Hallmarks of a Chesterton Academy Education: The Socratic Method (#5 of 6)

By Hannah DeRocher, Humanities Teacher

This is the fifth article in a series of six which will describe the Hallmarks of a Chesterton Academy Education.

The mode of teaching called the Socratic Method takes its name, quite obviously, from the Greek philosopher who lived four hundred years before Christ, making this pedagogy over 2,400 years old. Being time-tested is only one of the incredible characteristics of the Socratic Method. Briefly defined, the Method in the classroom means that a teacher is directing a conversation through questions to elicit true opinions in students, rather than lecturing while the students sit passively. This mode allows truth to come to rest in the soul of the learner because of two things: it requires the active engagement of the student, and a gradual honing of the subject at hand in collaboration with other students.

In an era when people “cancel” the achievements of the Founding Fathers because of one politically incorrect opinion, claim to define their own sexuality, and legally justify murdering children, it is more necessary than ever that students think for themselves. As much as the educational system touts “critical thinking” as an aim of the almighty Common Core, the majority of universities and institutions are simply fueling their own confirmation biases and making sure that students read textbooks to help them do the same. Unsurprisingly, the mode in the classroom is purely lecture—one specialized person talking at 400 students in a hall and grading each on how well he or she can regurgitate the professor’s own talking points. Although a teacher could lead students to truth via lecture, it is by far the mode most conducive to indoctrination. An antidote to educational brainwashing is the Socratic Method. The fruit of this process is a mature and complete grip on truth, rather than flashcards full of a teacher’s notes that must be memorized.

The very earliest of Socratic dialogues illustrates what a classroom discussion should be modeled after. In the famous Platonic dialogue “Meno”, Socrates asks Meno to define virtue and claims that “virtue is the desire of things honorable and the power of attaining them.” I will quote their conversation at length:

Socrates: And does he who desires the honorable also desire the good?

Meno: Certainly.

Socrates: Then are there some who desire the evil and others who desire the good? Do not all men, my dear sir, desire good?

Meno: I think not.

Socrates: There are some who desire evil?

Meno: Yes.

Socrates: Do you mean that they think the evils which they desire, to be good; or do they know that they are evil and yet desire them?

Meno: Both, I think.

Socrates: And do you really imagine, Meno, that a man knows evils to be evils and desires them notwithstanding?

Meno: Certainly I do. [...]

Socrates: Is it not obvious that those who are ignorant of [the nature of evils] do not desire them; but they desire what they suppose to be goods although they are really evils; and if they are mistaken and suppose the evils to be good they really desire goods?...And does anyone desire to be miserable and ill-fated?

Meno: I should say not, Socrates.

Socrates: But if there is no one who desires to be miserable, there is no one, Meno, who desires evil; for what is misery but the desire and possession of evil?

Meno: That appears to be the truth, Socrates, and I admit that nobody desires evil.”

In this exquisite exchange between the master of the Method and his student, we can see the hallmarks of this mode of learning. First of all, Socrates starts by asking questions. He does not propose an account for virtue, although it is clear he has one in mind that he is seeking to help Meno understand. Notice that he leads Meno to correct his claim that men desire evil—and eventually leads Meno to define virtue not as “what is honorable”, but as the ability to choose what is good. What is so powerful is that Meno comes to these realizations not on his own, but through the direction of Socrates—yet also in a totally personal way. He is forced to put his own vague opinions into words, to hash them out, sharpen them, and eventually discard what is imperfect in his first understanding. When a definition of virtue is finally given, although Meno has not proposed it himself, he espouses it immediately because he has been led to the correct road and now simply has to walk down it.

What is the goal of learning? Most people would agree that the aim is to arrive at truth; to understand reality. But knowing the facts of a historical event, or a mathematical theorem, or the five ways to prove the existence of God is not enough to constitute learning if the student does not assent to the truth. John Henry Cardinal Newman calls personal adherence to truth “real assent”, and rightly so—for anything less than a wholehearted grasp of reality renders ideas merely sound and fury, signifying nothing. Newman compares the testing of ideas in this way to the testing of morals through temptation—there must be conflict to purify judgement and flesh out all aspects of any given concept. It is one thing to memorize the formula a2 + b2 = c2 and quite another to know how to prove it with the sides of a triangle.  In his book on how we learn, The Grammar of Assent, Newman writes:

Without contradiction, objection, and counter-argument, it is very difficult for anyone to advance beyond his original indistinct view of things to a firmer and clearer understanding. So, we like to encourage disagreement, not as an end in itself, but as a way of helping you deepen your understanding of things which you have begun to apprehend in some way, but not yet thoroughly. Our first grasp of things is not very good.

How accurately he describes the way we wrestle with concepts! Because of the need to deepen our “grasp of things”, the Socratic Method is ideal.

“The Socratic Method allows truth to come to rest in the soul of the learner because of two things: it requires the active engagement of the student, and a gradual honing of the subject at hand in collaboration with other students. ”

It is worth considering the pitfalls of the Socratic Method before concluding. Very easily even in the time of Socrates, men who used this mode became sophists, or people who twisted words to fit their own ends, using rhetoric to corrupt good opinions. When looking at all sides of a question or idea, as Chesterton would say, “The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.”  In the name of intellectual maturity, students can begin to think themselves equal to the teacher or grow less adept at listening to others because of their own desire to control a conversation. These are significant dangers. Yet, if we go down to the roots of the Method, we recognize that it finds its perfection only when a teacher is truly ordered in himself and trying to impart order and wisdom to his students, while also remaining in awe of the truth. To enable students to learn, the teacher must put the ideas to be considered in the right order, discipline their attentions and appetites, and model how to wonder and humble oneself. If these things all take place, the student, like Meno, will grow daily in clarity and desire for the truth.