Soft Socratic

There was a post on the NYTimes Ideas blog about the purported primary method of instruction at law school - the so-called Socratic method - in which professors choose students at random to answer questions. The post says that professors actually lecture much more than people think and that the Socratic method isn't as much of a pedagogical tool as one might think. 

I think that's pretty accurate. One of my classes isn't a lecture so that doesn't count; of the other three, only one of the teachers could at all be characterized as intensely Socratic - by which I mean the professor is very interested in engaging with a student and forcing the student to follow a logical progression. But this professor isn't at all hostile or sadistic and self-characterized this style as "soft Socratic" - whatever that means.

Of the last two, one said explicitly that class participation doesn't count for the final grade and thus no one really worries about getting called on, and the other is nice enough to lead a struggling student to the trough and/or pass the question along to volunteers.

All this is really to say that while the Socratic method was one of the things I worried most about prior to starting school, it's not really on my mind much anymore, mostly because there's either an escape route or I don't mind being embarrassed if I don't know an answer. That doesn't mean that I don't obsess of my performance when I do get called on/volunteer, especially if I have to talk for an extended period. The self-analysis never ends.