Alana leads a Socratic convo and we discuss how to lead them afterwards

Got it. Are you at home or your dad's office?

I'm at home. Uh, he's outside.

Got it. And how is everything? How's Socratic, first of all?

Going very well. Uh, in Humanities, we, uh, I think on Friday, uh, we started having the students lead parts of the class. So I led the check-in and my friend Monterey led the first discussion, and we're doing that on Monday and Tuesday too.

Very good.

I think that's it.

Yeah, you enjoy that?

I do, yeah.

Do you think that you as a class could lead the whole thing without Karen?

Um, I'm not sure. I think we need a bit more practice before we do it completely without Karen.

And that's normal. I think it's normal to kind of start, let it sort of bit by bit by bit. So you led it last week, is that what you said? You led—

I led the first maybe half an hour last week.

Very cool, very cool. So tell me what you did. I'm very interested to hear what you did.

Well, the check-ins are usually just a question or a quote So I put in a quote that I had seen on social media. I don't know if these are the words exactly, but the quote was, "Do everything as if you were watched by a million pairs of eyes, and do it as if it were your last action." And supposedly it was said by Hadrian, but I'm not sure if that's true. But I saw it on Instagram.

Fantastic.

Yeah.

And then did you just ask like a question or did you go around? What did you do procedurally?

Um, I first, I asked what my classmates thought the meaning was and a few raised their hands to answer. Um, and I just kept thinking of questions until my time slot was over.

Aha. Um, what kinds of— what were the most interesting ideas that came up?

Um, well, besides from the what is the meaning, I thought that asking them who they should— who they thought they should give this advice to was interesting because most of the people who answered said that they'd give it to themselves, or some of them. So that was funny.

In terms of the meaning, how would— how would you— what did they come up with as the meaning of that quotation?

Um, well, do it as if you mean it, I think, was the overall message. Um, there were some bits about the last part and then the first part that just kind of went with each other. Do—

would most— were most people already, um, living the life that way, or did you not get into whether they were already applying it?

I didn't get in— I didn't ask them that, though that would have been a good question.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, that makes sense. And did— was it pretty lively or was it slow? Was it hard to get them going or was it— it was pretty easy to get stuff out of them?

It was kind of hard to get stuff out of them. It was the first time a student has ever led, or in my class anyways, a part.

Yeah.

So I call people's names, but it's okay. It was good practice, I guess.

I think it is so good for you guys to have to lead discussions because sometimes, you know, I've led discussions like this for a long time, and sometimes it's easy. You ask one question and they all talk, and it's so much easy and fun. Other times it is so hard to get people to talk. You have to try to get better questions, and you're calling people individually, and You know, and it just varies and it's hard to say what it is. You know, in some ways, I think the quotation was interesting. Sometimes classes are just kind of slow and low energy. Sometimes maybe they're wondering, what's Alana going to do? What do you— why do you think it was slow? What's your analysis for why it was a little bit slow?

To be honest, I'm not that Sure, though one reason that I'm not— that I don't— or that I'm not sure about is that they just didn't have an answer. Sometimes I'm just quiet because I don't know what to say, though I would have thought of a lot of things to say at that point. But, um, that's understandable.

Did you have a hard time coming up with lots of different questions? Did you kind of, um, get stuck in terms of the questions you were asking?

At a few points, yes, I was trying to— there were a few points where I was kind of push— or not pushing, but really thinking hard because I had no idea what to do next.

Sometimes I suggest that people without a lot of experience co-lead a class together. And one of the reasons for that is if you run out of questions, the other person can ask questions. And while they're asking questions, that gives you time to think of it. Whereas if you're leading all alone and you run out of questions, like, uh-oh, what do I do? Um, did you get in that position a little bit?

I did, yes.

Yeah, I also find that having students lead classes often makes the students a lot more sympathetic to the adults because sometimes I've had students— yeah, totally. I've had students think, why was class so boring? And like, okay, tomorrow you pick the text and you ask the questions. And, uh, It's hard. It's hard. The other thing I do is I often have students or teachers too. I've trained lots of teachers to do this, come up with a whole bunch of discussable questions in advance on their text. Did you have a bunch of questions in advance on your quotation?

So I just had a couple in mind, though I wasn't really prepared in that sense. That's something I'll have to work on in the future.

Can you say the quotation again? I'm going to try to Google it.

Yeah. Do everything as if it were— you know, do everything as if you were watched by a million pairs of eyes and do everything and do it as if it were your last action.

Okay, let me see if I can find it. Hmm. I thought it might be fun to just show you how we can get lots of questions out of everything. Hey, are you sure it was Hadrian?

No, I'm not sure. It said it was by Hadrian, but I saw it on Instagram, and who knows if they're lying or not, so I'm not sure. I just thought the quote was pretty cool.

Got it. Got it. Yeah, one of the things I do is I ask people what kind of every little piece means to get greater clarity. One of the things I believe is that we can keep getting greater and greater clarity in everything we understand. And that's tricky because most people think, oh, I either understand it or I don't. But often I keep asking questions to get people to think more clearly about things. Does that make sense?

