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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 38, Number 25. 2nd October 1975

In short

In short

Socratic method is desirable because it makes students think about rather than just know the law.

  • - It requires many hours of preparation by the student if he is to participate in class discussion.
  • - The expense in class time can only be justified if there is a high level of class participation.
  • - Students tend not to prepare adequately, for many reasons, many of which are justified and others understandable.

Thus to teach socratically the lecturer has to force students to prepare, e.g. via a "black mark system." I say "probably" because both Dean John Thomas and Prof Palmer confess to being unsure whether to force is a necessary element — they're still experimenting but have a hunch that it is. The results of a course questionnaire-conducted by Prof Palmer, to be published in a forthcoming Caveat indicate that torts students liked the socratic method but hated the no-response rule and compulsory lectures. Probably they can't have the method without the authoritarianism. If that is so, is the method worth it? Is this authoritarian teaching method consistent with its own ultimate aims; and are the aims themselves valid?

Socratic method as practised by Dean John Thomas and Prof Palmer is the legal application of the world view that humane social change can be carried out gradually by expert social engineers who constantly tinker with the system. The experts, in our case lawyers, form an elite, because they have to be highly skilled, but they make decisions in the interests of the mass of people, i.e. in conflict with the conservative element. Dean John Thomas and Prof. Palmer hope to produce such an elite, which will serve not itself but the people, and do so by using the law as a tool with which to slowly change society.

This means the socratic techniques aim to produce students who are:
1.Rigorously clear thinkers - clever enough to win against the most clever representatives of the beast
2.Socially aware, i.e. sensitive to the need for change as opposed to conservative and self-serving.
3.Sufficiently motivated to carry their beliefs into action, i.e. not just liberal wankers!'

The perfect graduage would be as clever, socially aware and motivated as Ralph Nader or William Kunstler

The first danger in this scheme is obvious: if aim 1 succeeds but aims 2 and 3 fail we produce a super set of rip-off artists.

Second, I have the feeling (admittedly only a feeling) that such an authoritarian method is inconsistent with the aim of humane social change. As Prof. Palmer says students must be made to stand up now else be knocked down later on, and the grilling they get in class will help them. But unless the method makes them sensitive as well as tough it fails.

Third, even if the scheme succeeds in all its aims, it will likely produce a team of well-meaning expert, lawyer-cum-social engineers who because they're guided by their own skills rather than by the 'people' they purport to serve. Experts will not serve people's interests unless they are directed from below. Experts seldom are directed from below, precisely because they have the attitude that 'we know what the people need better than the people themselves - we are the experts.' In short, a successful socratic method can produce very undemocratic results.

Photo of Professor Palmer

Professor Palmer: "a real sweetie" or a Franco on our doorstep?