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2 | The Socratic Search for Engaged Listening · CASTLcast

• Jake: welcome back to another episode of Castle Cast. Rhino Radio. I'm here again with our esteemed headmaster, Dr. Alec Schimf. How are you today? I'm I'm very well, thank you. But you should introduce yourself. You're just this nameless voice, this I. I am here. But so I am here with the esteemed Mr. Jake Jacobison. Well to use your nickname there. Yes, ne new to the school. so to speak, although I feel like I've been around enough to to to know the school. but I think you even spoke year one, didn't you? Didn't you do an Avalode on the The temperaments. That's right. That's right. Yeah. that that was a fun a fun day with with all the students. And I never forgot many of their What's diagnoses is not the right word, but you know, their classification of the temperaments. It was very revelatory of many people in our school. It it's such a great tool. yes. But that is not our topic today. It is not our topic today. Yes. The Socratic discussion, it it's kind of a a pillar, if you will, of the classical model, especially for Sort of the high school or secondary age group. Is that correct? It is correct, yes. Okay, so for the uninitiated, what is the Socratic seminar tell us about it. Tell us about it. Well you're a philosopher. Thank you. Thank you. It may not surprise you to hear this, but it comes from Socrates. So it's what Socrates did in ancient Athens. He's walking around talking to people. But not talking to people about unimportant things. It wasn't, hey, how how's the Athenian soccer team doing tonight? Instead, the stuff that interested Socrates was virtue, right? What is the good? What is courage? What is temperance? What is justice? That's the theme of the republic. And he would talk to other Athenian gentlemen about these things. And What captivates people is that in many of these Socratic discussions or dialogues recorded by his student and successor, Plato, is through discussion they achieve certain truths. And by they, I don't mean just Socrates. In fact, usually it's Socrates trying to lead other people to these truths. And so it's history is always recognized there's something admirable in this. And most of us have been fortunate to have that experience at some point in our lives of a good discussion with friends. And how you come out on the other side of it not just thinking, I'm entertained, but rather thinking, I'm better for that having happened. So that's it in a nutshell. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. that can't be all it is, right? What do you mean? Tell me more. it's not just a discussion amongst friends, right? Or or is it is it that easy? Well, that's that's the debate, right? Is that as you rightly point out, classical schools have identified that this is part of what we need to try to do, is we need to try to have discussions of that sort, discussions of important topics. When we're listening to each other and not just expressing our opinions. I like chocolate, you like vanilla, let's agree to disagree, but no, to ask what is the truth of the matter, and are there arguments or reasons in support of the truths that we're claiming? So it is a it is a truth oriented discussion and it differs from debate in that you are working cooperatively towards the truth. In a Socratic discussion, there are no winners. There are no winners. You're not trying to win. And debate, which is also a worthwhile thing for humans to do. We try, we recognize that sometimes truth needs a champion. So you have different sides approaching an issue from a particular angle. And then we can sit back and say, no, one side of the argument has a better case here. And that's that seems to be where truth is located. And that's valuable. This is different. You're not trying to win. Rather, You're trying to think, okay, working together can we claw our way to a particular truth? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Does that help? Did I get closer to the answer that time? Because you were looking at me with such disappointment. That can't be all that it is. No, I d it I it's interesting, because especially as a pedagogical method, 'cause it's it is g working together to get to the truth is sometimes very different from your average student's experience of school where it's rather one directional. They they have a kind of a passive responsibility. Right. The teacher has the active responsibility. Right. And, you know, here, sit in this seat and take these notes. I'm going to lecture you about the things that I know that you should know. and Not that that is a is a bad thing in and of itself. Oftentimes the teacher does know much more than the student. But it's a very different experience than the working together to excavate the truth. Right. So one immediate question is, is it an all or nothing thing? There were some guys I was in graduate school with for philosophy, and they had gone to a a college that will not be named on the East Coast, but it it was heavy into Socratic discussion. And those guys had really benefited from it on the college level and had really gotten quite a degree of mastery of it themselves as teachers, to the extent that one guy, maybe in a you know, slightly exaggerated, we're drinking beers together, kind of mode claim that everything should be taught Socratically and and you would push back and I'm like, whoa, even math? Like, yes, even math. I can teach anything Socratically and it must be taught Socratically. That's one extreme. And and maybe that's Plato's position, because in the Republic he has a very famous explanation