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The Art of Conversation


"True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.
I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.
I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think."


-Socrates







The students in grade 6 are developing their understanding of the world around them by reading news articles from the website newsela. What I like about this website is that it allows you to make the article accessible to students of different reading levels.

It was not the perfect lesson. Students were not following the rules of our socratic seminar. In the beginning, the first group of inner circle students felt nervous and kept repeating key points, without giving evidence from the text. 

A bit of background about the content?

They read the following article: (chosen by a  few students)

Candidate dismisses criticism of his plan to keep Muslims out of U.S.


Activity: Socratic Seminar.

What I liked about this first part of our experience was that two students who generally hardly come forward to share their learning, volunteered to be part of the inner circle. As a class, it seems we had managed to create a safe haven for them. This was a wonderful realisation for me!

And so, we tentatively went into the second round of our socratic seminar. They decided to change the question prompt a bit as they thought it would allow more room for their perspectives.

So from "Why do people vote for Donald Trump?" to
"Would you vote for someone like Donald Trump?" made a huge difference to the quality of conversation as you can see below.


Hope you can take the time to look at the videos!



 (with the second improvised question)




 

This video was based on the first question.
It's amazing how a powerful question can promote discussion among people, isn't it?




Thanks for reading.

Sources:
https://niice.co/search/socrates

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