The Socratic seminar, one of the more venerable methods of instruction, is also one of the more powerful in the intellectual life of schools. Socratic seminars explore ideas, values, and issues drawn from readings or art works chosen for their richness. They also provide a forum to expand participants' familiarity with works drawn from many cultural sources. Leaders help participants to make sense of a text and of their own thinking by asking questions about reasoning, evidence, connections, examples, and other aspects of sound thinking. A good seminar is more devoted to making meaning than to mastering information.

Seminars strengthen participant's learning by getting them actively engaged in rigorous critical thought. Practical activities are always followed by periods of reflection and discussion about what has been experienced. In contrast to the use of a Socratic method in some law schools, the goal here is to allow learners to create a community of inquiry for the purpose of making meaning cooperatively.

A Note from Nancy:

"The three most important elements of teaching through dialogue are 1. attending to the environment by creating a caring community of learners; 2. trading on the relationships you have built with students by first knowing them well; and 3. empowering students by recognizing them to be the authorities on their own knowledge. If students cannot find themselves in the curriculum, if they cannot answer the question, “Why am I studying this? What’s in it for me?”, and if they cannot construct meaning by trading on the capital they bring from their own culture, then school will remain a passive activity for most of them.

Some of the writers and books which have inspired me include The Challenge to Care in Schools by Nell Noddings; Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Frerre; I Won’t Learn From You by Herb Kohl; Teaching Stories by Judy Logan; any book or article by Alfie Kohn, Howard Gardner, Michael Apple, or Jane Roland Martin among many others. Check recent issues of the Kappan magazine for articles by Blythe Clinchy, Alfie Kohn, Eric Shapps, and Nell Noddings. "