The Socratic method of instruction is an old one. But it is one with which many people are unfamiliar. It gets its name from Socrates, the ancient Athenian philosopher and relates to instruction by asking questions. A Socratic dialogue begins with a question: something like, “Do you think Romeo and Juliet ought to get married?” The response (if it isn’t a question) is countered by another question. So if the response was “Yes. What do you think?” The following question (one I use often) could be, “Well, I can’t answer whether or not a thing should be done until I know what it is. Can you define marriage for me?”
A part of the value of the Socratic method is that it trains the soul how to think not just what to think. At its core the Socratic method is grounded in the belief that questions are good, and that the soul, like soil, must be tilled by searching before it can receive the seed of wisdom. The dialogue thus continues, weaving its way circuitously, possibly through many tangents, raising many more questions along the way, some of which are answered some of which are left unturned, reaching numerous dead ends, pulling many U-turns in cul-de-sacs of thought, towards its goal: a better understanding of reality.
And it is here that both ancients and modern practitioners of the Socratic method often fail, because they miss the goal of the Socratic method: Truth, beauty, goodness. Socrates, though one of my heroes, thought the method worked because the soul, being immortal already contained all knowledge within itself. Education therefore was only the work of culling forgotten information from the recess of our selves. But this renders the exercise somewhat vain (and unchristian). Humans do not contain all wisdom within themselves, and truth is not the end result of dialectic introspection. My 26 years of life are enough to show how few answers can be found within oneself.
But progressive educators, who have recently revived the practice in public schools, find themselves at a similar dead end. This is because they ground their educational theories in the belief that all truth is relative; that there is no firm, unchanging, eternal reality to be understood; that all things are merely matters of opinion. If there is no such thing as “true Truth” then what is the purpose of seeking for it? If it’s just within myself or just a matter of my opinions, why do I need to dialogue with others to discover it?
This is precisely where our culture is so lost. We have smart phones, and Wikipedia, and Google search engines, and libraries full of answers. And within a few minutes of internet access, we can arrive at our “answers”; full of that false certainty which is the residue of being our own authoritative experts. The Christian belief in a God whose truth is simultaneously beyond all categories of thought and at once revealed meaningfully furnishes us with the framework for the Socratic method that makes sense of the ancient practice. As I ask questions, I do so within a community constituted by the revelation of God in Christ. My questioning is beholden to the responses of my students. We journey together towards the One who is Himself both the Judge who interrogates human thought and the Answer to all questions. It is in questioning that we join God in “shaking everything that can be shaken so that the things which cannot be shaken remain and abide” [Heb. 12:27].
Mark Brians
Humanities Teacher