of education that you you're not the student is not an empty vessel into which you the teacher simply pour your knowledge. Rather the student already has what we'll later call in the Christian tradition a teacher in the soul. Right. And that so your job is more to get that student to wake up and teach him or herself. so yeah there there are partisans out there who claim that everything should be taught Socratically that is that good. I have objections if you want to hear them. yes. All right. And and I want to preface by saying, I love Socratic Discussion. This is going to be a pro-Socratic Discussion podcast episode. So it's this is you're not hearing a tragedy, you're hearing a comedy. There is a happy ending. But my critique of many sectors of the classical movement is I think there's a certain naivety about Socratic discussion. There are formidable obstacles to it, even on the high school level, which is why at Chesterton Academy of St. Louis, not all classes are Socratic discussions. So to name some of those and Let me start with the dialogues of Plato, right? Because that's where we first get this idea. An honest reading of Plato's dialogue shows Socratic discussion failing quite frequently. Quite frequently. Sometimes, why we I just sat down on another teacher's class on the beginning of Plato's Republic. And Plato's Republic, they don't they immediately launch into a discussion, but it's not. It's not quite Socratic yet. It's very respectful. Socrates is just asking questions, but he's not really digging yet, or he's not really exposing flaws in argumentation. But it's appropriate because the guy he's to whom he's speaking is a very well-respected older gentleman. In fact, if memory serves, I think the debate is even take the discussion is taking place at his home. So that's one way a Socratic discussion can fail is you're trying to do it with the wrong person. You should not go try to have a Socratic discussion with your 90-year-old grandfather. You should sit there respectfully and ask him questions and let him pour knowledge into your empty soul because that man knows something. And so there's a certain way in which at the beginning of the Republic, that older gentleman He does kind of excuse himself at some at a certain point. And that needs to happen because then Socrates can kind of tussle up the other people more. They're not as respectable as this old gentleman, right? But we don't so that's one way it can fail, it's just it's not the time or place for it. You know, when a again, absurd ex examples, but if a priest you know, is giving a homily and then after mass you should not in front of all his prisoners begin to engage him in Socratic discussion about the substance of his homily. Like, are you sure God you know, three persons and what you know can let's let's not do that. That's one way it can fail. Other ways it can fail is someone runs off. Someone realizes discussion is not going the way he hoped it would go, that he is The definitions he's tried to offer back to Socrates are inadequate and everyone's seeing they're inadequate and it's sort of being revealed. I don't actually know what I'm talking about when I talk about courage or I talk about piety. And so the guy runs off. That's another way they fail. I can I'm gonna go on for a while. another way they fail is just people are unpersuaded by them. There's times that Socrates will give an argument and the interlocutor will admit. I you know, I don't really have a adequate response to that, but I'm just not persuaded. And so Socrates will try another line of argument and it still might not work. And another way in which they fail is the people finally just say, I'm tired of this this back and forth. Socrates, just tell us what you think. And he's always like, Do I really have to? Come on. Like, yeah, yeah, we just want to hear you talk. And then Socrates says something brilliant. But it's no longer a Socratic discussion, is it? It's the master holding forth. And that's even in the dialogues of Plato. So where we get this amazing tool, Plato has the honesty to present it to us, very rarely working out well. So that that's point number one. point number two, these dialogues that Plato records, they're they're amongst maybe not always best friends, but it A group of Athenian gentlemen who have a more or less equality, right? They've all served in war together. There's a basic amount of respect. They're all of a certain social class. They speak the same language. So there there's not the diversity there that you would even get in a school like ours. And I wouldn't say we're the most diverse school, but even so, it's typically a very small group in a Socratic discussion. You know, you've got Maybe five or six guys. Try to have a Socratic discussion with twenty-four students and tell me how that goes. and then some there's also demands upon the teacher. And you really need to stop me because you've got me going and I'll just talk for 45 straight minutes. And I don't know if that's the most engaging podcast format. But you're gonna find this. Yeah, thank you, thank you. You're gonna find this out very soon if you haven't already. But leading a Socratic discussion is hard. Because it does require a master. Now we want to distinguish between a discussion and a Socratic discussion. Discussion, it can just be a bunch of buddies talking about something, and that can be valuable and you can get the truth. A Socratic discussion has to have a Socrates. Someone in the room who has knowledge, but more importantly, has the kind of midpoints to knowledge that they know, in order for someone to get to this piece of knowledge, they