The Socratic Model

A New Vision for Education

What is the purpose of education?

Well, it’s to get us somewhere in life, isn’t it? We go to school, get good grades, study our way to college and a good, happy, comfortable life. Isn’t that the end goal?

Why does education have to end?

I mean, when we learn what we need to, we’ll attain enough skills and value to just stop and live comfortably.

Is education not comfortable?

No, it’s hard. It requires constant reflection, focus, and dedication. Learning is uncomfortable, because we’re always pushing the edge of the known. It means we have to face uncertainty.

Why do we put so much value in comfort?

It’s easier to live comfortably. In an experiential sense.

Does that apply to all of life, or just a given moment?

I’m not sure…

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This may just look like a mess of questions and a string of silly thoughts, but it’s really a quest of exploration. We embark through the mountains and valleys of our minds, challenging our assumptions and learning to live with uncertainty.

This lived experience of engaging with otherness is vital to living an examined life. To do that, we must put aside our beliefs, our egocentric tendencies, our urge to optimize everything we do, our cares about how we’re perceived to others and we must listen.

Why should we listen? Why should we focus? Why educate, why reflect, why question? Why do we need this so-called otherness?

Ignorance only seems like bliss because when life starts to atrophy from inaction and fear, you’ll go your whole life externalizing the blame until it’s too late and your time is gone. The problem is not the cruel world, not boring routines, it’s the way you’re looking at the world right now.

Education is not the price we pay to achieve a comfortable life. Education is what keeps us going.

We all have lapses in attention, moments in life where we get sucked into routine and forget to live. The days will repeat, over and over, changing as slowly as a young tree grows through the year, until one moment we look up to see that everything has changed. That phased-through time is time we’ll never get back. How do we salvage our time and our agency to act decisively?

There is one thread connecting every lived experience of consciousness. It is attention. By cultivating this thread, we reconnect ourselves to a deeper meaning in living - making space to learn from otherness, kindle gratitude, and find a deeply satisfying joy.

All this is to say: Our attention is what will free us. Education is not even necessarily about the things we learn, it’s about the process of exploration that deepens our attention and improves our capacity to act. We become actors in our own lives, rather than passive consumers.

How do we embody this type of attention?

I believe one of the most powerful ways is through Socratic Discussion. It can take place in many forms, a series of questions to yourself (like the example above), or in a group setting. I’ll be talking about the group version here.

Socratic Discussion (Group Setting)

All you technically need is a group of about 4-20 people, all seated in a circle towards each other, a chosen topic to discuss, and an uninterrupted space of 30+ minutes.

The most important thing is the culture of the room, for this creates the difference between a reinvigorating environment and a searing one.

• This is NOT a debate. This is a discussion. It’s not a competition, it is a collaboration. The main goal is to learn from each other’s diverse perspectives.

• All opinions are valued. Any personal experiences, subjects, and ideas are welcome (as long as they remain respectful).

Optional but recommended:

• Appoint a “socrates” to guide along the discussion, asking deeper or connective questions when the conversation reaches a dead end.

• Choose a topic or set of questions in advance, so people can research beforehand and write some talking points.

Why is this so special?

The spacial set up of the circle urges creativity, open discussion, and eliminates any semblance of hierarchy. The truth is not a pure liquid to be consumed exclusively through the teachers’ words, the truths are in all of us and the process of converging different views. We are the researchers, and we are the experiment. We are the teachers, and we are the students.

We live in the most connected world, yet we feel the least connected to the world around us. What makes the Socratic Dialogue particularly meaningful is how the environment cuts right through the shallow social scripts, small talk, and the dehumanizing way we disregard the presence of others - and throws us right into a dynamic, deep conversation with real ties to our own lives. We are forced to consider other perspectives, and see ourselves in a new light. Once we get over the uncertainty, it’s actually quite addicting. The utmost joy I have felt from each and every discussion never fails to amaze me.

What we need is a cultural revolution. Especially in the United States. In our schools, our workplaces, our families, our communities. We need to approach living in a way that doesn’t view freedom as an object to be bought or even as a surplus of choices, but rather as a state of being. We need to stop seeking only to confirm our own beliefs, stop turning ourselves into personal projects, stop seeing truth as something above the everyday. Truth is within every ordinary day, it’s just a matter of opening our eyes enough to see it.

Schools need to change structurally to adopt this cultural shift. Classes must be dialogues that incorporate knowledge with genuine understanding (and not just grades). Students should no longer be shoved into boxes, punished for creative thinking or forced to conform to writing bland 5-paragraph essays. The true test of education is whether one can think for themselves - and the Socratic Dialogue is the perfect way to do that. It should be implemented starting from middle school and up.

Amidst the age of AI, it’s becoming easier and easier to cheat. The metrics we use to judge performance and grade students are becoming obsolete. I say, stop testing for memorization and imitation and teach students a way of life. A student isn’t truly a student after all, until they gain the self sufficiency to not want to cheat (because they can see the value in their education). Show them the value in their education by connecting it to their lives, connecting it to meaning. Let them shape the future. They’ll learn far more from doing than copying.

The Socratic Dialogue ensures that they are using their own voice. It gives them a compelling intrinsic motivation to find their own perspective. It is easily trackable (just grade their participation) and basically impossible to cheat. It’s fun, rewarding, and most importantly - it re-frames education as a gift and not a jail sentence. That way, our youth can become lifelong learners who are capable of taking on the greatest challenges yet to come.

Photo by Beth Macdonald on Unsplash