Coffee Talk with Buff
Being an unemployed teacher, where do I find myself on a daily basis? The local coffeehouse of course! As I am now addicted to this place, it got me thinking about the idea of coffeehouses, the Socratic method, and teaching. What if we radically changed our approach to the classroom? Instead of the teacher lecturing or instructing students on a method, we took a coffeehouse approach… That is, we just have a topic and discuss. The more I thought about it, I would love to be a student in that classroom.
To be fair this idea is not new in any sense of the word. We can look back to ancient Greece to find the first “coffeehouses.” Socrates’ method of teaching, as recorded by his student Plato, involved posing questions to which the students would try to systematically answers. The “instruction” would continue with a posed question, attempt at answering, more questions, and so on and so on.
This is often what happens at coffeehouse conversations. Someone asks a question, someone else attempts to answer, often leading to more questions. By the end of the conversation everyone involved feels like they’ve learned something. Mutual discovery of the answer or possible answers gives everyone a sense of ownership.
*While attempting to write this blog, my friend joined me at the coffeehouse. I started to tell her about the blog entry and we got into a dicussion about the merits of this type of approach. We went on for probably 15 minutes, bringing up problems and then possible solutions. After reaching a mutual conclusion, I realized…. we just participated in the Socratic method. Go us!
One of the issues that we brought up: how hard it was to adapt to the style in high school. We had an amazing teacher for history that used a basic form of the Socratic method. He would give us discussion questions that ended up being homework. Then the next day, we would discuss the questions while covering the material for the day. The problem was that we were so used to the lecturing method, the Socratic method failed miserably. Students just didn’t want to do the reading beforehand.
If we started the coffeehouse approach in elementary school, students would be accustomed it by the time they entered high school. We could start in reading. Little first graders could read a story and then discuss it, guided by questions from the teacher. This would give them an initial understanding of the method and improve their reading comprehension. Two birds, one stone. Then as the students age, the Socratic method becomes more encompassing, affecting more and more subjects. By the time the students get to high school, they have no problem jumping right into the coffeehouse.
I absolutely love this idea, now to convince the lovely people who control curriculum in the schools. Check back with me in fifty years, maybe something will have changed.
Socrates – ”I know you won’t believe me, but the highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself and others.”
Leave a Reply