have to get to point A. And then to point B. So they have to have that knowledge to guide try to guide the discussion adroitly to hit those points. And they want the students to realize them for themselves. You don't want to just tell them, but you have to ask the question that can get them to point A and then to point B and then to the end. That's that's wisdom. That's an art. Yeah. You gotta know a lot for that. Yeah. So These are pretty formidable obstacles. And there's a great irony here that Socrates would appreciate that we try to do the thing he did, not being him, with people he never would have been talking to in greater numbers than he ever would have spoken to. Right. And for a grade under duress. So that's and again. This is gonna have happy ending, we think there's a place for it. But those are very real obstacles that any school has to take seriously. Yeah. So maybe we can step back and like w so why is it that that people want to bring this to the table? They want to I guess that it becomes a pillar of classical education. what is it responding to? You know, w was the sort of the gap that people said, Hey, you know, we should kinda go back to the way things used to be done. Well, you know, I don't know, any thoughts there? Yeah. I mean I always have thoughts. What are your thoughts though first? On the in terms of the scale right now, it's heavy on on Dr. Alex, but I w I wanna hear from Jake. Like where where did where does your interest in this come from? Yeah, yeah. Well definitely in in literature class, right? you're so kind to introduce the mysterious voice earlier. And so one of the things I do here is junior literature. Right. And and so definitely they're I think well equipped as juniors to really get something out of a Socratic discussion. and so we're just really starting to introduce that this year. you know we we had some discussion on screw tape letters, but then really starting to implement a Socratic discussion the beginnings of Dante, where we started the Inferno. Right. So definitely interested in it, but definitely interested in the origins of it. I guess my my interest in Socratic method, so I'll answer your question, is there probably there's a temptation as you know the easy the easy way to do your job as a teacher is to Tell the students what they need to know. Right. There go the lecture. and so please here we call that the sage on the stage. Remember to refer to yourself that way. Okay. The sage on the stage. Yes. I like it. I like it. I guess it's also called didactic. Yes. The didactic method, mm-hmm. Which is I don't actually know the origin of that, other than just to speak or no. no. Cut the edit this part out. Yeah. I mean sure it has a great etymology, but that's not my thing. We'd have to bring in one of our language teachers. I assume it has something to do with Lat Latin and I think d didactic is to speak or but I could be wrong. But anyways, yeah, we have to get one of the Latin teachers on here. We will, we will. okay, so offhand without knowing anything else. That's sort of the my understanding or expectation that it's responding to kinda too often, you know, left to his own devices. A teacher will kinda devolve into just straight lecture. you know, my my dad tells the story of his accounting professor. He would come in every day and read from the accounting textbook and then leave. And that was That was class. That was class. That's a Kyle's profession right there. And what can be really horrifying about that, what will open you up to not just lecturing, because at first it's comfortable. I'm in control, can plan the jokes. But they they all look at you and they're nodding their head and you think, I'm doing a really good job right now. And then you give them a quiz or a test. And they don't know anything. And you realize, okay, that was comfortable for me. It was not effective for them. So then if I'll answer your question, because I I refused and put it back on you. Yeah, please. I don't have a fully worked out. Please, please. Tell us, just tell us. you're right. Thank you. That was very meta. We like we we showed them. while I don't have a fully worked out answer, there are two lines from the Greeks that are kind of at the baseline of why. I like Socratic discussion. First from Plato, a line that haunts me as a teacher is no forced learning remains in the soul. No forced learning remains in the soul. The idea is you cannot actually force someone to learn something. Plato's contention. And yes, if we were in a philosophy class right now, hands would shoot up and they would tell me about extreme situations in which, well, you've got a guy chained to a chair and you're, you know, lighting him on fire. But in the ordinary course of events, we see this, that we we just there is a fundamental human freedom, right? And I guess this is something where Christianity has revealed us about the human, and so the Greeks were more right than they knew. Because they didn't see the full picture of the human person, but we do. We see that while our wills have been wounded by original sin, God has left us free. Yeah. Right? As I make my students say, Dominus Sui, Lord of myself. And so a Socratic discussion respects the freedom of these people you are supposed to teach by proposing things to them and then making them put some skin in the game, making them get active in their own education and anytime our freedom is engaged, we tend to be more effective. And no any students who may be listening to this down the line, this is not a basis for an argument on I have to leave you free to wear your uniform or not or free to attend daily mass or not. But