Jack Bowen, Menlo School Jack teaches philosophy at Menlo and has authored San Francisco Chronicle Best-Seller, “The Dream Weaver: One Boy’s Journey through the Landscape of Reality” (2006) and a textbook, “A Journey Through the Landscape of Philosophy” (2008). For submission in the March 2009 CAIS Faculty Newsletter SHARED INQUIRY: PICKING UP WHERE SOCRATES LEFT OFF This past summer I took on a new teaching post as Senior Lecturer at the Great Books Program (GBP) at Stanford University. The last time I engaged in any pedagogical dialogue on “The Farm” had me on the receiving end of a lecture in Human Biology as an undergrad—quite different from my eventual Graduate School training in philosophy. Having taught philosophy for nine years at both the college and high school level, I figured I would have little to learn at the required “Great Books Teaching Prep Course” and, as usual, my hubris was just that—a false sense of “know-it-all-ness.” The foundation of the GBP lies in “Shared Inquiry” (SI). I initially framed this in terms of philosophical metaphor as Socratic Dialogue (SD). For those familiar with this latter approach, it serves as a good starting point. A caricature of SD given to us by Plato is that of the “persistent gadfly”—through an incessant asking of questions, the listener (in our case, the student, though often for Socrates, an arrogant, boastful statesman) both recognizes his or her ignorance and then discovers truths. A famous example is the Socratic dialogue Meno, in which a “slave boy” learns the equivalent of the Pythagorean Theorem not through explicit teaching/telling, but by the mere asking of questions. Following numerous simple questions about basic mathematics (“How many are twice two feet?” “Four, Socrates.”) Socrates highlights his method in conversation with Meno: I shall only ask him, and not teach him, and he shall share the inquiry with me: and do you watch and see if you find me telling or explaining anything to him, instead of eliciting his opinion….Do you observe, Meno, that I am not teaching the boy anything, but only asking him questions? Socrates, though, has more in mind than merely teaching this child mathematics. His grand hope is to demonstrate that knowledge is innate and can be drawn out of us. Much of his approach stems from the somewhat ironic decree of the omniscient Oracle at Delphi establishing Socrates as the wisest of all. Surprised, Socrates concludes that this must be due to the fact that he, himself, is at least aware of his own ignorance (or, otherwise, that everyone is tied for “most ignorant!”). This humble approach led to his death sentence by the state, as his question-based method would also illuminate the ignorance of the top judges, politicians, and statesmen. Again, somewhat ironically, “corruption of the youth” was his charge. An interesting foundation for a pedagogical framework! SI builds on the virtues of SD as it requires the teacher to both assume a place of humility and to genuinely pursue knowledge with the student. Though it departs, in that it does not place the teacher in the role of adversary—as one who has epistemological priority and the key to knowledge versus the student who does not. Nor does SI intend to lead students toward a specific answer as SD often does. Instead it is just that—shared. Finally, while the illumination of ignorance may result at times, it is not so much the goal of SI to do that. I assumed myself to be a natural at this, so the weekend-long development program seemed unnecessary. Much to my surprise (and delight) it was not only helpful, but intrinsically enjoyable—like I was back at school as a student and truly enjoying the process. The initial task for the three new instructors-in-training was to each lead an SI discussion on a poem of our choosing from an anthology. About four minutes into my presentation, the program leader, Peter, stopped me and said, “Jack, for the next three minutes I want you only to ask questions.” I thought, “Isn’t that what I’ve been doing?” Upon reflection, I had not even taken to heart the other famous motto given Socrates by the Oracle at Delphi: Know Thyself. In my enthusiasm to teach and to share, I had
fallen into the habit of telling versus true sharing. Initially when I asked a question of the class, I had prefaced it with a comment and idea of my own or I would introduce my questions with something like, “What a great metaphor, what do you think?” thus guiding the student and, in a sense, telling them what to think. It is true sharing, I found as the student that day, that makes the pursuit of knowledge so enriching and, eventually, something that a student can really own. The main premise of SI relies on the discussion being text-driven (or, in the case of art, content-driven). This has the great benefit of getting everyone on the same page, literally and figuratively. People tend to want to draw on personal anecdotes or academic areas of expertise when discussing a work: “One time last summer I…” or, “Another book I read said that….” While often relevant, this can distract from the task at hand and put all participants on an uneven playing field. In an instance like this, the teacher can instead thank the student for sharing and then explicitly ask them to share the text that best explains the point they were trying to make. SI requires good listening. It is far from the mere playing of Devil’s Advocate and demands that the “teacher” not have a rigid plan for where the conversation will go, thus adapting to the inquiry of the students. This need not result in an “anything goes” approach as teachers may respond to specific comments from students with, “What does everyone think about Susie’s point?” To reconnect again with Plato and Socrates, we find that the roots of “educate” are “to lead out.” This is just what Plato urges us to do in his Allegory of the Cave: that we become motivated to leave the comfort of the false images in the cave and overcome the initially-blinding light of reality as we are lead out by (conveniently) Philosopher Kings. Though just as we can lead a horse to water but cannot make him drink, we need to provide an opportunity where the student is truly free to think, to inquire, and to share. In this way, education becomes something they can own as they become emotionally connected to it because they can truly discover and share themselves. I’m not one for post-modern deconstruction of poetry. But after my day as a student, I came bounding through the door with my newly-acquired poetry book in hand, ready to share not only SI, but to sit with my fiancée and share in inquiry about other randomly selected poems in the book together. I realized that this is what my best philosophy professors had done so well for me, and what I truly want my students to get from their experience in the classroom.