spectfully engaging with differing perspectives and ideas . Over the course of the year , individual classes will typically cycle through a variety of strategies for managing a complex discussion — appointing a student moderator , calling on the next speaker , rotating through a slate of student voices , or simply trying to speak over each other — and in so doing take note of what helps them advance their collective thinking . As they debate and discuss with their classmates , each student is empowered to make use of the discussion “ moves ” he has learned in his time at Saint David ’ s , especially in Socratic seminars in Grades Six and Seven , making them his own without teacher support . Ultimately , the complexity of the questions and the difficulty of the primary sources demand that boys find ways to listen to multiple points of view . In this way , the seminars function as laboratories of civil discourse . For this reason , the seminar questions are carefully structured to resist easy answers that would push the students into opposing teams in a debate .
The preparatory work for each seminar is just as important in encouraging students to develop critical thinking skills . Developmentally , eighth-grade students may still want to quickly find the “ right ” answer to a question , but they are now also capable of holding complex answers in balance and analyzing bias and motivation across perspectives . For this reason , each source packet contains eight-to-twelve different primary source accounts of the same topic . Grappling with the complexities of each source deepens the students ’ understanding , and the answers that their class arrives at inevitably involve a great deal of nuance as a result of this work . Ultimately , this work is the strongest preparation not only for reasoned debate but for analytical writing in which evidence clearly supports a thesis .
In the classical tradition , almost every philosophical school , from the Stoics to the Epicureans to the Skeptics , looked up to Socrates as a founder . This is perhaps surprising given their foundational differences of thought on almost every doctrinal point , but what each school took from Socrates was not a doctrine but a method . In Socrates ’ s crucial insight , understanding comes from questioning . Rather than dogmatically asserting what they already believe , the true learner begins in curiosity , listens carefully to the perspectives of others , and responds with evidence . In this same tradition , Socratic seminars at Saint David ’ s prepare boys to participate thoughtfully , respectfully , and collaboratively in the discourse that underpins genuine citizenship . •
Dr . Evan Morse is Assistant Head of Upper School and Upper School Sophrosyne and History Teacher at Saint David ’ s School .
Socratic Seminar : Socratic seminars prepare boys to participate thoughtfully , respectfully , and collaboratively in the discourse that underpins genuine citizenship .
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