I think it does.

Okay. You know, and often I, if you start, since you now have experience as a Socratic questioner, I'll show you a little bit how I do things. If I can find this quotation, I might just give up and do a different Hadrian quotation. Um, but let's, let's see if I can— so what was a million pair of eyes? Why do you think— why would he ask about a million pair of eyes?

Well, if everybody was watching you, because they're— I mean, you act like you're being judged, I guess, and watched by a bunch of people. Um, what would you want to do in front of them?

Is being watched by a bunch of people necessarily the same thing as being judged?

Um, no. Being watched, they're just watching you. But judged, they have their own opinions about you. Um, they either think, or they might say, oh wow, he's doing this wrong. Um, or they just, you know, think things. But yeah.

So why, why would we assume, or under what circumstances would we be judged when people are watching us?

Um, if you were making decisions and they were, um, if you were just making a choice and everybody was, or a lot of people were watching, they might have their own opinions, or they might have thoughts that goes against your decision. So you want to make sure that you're really thinking about your decision and doing it right.

Got it. Before following up, I didn't find a Hadrian quotation like this, but I found something attributed to Thomas Jefferson: "Whenever you do a thing, act as if the whole world were watching." Is that close enough?

Yeah, I think it is.

Okay, so you're saying if you're making decisions then people would be judging you. Are there any circumstances where people would not judge you if a million eyes or the whole world was watching you?

Well, I, I'm not sure, because my initial thought would be that if the whole world was watching you, there's going to be at least a few people who are judging you or having or have opinions on you if they watch you closely enough. A whole world, a lot of people.

Do you think most people are judging other people when they're watching other people most of the time?

Um, I, I think so, because, um, I do that even if it's not consciously.

Um, would you say we are all, all judging each other constantly, whether we are We're all judging each other constantly, whether we are aware of it or not?

Um, I think that definitely could happen. I'm not sure if it's constantly, but people do judge people a lot, and I'm not— or usually, just for me, if it's subconscious, it's just a habit of thinking thoughts about that person, but I'm not sure if anybody else did that.

Did you get into any of these questions when you were leading the conversation?

No, I didn't.

See, to some extent, I am so used to asking questions, I can just instantly come up with endless questions. But a lot of it is, I'll tell you the next question I'm going to ask and then tell you what I was thinking. Often I like to take ideas to their extremes. And so, and it's really just to test it, to kind of test what we believe. And so the next kind of extreme that I'm going to go to is, is it possible to watch other people and not judge them at all? That is it, is it? And you can see how before we were asking if sometimes, you know, are people judging each other when they're watching each other? And you think at least some of the time there are. And that's interesting. And then I think, let's go to the other extreme and say, is it even possible not to judge people? So before answering the question, do you see how I kind of— my question-asking technique is sort of to take an idea to an extreme?

Yes. Yeah, I do.

And I think a lot of interesting things in life were kind of partly this, partly that. And a lot of what we're doing in these conversations is trying to get ourselves and the other person to think a bit more clearly about exactly when and where and how are we judging when we're watching. And I, again, I think it's a super interesting question because, yeah, there is some judging, in some ways there's not, and how do we figure this out? So going back to the question, is it possible to watch with not a without a trace of judgment?

Um, I— my initial thought would be no, because like when I look at somebody, there are thoughts about them. And though you might not initially call them judging, you might, or that's your initial take on them. You might not like it. You you might like it. I'd say that's a form, at least, of judging.

And, you know, there are psychologists who study this kind of thing. But my— because I've been doing this for so long, my mind instantly goes to other questions. So this sounds like a strange question, but do you think, for instance, dogs judge us and/or other dogs all the time? Is this just a human thing? Or, for instance, When is a dog judging, uh, other people and other dogs all the time?

If the dog is intelligent enough, it might. Um, I'm not sure what goes on in a dog's head, so I can't say for sure. But if another species had the intellect to think about another being, then you might say judging.

There may be dogs who are too stupid to judge and other dogs who are smart enough to judge.

Possibly, yes.

How would you know the difference?

Um, just by looking at them. Um, do you mean just by looking at them, or—

well, I guess I'm thinking I've known dogs that, um, you know, start to growl when a certain person comes into the room. You know, maybe they're very friendly to everybody in the household, but then a stranger comes by and they start to growl. First of all, does that count as a judgment on the part of a dog?

I think so, because they're being aware of their surroundings and they know that this person is danger. So they're being cautious and growling.

And do you think only some dogs are smart enough to do that, or most, or all?

I know that some species or just some particular dog might be smarter than other dogs. So I don't think that all dogs could do that because there are some pretty dumb dogs out there.

