{"id":62396,"date":"2023-09-09T01:00:42","date_gmt":"2023-09-09T05:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=62396"},"modified":"2023-09-08T09:13:39","modified_gmt":"2023-09-08T13:13:39","slug":"qotd-using-the-socratic-method-in-todays-university","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2023\/09\/09\/qotd-using-the-socratic-method-in-todays-university\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: Using the Socratic method in today’s university"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Assuming you’ve got your knowledge ducks in a row, you then need a method of getting it into young heads that isn’t straight lecture. Lectures were necessary in the pre-internet days, but now standing up in front of a lecture room, reading off a list of Famous Battles of the Civil War, is counterproductive. That’s what the assigned reading list is for. Instead, you need to pose leading questions, and let students blunder through them \u2013 NOT towards a predetermined conclusion, necessarily, but to see where they go with it. Figure out what they’re not getting, show them how to get it … and let them get it for themselves.<\/p>\n

The problem is, the Socratic method isn’t just “asking a bunch of questions.” The idea of elenchus<\/em><\/a> is to get students to question their own presuppositions. You’re teaching them how<\/em> to think, not what<\/em> to think. It’s a neat trick, and I’m far from an expert at it \u2014 not least because I was never taught how to do it, except by my teachers in undergrad, who did it to me.<\/p>\n

Worse, if you had to put two words on Western Civ’s tombstone, ignoratio elenchii<\/em><\/a> would be strong contenders. That’s “irrelevant conclusion” in English, and it’s not too much of an exaggeration to say that “irrelevant conclusion” basically IS “education”, K-thru-PhD. It’s GIGO, as the computer nerds used to say back in my day \u2014 Garbage In, Garbage Out. It’s pretty damn tough, in other words, to have a logical argument with someone who pretends not to believe in logic. By the time you get them in a college classroom, they have twenty years’ experience parroting nonsense … but not the “arguments” for said nonsense, because there aren’t any, and that’s the first thing you have to demonstrate. It’s a tough row to hoe.<\/p>\n

Which is why most profs won’t risk it. Because, of course, the other problem with actually arguing<\/em> with students is the possibility you might lose. The student might be smarter than you \u2014 it’s rare, but it happens. They might know something you don’t (which happens all the time; see above). Or they might just refuse to engage. I’ve had a student ask me, to my face, why it is that when I say something it’s a fact, but when xzhey say something it’s an opinion. How do you even respond to that? Seriously \u2014 shouting “because it says ‘PhD’ after my name, motherfucker!!” is deeply, viscerally satisfying, but that would teach the kid exactly the wrong lesson, wouldn’t it? All of these are gross insults to egghead amour propre<\/em>, to be avoided at all costs.<\/p>\n

Severian, “How to Teach History”, Rotten Chestnuts<\/em>, 2020-12-23.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Assuming you’ve got your knowledge ducks in a row, you then need a method of getting it into young heads that isn’t straight lecture. Lectures were necessary in the pre-internet days, but now standing up in front of a lecture room, reading off a list of Famous Battles of the Civil War, is counterproductive. That’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,7,41],"tags":[1462,764],"class_list":["post-62396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-history","category-quotations","tag-severian","tag-university"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-geo","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62396"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84673,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62396\/revisions\/84673"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}