Socratic Seminar Reflection

This week for the seminar it was different then previous seminars we have done

in class. We had a whole class discussion for the whole hour. I really like doing the

seminar this way because people were able to share their opinions of the discussion the

whole time. Personally, the one thing I dislike about having two different conversations

is when I am not in the group having the conversation, I come up with my own opinions

that I want to share. Unfortunately, I can not share them. Even though we did the online

conversation, it was more of the people on the outside recording what the people on the

inside of the circle were saying. We were not able to contribute to the conservation in a

meaningful way. However, with a big group conversation it was hard to talk sometimes

because at some points everyone would be talking at the same time or as I would try to

talk someone would always end up talking before me.

As for my contributions to the seminar, I tried my best to ask questions that would

not only make people think of a creative response but also allowing a different topic to

emerge into the conversation. I also tried my best not to talk too much to let everyone

share their opinions and thoughts as well. I really liked how our conversations went fully

circle, we started talking about whether or not rage is a good thing? After talking about

personal experiences with rage and our thoughts on the topic we changed to a different

topic and eventually found a new topic to discuss yet still made it relate to rage and

whether it was good or bad. I thought that was a very cool thing to see. In my opinion I

think it is ok to have rage however we should not act on our emotions of rage. It results
in a decision we would not make on a usual basis because rage clouds our judgement.

This leads to decisions that result in consequences we are not willing to face. This

happened in “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare when Hamlet killed Polonius. Hamlet

acted on rage because he was so fed up with people spying on him and out of rage he

stabbed the person behind the curtain. Hamlet had no intention of killing Polonuis but

because he was in a state of rage he made an irrational decision. Resulting in Hamlet

being sent to England. Overall, I believe that this seminar went very well and next time I

would like to not be so judgemental about others ideas and allowing them to share their

opinions.