Okay. And part of, and this is interesting, one of the other techniques I use, I'm giving you a little bit of behind the scenes of how I think of these questions. What I'm developing an interest in, and very often I go word by word. So the verb to judge, you know, we've gotten into, we've been using the word to judge and now I'm digging into what does it mean to judge? Because, well, all again, concepts, I dig into concepts and see exactly what we mean by concepts. So do you think that a dog who growls when a stranger walks into the room is judging? In pretty much the same way that you are judging when you observe people? Or is dog judgment pretty different from human judgment?

Um, well, in that case, if a dog is just growling because a stranger walked into the room, that might not be judging. It might just be stranger danger, uh, get away. But I guess there is a possibility that, uh, it could just look at the person and decide, oh, danger.

How about when you judge? How do you judge? Is it like a thinking process, or— you mentioned conscious versus unconscious judging. What's the difference between conscious and unconscious judging?

I think conscious judging would be you look at the person and then you think, "That person looks like blah blah blah," whatever. And then unconscious would probably just be you look at them, notice something, but maybe it's different, maybe you don't like, and then you just kind of look away and go on with your life. But I guess I wouldn't say that's unconscious because you're doing it consciously. But, um, you're not doing it in as much depth as my other example.

Do you think a dog growling when a stranger walks in is more like unconscious judging or conscious judging or none of the above?

Um, I think— I'm not sure. I think it probably be conscious judging, because if you're referring to my example in unconscious judging, then, well, he would have just not cared. But if he's growling, then the dog is probably looking at the human and going, well, this looks weird.

So, okay. And, you know, there's a whole other topic we don't have time to get into a little bit, but we're digging into what it means to judge or evaluate. You had mentioned that. And then also something else you said we have not had a chance to dig into is maybe if you're a leader or a decision maker, then people judge you more or in a different way. Can you explain where that might be?

Well, if you're a leader in some form of way, you're the leader and your choices matter, um, maybe more than if you weren't a leader in some way that it wouldn't matter more. But, um, well, there's probably a bunch of people, a bunch of people watching you, and since you're the leader, if maybe you're just a leader of some kind of group, then your choices would make or would, um, affect the group or just the lifestyle in general. So I think you, you would be judged more if you were the leader making decisions. Just maybe your posture or your how you speak also matters.

And given that you led the group last week, would you say your peers were judging you in a different way or more because you were leading the group than when you're just a participant?

Maybe. I mean, maybe they were thinking or judging more, but I'm not sure.

Did it make you nervous at all or not a trace?

Um, I was a little nervous, um, because I knew that my class could be kind of quiet, so I was kind of nervous about that.

But okay. Do you think that, uh, do you see how having lots of questions helps lead these discussions?

Yeah, I do.

Do you think that if you led again, you could beforehand just write down 5, 10, 15, 20 questions even on a little quotation?

Probably, if I spent enough time on it.

Do you see how I can just generate questions endlessly?

Yeah.

But again, I've got lots of experience. But part of it is you think about every word. What does it mean? You know, what does it mean to be watched? And why does it make a difference? And if you think— it's good to have follow-up questions too. So if in your mind your hypothesis is decision makers are watched more Then you could get into why leaders might be judged more. And then if judging is part of it, what does it mean to judge? And so I often, before I lead a discussion, I think through kind of initial questions and then a bunch of follow-up questions. And the more questions you have— one of the things I found leading this is it's so unpredictable. Sometimes I think I have the most brilliant question on earth and I ask the group and nobody says anything. And sometimes I think there's kind of a silly, even a stupid question, I ask it and all of a sudden, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, they're so excited and talkative and everything. So, um, I like to just come prepared with lots of questions, and then if my favorite question kind of dies, doesn't go anywhere, I have another one and then another one, and eventually one of them hooks and you get engagement, and then you get the energy going. Makes sense?

Yes, it does.

Would you say you enjoyed leading the conversation?

I think I did. It was a good experience, and I'd I'm looking forward to doing that again.

So kudos to you for your very first one. Congratulations. First of anything is the hardest. And, you know, with practice, I think this becomes super fun. So I'm glad that Karen is doing this with you guys. And hopefully you can support your other, you know, now that other people are leading it, hopefully you can support them so that they don't feel kind of alone when they ask a question. But my bet is that you're pretty good at, uh, at least helping. Well, do you see how you could help get things going if another student is leading and it's not going very well?

I think so. Um, you could either just make up your own questions and ask to get the conversation going, um, or, or tell whoever's leading the question.

Absolutely. Or when you answer a question, you could say, 'What do you think?' or 'Am I making sense?' That is, you can both give the other student an answer so there's something going on, but then you can also add on a question because then that opens it up. Because sometimes if students just hear 'this is the answer,' then they all shut up. 'Okay, Alana answered it. Let's, let's go home. We're all done.' But if you have an answer and then you add a question at the end of your answer, it's sort of like bouncing the ball around. Does that make sense? Yes. Um, all right, well, I cannot wait to hear more about how it goes with students leading things. And, um, yeah, hope you have a wonderful week.

Okay, thanks, Michael. See you.

You're welcome. Bye-bye.