what at least when it comes to this important task of the school, we do at some point want you to freely begin to be involved in your education. Socratic discussion does that. So that's my one line from Plato. And the other line comes from Plato's student and successor, Aristotle. With others, we are more able to think and act. With others, we are more able to think and act. This is from his chapters on friendship in the Nickmachean Ethics. And it's his one of his ways of explaining why friendship, he says, either is a virtue or at least is like a virtue. He recognizes that friendship is an accelerator for human beings. That You can do things on your own, but with friends, you're able to do them more consistently. You're able to do them at a higher level. And there are some things you may not have been able to do it all by yourself, but with friends, you can do. So I also think of Socratic discussion that way. And if you've ever been in a good Socratic discussion, or even perhaps just a regular discussion, you've recognized that, something was achieved here that I would not have achieved on my own. That other person asked a question I had never thought of before, and it opened up a whole new realm for me. And it's exhilarating when you experience this. Just you have to come overcome many obstacles, but I think it is worth it to get there. And we recognize that there are certain subjects that really lend themselves. Well, to this. And maybe I can we can get into speculating why that is, what's the causality? But you mentioned literature. So we really want our literature classes here at Chesterton Academy of St. Louis to be taught to involve Socratic discussion frequently. We want our philosophy classes to involve Socratic discussion frequently. and then theology, we want some Socratic discussion in there. And then all classes though, while they should not necessarily be Socratic discussion in the sense of we're sitting around in a circle and just debating a question, they should be taught Socratically in the broad sense of involving a lot of question and answer. That it can't be a full unfettered discussion, but it can still kind of aspire to that. That if we were doing this in heaven, it would be a full unfettered discussion. But here in this veil of tears, sorry, I'm lecturing you on the periodic table today. We're not simply going to try to get to it through discussion. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. and and drama. Drama. thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Mrs. Romine started with question like what's the difference between comedy and and I guess I think it was tragedy, but it may have been just comedy and drama in general. any case, you know, so presents the question, allows them to think and write and then to discuss. their making great insights, some of which that she never would have thought of to bring at that moment. and then we have to, you know, we have to start getting the script and start right, you know, getting into that. We got a play that's coming up in a few weeks and so it's time to time to move. But you know, bringing that sort of element into the classroom, which is really great. Right. Right. It's some thinking. Yeah, I this is a strange analogy, but you would think of other human domains where you think, okay, there's no there's no place for Socratic discussion there either. Like you and I both do a little amateur woodworking, we're we're gonna call it that. And if you were trying to show me something how to create a a certain type of joint, it it would seem pretty inefficient for you to just sit there and say, Let's just talk about it and kinda go back and forth and I'm I'm gonna magically work my way to a dovetail joint or something, whatever this is. No, you the master would want to show me. But yeah, there might be a moment where, having explained it to me, maybe shown it to me yourself, You would let me noodle around a bit and start to fail. Because then I would get really interested in what you had to offer me as the master when I realized this is beyond me. Okay, what did I do wrong? And then you step in and show me. So there's there's a kernel of Socrates in that, even if it's not sitting in a circle discussing something. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. Noodle around, kinda mess up a few times. Yeah. Yeah. And you're you're more opened up to Mm. Okay. Okay, now we want Socrates, please t please tell us. Yes. Yeah. So I mean that that's another that's a really naughty way to think about it. What you just suggested is could Socratic discussion not be the pinnacle But instead the proper introduction to a lecture. That we have to work on this together, realize how hard it is. And now we actually want to hear what Mr. Jacob Isen has to say about this conto of the inferno or whatever the subject matter might be. That's a very controversial suggestion. So I know we'll get we'll get some hateful comments on that. But I I could not resist because you yourself said it. Fair enough, fair enough. you mentioned Dante and the Inferno and and I mentioned before we were doing some Socratic discussion. And you're right, right. Sometimes there's there's too many people. Right. but one of the things that's interesting is we get even more meta here at Chesterton with the way that we do the Socratic discussions. in fact the other literature teachers as well as fine arts teachers, Ms. Lamb, brought some resources to the table with regards to the the the peer evaluation of somebody participating in a Socratic discussion. Yes. So we kind of have like a fishbowl effect where there's some of the students who are kind of