and shows how Socratic discussion can help our students learn “to value others for who they are and for their input”.

If you are new to SLOCA or have children at younger levels, you may be wondering, “What is Socratic discussion?” At SLOCA our students participate in Socratic Circles, which are a student-centered approach to teaching literature. Students are encouraged to actively engage in the text through rich discussion with questions they prepare in advance that challenge them to critical thinking. The teacher acts as a facilitator. The article below addresses how this approach to literature can be transformative as it extends beyond “long-dead, dusty old authors”.

Socratic discussion and teaching is relatively new to me, I’m embarrassed to admit.

This probably isn’t as true as I believe, for at its most basic level, Socratic teaching is asking questions, and doesn’t everyone ask questions all the time? Anyone who’s been around a preschooler (or been a preschooler, for that matter) knows this is true. Anyone who’s wondered something, or had a curiosity about something, is asking questions.

But why? Why do we do this? What’s the goal of teaching and learning this way? What’s our end game? As educators, especially classical ones, one goal is to constantly be learners, therefore teaching our students to be the same. This requires a great dose of humility, a large helping of saying, “I don’t know,” a swallowing of pride and taking a submissive stance toward our subject matter.

I’d like to posit that another end of Socratic teaching is that it is incredibly humanizing, and it teaches us to humanize others. What do I mean? I’m glad you asked.

When we study a piece of literature Socratically, we first ask questions about the text in order to understand the text, and second, to understand the author. Then, and only then, should we ask questions to place value judgments upon either or both. As Missy (Andrews) so eloquently put it in her blog post from May, “Courtesy and common sense require that we read first to hear an author, asking questions when necessary only to better understand him and always letting him get to the end of his idea before we hijack the conversation to make our own statements and observations.”

Well. Where’s the fun in that? I always want to jump to the “should” questions sooner rather than later. Rather than the proper first question of, “What does the main character want?” I jump in straightaway to, “Should he want that? Should he have done that?” What can I say? I like judging people.

I have to remind myself constantly that our initial goal should be to understand. Before we ask the “should,” we have to constantly go back to the text. “Show me why you think that,” I say to my kids. “Where did you get that from? What page?” There’s not a lot that makes them roll their eyes at me faster. They don’t want to do it. It’s hard. It’s time-consuming.

But isn’t that the point? Struggling to understand the author is going to take time. It’s going to be difficult. It’s going to be a little frustrating. But it shapes us; it humanizes us. And in the process of learning to go back, over and over, and support our statements and understand what the author says, it humanizes the author.

If we have had the practice to ask again and again what the author meant, and the discipline and training to return to the text and say, “How do you know? I want to understand,” how much more patient will we be (one hopes) when faced with another living, breathing human being who holds an astonishingly different opinion from us?

If everything we teach our children is supposed to cultivate wisdom and virtue in them, what better training for how to treat those living, breathing humans that surround them on a daily basis than by studying literature properly? In order to see the image of God in others, we must get the image we’ve built of ourselves out of the way. Socratic teaching can help us do just that.

Spend five minutes on Twitter or Facebook, and we can see how helpful this is. Whether it’s social issues or political views, friendships, our marriages, or our relationships with our children, we are quick to judge, to put words in the mouths of those with whom we disagree, to strawman others, to talk right past each other. We assume the worst, and respond accordingly (or is all that just me?).

The practice with literature, if we allow it, can transform us and cultivate in us the ability to extend our fellow man the same grace we give our long-dead, dusty, old authors. Before we judge our living neighbor’s opinions, thoughts, and words, we must make sure we understand them. We can take these same questions and the same posture of humility we use when reading and discussing books with our children and apply them to our living, breathing relationships.

Yes, this is the harder work. We like to be the hero in our own story. We like to give precedence to our thoughts and opinions. Putting others first isn’t easy. Listening is often harder than talking. Understanding, more difficult than assuming.

But is that not the work to which we are called?

What do you think? After reading this article, do you agree with its author? Share your thoughts in the comment section below!