While the Socratic method can be extremely painful, heartbreaking, and meltdown-inducing for the student being called on, I have finally come to believe that it is actually better than the alternative: the lecture. For those of you not indoctrinated into the experience of today’s 1Ls, the typical Socratic procedure involves the professor randomly calling on a student, who attempts to answer vague questions that may or may not have a real answer in front of their 90 classmates for anywhere from 5-15 minutes. While you are on the hot seat, you frequently cannot hear the question over the pounding of your heartbeat, the deafening silence in the room as everyone waits for you to answer, and the furious flipping of pages in your book hoping to find a semi-relevant note somewhere that you took while struggling through the reading on a high dosage of cold medication. By the time you give up and answer either “I don’t know” or some rambling half-coherent response, and attempt to understand the next in the unending barrage of vaguely leading questions, you are sure that your classmates now know that you are actually the idiot that got into law school by some accident of paperwork. As you leave the classroom and your classmates attempt to make you feel better by reassuring you that they, too, had no idea what the answer was and that it wasn’t in the book, you now not only think you bombed, you KNOW it. You would beat yourself up over what you should have said, except that your brain has already blocked out the entire traumatic experience.
However, as ego-shattering as this coal-raking is, it is still better than the lecture/assigned reading method. For in the Socratic classroom, you never know when the bottom will fall out and you will once again be on stage–thus, you prepare. You do the reading, every day. You (mostly) pay attention in class. You do your best to actually follow the conversation. On the other hand, in the lecture or preassigned readings class, that motivation falls away to nothing. You find yourself wondering why you have even bothered to come to class, as you G-chat, read the news, and daydream of the vacation you are desperate to take, because you know that you won’t be called on. You rationalize that you don’t need to pay attention, it’s all in the book that the Professor himself wrote! This would be fine, except that when it comes to doing the reading, the same lack of motivation presents itself. You halfheartedly skim the reading, and by a few weeks into the semester, stop doing even that. This leads you to simply float through the semester, hoping that somehow in the two weeks before finals you will magically learn all the information that has floated around you for the past 3-4 months.
All of this finally leads to the inevitable conclusion that, for all but the most motivated of students, the socratic method is actually much better. Because while it is an incredibly painful, soul crushing learning experience, the whole reason you are there in the first place is actually happening: learning.
-Katie Heckert
Katie is correct–the fear of looking bad in front of everyone is a spur to study. However, the “Socratic method” as practiced by many law professors over the years often seems designed to demonstrate that even the most intelligent and conscientious student doesn’t really know very much. The Professor always has another question and another and another. It can look like (and it sometimes is) little more than bullying. “Gee whiz, Professor, you’ve been doing this for 20+ years and I’ve been at it for six months. Is it really a shock to you that I don’t know as much as you do? Or, are you just preening in front of a captive audience?” On the other hand, the professors’ constant nit-picking does, in a back-handed way, help to prepare law students for the adversarial legal system. When you are in court and make an argument on behalf of your client in a contested case, the lawyer on the other side is not going to listen respectfully to your entire presentation and then say, “Gosh, Judge, they’re right! We quit!” No, your opponent surely will say something to oppose you–however ill founded that might be in Law, fact or logic. But, you know that’s coming because of the way all those crusty old law professors treated you! You’ll be ready. “Readiness is all.” William Shakespeare, “Hamlet,” Act V, Scene 2.
I think there’s some truth to the idea that Socratic teaching is prep for an adversarial legal system. But, what about the poor souls who know from the get-go that they are transactional types? And also, doesn’t the whole professor-student power imbalance throw off the training a bit? It’s not really a conversation between equals. And of course the fact that the professor has spent 8 years teaching the same course while you spent 1 hour doing the reading doesn’t help matters.
I haven’t been in school that long, but my most favorable impression of the Socratic method was in my small section, where if you were grilled it was in front of 30 rather than 100 of your peers. Easier on the blood vessels that way.
I too like the Socratic Method, because I feel that it accomplishes the principle purpose of law school – solving problems. My experience has been that the questions posed often require you to think about the case in a particular way that you ordinarily would not. No matter what type of lawyer you want to be, the job of problem solver will be at the heart of your practice.
That being said, I would hate to be the one person who did NOT do the reading on a day they are called on.
I think that Socratic method can be very useful when used appropriately. However, I think Sai’s point about the power imbalance in the classroom is very telling. Some profs go way too far and continue to grill a student past the point of what’s useful. They will continue to ask questions long after it has become clear that a student’s heart rate has rendered them incapable of coherent thought. The student feels awful, the class has tuned out because they are so uncomfortable watching their colleague suffering, and no one learned anything. Other professors are looking for such specific answers in order to move the class in particular direction that even seemingly correct answers get scowls or corrections from the professor. It seems like in some cases professors are better off lecturing on certain topics and then questioning students once everyone has gotten on the same page.
I think that Socratic method can be very useful when used appropriately. However, I think Sai’s point about the power imbalance in the classroom is very telling. Some profs go way too far and continue to grill a student past the point of what’s useful. They will continue to ask questions long after it has become clear that a student’s heart rate has rendered them incapable of coherent thought. The student feels awful, the class has tuned out because they are so uncomfortable watching their colleague suffering, and no one learned anything. Other professors are looking for such specific answers in order to move the class in particular direction that even seemingly correct answers get scowls or corrections from the professor. It seems like in some cases professors are better off lecturing on certain topics and then questioning students once everyone has gotten on the same page.
Spero’s points are both cogent and thoughtful.