actively engaged in the Socratic discussion. And then on the outside, other students are each are assigned one of the students who are inside the fishbowl and they're evaluating their participation in the Socratic discussion. and so there's there's a lot of layers of learning here. Yes. Yes, and this is the r the beautiful realism of a classical art teacher. Not art in this modern sense that we're just gonna express our feelings on paper and ever everyone's beautiful. No, this is the art teacher who knows there's there are objective standards. So one of the impediments to Socratic discussion is most of us have never actually seen it happen successfully. So We're showing up and asking both the students and in most cases the teacher to do something they've never experienced and never seen. This is bold. So you wanna have some intermediate steps along the way. One step I think there should be something even prior to what our our genius literature and art teacher does, which is I think we just need to show them a video of a really good Socratic discussion. Where I get this from is a very famous thing here in America was the Integrated Humanities Program at the University of Kansas that that eventually gave us some bishops in America. Yeah, the John Sr. Program. Right, the John Sr. Program. One of the things they did is The three professors who were at the heart of the program would simply sit there and have a discussion amongst themselves. And the students just sat there and listened. They were not allowed to participate. Your job was to listen to these erudite men have a very real and serious discussion, right? So I think we'd close enough we could probably call that a Socratic discussion. So first they just saw it. They just saw the thing. So that made them realize it's both real and it's possible. So I think it would be good, a good first step is just see this happen so you have hope that it's possible. Then next steps, rather than just launching them into it and saying, now you sophomore students, go have a profound Socratic discussion. No, let's let's be slow and intentional about this. Let's first of all explain what it is, the theory of it. Let's prep have you prepare. In certain ways, and we'll we'll get to that. And then finally, yes, we use a a technique that I was taught in graduate school. The name under which I was taught this was Socratic circles in the plural, whereas you describe, you have an inner circle who are engaging in a discussion of a topic, whatever it might be. What is justice, or is this an appropriate punishment for this circle of hell, or or whatever it might be? And then you have an outer ring of students who are not directly engaged in the discussion. But they observe the discussion and they think, okay, that part went well. That was a really good question. That was bad. That student isn't listening. That was an off-topic thing. And they're just kind of critiquing it as if they were teachers. So they have a chance to sort of see it in action. And then the circles, of course, switch. if you have a super long class period, I suppose they could switch in the class period. But here, because we have brief classes, they tend to be different days. And now you are on the inside having to do the things and they get to critique you. And that brings a lot of initial awareness to sort of what we're doing here, that you've had to be both a participant in it and step back and observe and reflect on it. And so that helps. And then the final goal is eventually that say by junior or senior year, especially by the end of the year. that this Socratic Circle technique is is no longer needed, that we can just have the Socratic discussion. Everyone's involved, everyone knows how to do this, and we can really enjoy it and really get to some good stuff at that point. So there's a lot of patience, I think, required for a classical school that's serious about seeing this succeed. And not just checking the box to say, we do Socratic discussion, but to really have one that works, you need this kind of patient scaffolding and building towards it. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, one of the the tools the network is in the Chesterton School's curriculum, they like they call it castle building, which is kind of cool. Ooh, did they name it after us? I mean, I like to think so. I think I'm going to presume so. I'm going to presume well thank you, Chesterton Schools Network. I'm flattered. And and so what they do is Terms of this scaffolding is I say assign a few roles. Everybody just gets one hat that they wear. Okay. You are the hat of the Mason, you are the hat of the miner, you are an architect, you are a bricklayer. And each one of these roles can only you only have one card to play. Your job is to ask a question. Your job is to bring a new text into the discussion. Your job is to try to connect the dots of previous things. You can't bring anything else new. It's kind of like a small game that's Yeah. Yeah. And so it's a way of introducing the students to these different I guess, roles that you might play within the discussion. Like, hey, it's not always the right moment to keep asking questions or to to keep on, you know, bringing ideas. You have to kinda like you're circ you're circling around some greater truth. And together you have to work together. So yeah. so it's a very very kind of limited very basic version is what I meant to say. Yeah. but limitation is where creativity comes from. for sure. Right. So that's that's very exciting. The athlete in me, I'm immediately thinking, Yeah, you play your position, you know your role. Okay. I like that. Castle building. Yeah. And so yeah, here we are at castle and they they call it castle building. Mm-hmm. So go ahead. And then there's there's other ways, like you're saying, the the Socratic circles, and then you know, you get to the point where everybody kinda knows how to prepare for such a discussion because it it takes a new type of thinking that many people are not used to, you know, to to to read a text and not just to Have the words, you know, flow over you. Right. And and then you have no idea what you read. But you know, some of the basics of okay, the reading, the annotation, and then writing down questions that you have about the text, writing down an idea that it gave you, writing down a quote that stood out to you, and then you you you actually can bring something to the Socratic discussion. Right. like you said, y you know, may by by the time they get into the year or by the time, you know, senior year or they graduate, they're much more prepared to to come together with others that they are on the search for truth which w with and and to learn with each other. Right. You're right. When you as you were talking it really made me realize it's a It's a new habit of mine. You have to develop. And this is one of these things we talk about, habits of mind. But unless you've actually, I think, experienced it, to have not had a habit of mind and gone through a process that will give it to you, you may not fully understand what I mean. I think to my own life. My example was when I was early on in graduate school, one of the things that distinguished our program is we had a lecture series. So every I can't remember the cadence, I believe it was every Friday, it seemed like every Friday, you would have some guy come in and give you a big Big high-level philosophy lecture. All the grad students were there, but all the professors were there too. And at the end of it, it was an hour lecture or so. And then there was an hour of question and answer discussion, which is absurd to have that much. And it would typically start quietly. There'd be a questionnaire or two, but by the end, it was usually very lively. And you were expected to participate in this. So you're there as part of the community of scholars, but you're there with the people who are eventually gonna need to write you letters of recommendation and the people you're eventually gonna have to try to convince as an active charity to be a reader for your dissertation or your director. So you need to impress these people. And so You needed to ask questions. And I remember when I first started, it was terrifying because I would listen to the lecture, maybe understand fifty percent of it, but just fundamentally not have any questions to ask. And then you would see other people asking questions. You realize, like, no, there were questions I should have had, but I don't have that habit of mind yet. I have not achieved that intellectual perfection. To be able to ask questions in this domain. So how do you start? You start, I'm sure, just as our high schoolers do, forcing yourself. During that lecture, I would have to say, okay, I have no questions, but if I had to ask questions, if someone is putting a gun to my head, or if I'm in some other way threatened, and my life depends on asking a question, what could I ask? And strangely, even through games like this, you can begin generating questions. So obviously we would love it if they're reading Dante and questions spontaneously come to mind, but then they're like, well, nice, didn't really have any questions. Not good enough. Force yourself to have questions. Right. Even if it seems like you're faking it. Because then when you fake it, oftentimes the questions you come up with are. quite good and there are questions other students have, or you may think this is an easy question, but then when it gets asked and you bat it around a little bit, suddenly you realize, that wasn't as simple as I thought. Yeah. And then eventually through that process for me of asking questions, I got very good at this. So that by the time I was a professor of philosophy before my university went bankrupt, that's a podcast for another day. I was Somewhat feared by the graduate students at that university that if they presented something, they knew I was going to ask very tough questions. But it wasn't because I was smart. It was because I had cultivated this habit of mind. And that's what we're asking students to do in terms of this process of preparation for being able to engage in Socratic discussion is cultivate a habit of mind. Such that you can ask good questions of this text and ask them in a kind of group context with other people. Ask them in a way that other people could possibly understand. So that is one, you might call it, if you want to be negative, an impediment to Socratic discussion, that you need to have a certain habit of mind to do it. But it's not an insurmountable impediment. It's kind of our job to overcome that impediment as educators. We want to graduate the kind of young people who Are really great people to have in a discussion who you hope are there at the end of the night at your party. So you know, you've got the five, you know, what's the final five, sitting down to really talk about something. We want one of our graduates to be one of those people. Yeah. So it's an impediment, but it can be overcome. The other major impediment, and we've said this, but we haven't formalized it, is good Socratic discussion does require a body of knowledge. So you've talked about preparation and reading the text. And this is why often freshmen and maybe even sophomores have trouble really engaging well in Socrat discussion. They just don't have enough knowledge or experience yet. Right. What you have to have a core of knowledge and experience to be able to bring good things to the table in a discussion. No, absolutely. And I and I noticed that. in our discussions from Dante the last couple of days. it was actually striking the number of students that brought in outside quotes. Even one student brought a book that hey, you know, what I was reading here and Dante made me think of this other book on spiritual life. And he brought something into that. And then you know, references to some of the great philosophers. And, you know, it was really cool to see that that base of knowledge that they've already formed after two years at Chesterton Academy. Mm-hmm. And so that that's really cool. And not just from Chesterton Academy, to give credit when it's where it's due, from their family and the church too. But you think of that parable of the soils, right? That some seed falls on the you know, the rocky ground and it It can spring up, but there's no root. There's no good soil there. So a lot of our our work with things like lecture, even if it's in a a literature class, we're still gonna need to lecture sometimes to really kind of cultivate that soil and give them a certain depth that enables this amazing payoff for them of Socratic discussion. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely well, one of my final questions, as we think we kind of bring this one to a close, is What would G. K. Chesterton think about Socratic discussion and like how does this fit into like a a a school that's named for him and you know kind of you know with his his spirit imbuing the the whole sort of academic enterprise. Yeah, I don't know. Just any thoughts there? we need to get our drama teacher, Mrs. Maria Romine, on here. She's more of a Chesterton expert than I am to answer about his life. From what little I know, I I tend to think he would like it because he's known for his friendships. And in many cases friendships with men with whom he profoundly disagreed. Yeah. you know, where he and he didn't get At least publicly we don't really have Socratic discussions with Chesterton and these men. We have more debates. He did lots of famous debates. But then privately they would be friends. and I I'm gonna mess up the people, but I believe it's with Shaw, one of his main opponents. George Bernard Bernard Shaw. Yeah, George Bernard Shaw. Chesterton completely opposed to the guy's you know, professional work, but friends on a personal level. I think at one point they even were filming like a little backyard cowboy movie together. Yeah, you need to look this up for me. Someone told me this. Yeah. So I think he would have enjoyed it, right? He would like the spirit of it of friendly inquiry, that you're you're searching for the truth together as friends, and that doesn't mean you always necessarily agree. Yeah. But that these other people can bring something out in you. 'Cause that's what you're hoping from a Socratic discussion is that I mean it's it's kind of a miracle, it's kind of magic, right? It's something we philosophers always say is you cannot give what you don't have, right? But in a Socratic discussion, when you bring people together from that that whole something from these addition of more parts, this greater whole results. And so in a Socratic discussion, it can be that you enter without having something and you leave with it magically. Sure, sure. So I think Chesterton would have liked that, that we can bump into each other and disagree. But that disagreement can bring out the best in us. I mean some of Chesterton's great lines are in response to people with whom he disagrees, like Shaw and others. Sure, sure, sure, sure. Yeah, and definitely. you're making me think of I mean, many of his writings are definitely taking an idea that's out there and he's responding to it. And and he has he has posit questions and get you thinking and then share some thoughts. So yeah. to the extent that he he can do this in his writings. but yeah, I like that answer a lot. Yeah. Well good, I passed. Very good. No, no worries. No worries. So good yeah. It's a good episode. So here at Chesterton Academy of St. Louis, again Some of our classes are kind of set up lecture style, you know, your math classes, your science classes, but they're still question and answer. And then you can even see it in the geometry of the classroom when we come into other classrooms, literature classrooms, philosophy, we try to have them a little more circled up. Again, not meaning that every class has to be Socratic discussion, but to kind of remind us as teachers of what the Platonic ideal is. That like this is what you're supposed to be doing in this room. Right, right, right. No definitely and you could see that, especially a parent were to come for a tour of the school, you would you would definitely see that. Yes. Yes. We had this the strange case of we we had rearranged the classroom in the fishbowl for this sort of the Socratic circles. Yeah. Inner circle and the outer circle. but then luckily the students were were so good and they put this put all the desks back for the next class, which was Just gonna have the the one circle. So these are the things we have to deal with, yeah. Yes, lots of quick changes of configurations. But this is good. This is all part of it, and it's building muscles. They carry the tables around too. A sound mind and a sound body. Exactly, exactly. Well, Dr. Schimpf will be excited to have you back on the Castle Cast, Rhino Radio, if you will. So I will. We'll see everybody next time. Don't forget. Rhinos do exist.