To learn more about the different political perspectives of their peers, seniors in Joseph Juliano’s
“American Experience and Constitutional Change” class held a Socratic Seminar to share their individual beliefs. Students were assigned points based on the relevance of their comments.

“There wasn’t really a single moment that was uniquely important; the process of having that civil discourse and learning through everyone’s points of view felt like the most important part of doing a lesson like that,” senior Owen Davis, who earned first place, said. “The habit of doing this type of discussion is helpful for gaining a better understanding of any concept out there and that skill will help me in my future.”

The students focused on different world and historical issues throughout the discussion, including the Constitution and free speech, each sharing their own experiences and opinions.

”I think one major moment during the seminar was when we argued how we should interpret the Constitution,” senior Tyler Reyes said. “I thought this was very important because this is actually one of the main questions being asked today throughout the entire government. We are always having a hard time deciding whether the Constitution can be interpreted the ‘original’ way or in a way that conforms to current times.”

Respectfully talking about political situations, the students were able to constantly go back and forth coming up with answers, adding onto each other and asking controversial questions.

“What‌ ‌ended‌ ‌up‌ ‌giving‌ ‌me‌ ‌the‌ ‌win‌ ‌over‌ ‌some‌ ‌of‌ ‌the‌ ‌other‌ ‌people‌ ‌who‌ ‌frequently‌ ‌talked‌ ‌was‌ ‌that‌ ‌I‌ ‌asked‌ ‌a‌ ‌lot‌ ‌of‌ ‌questions‌ ‌challenging‌ ‌responses‌ ‌from‌ ‌the‌ ‌class‌,” Davis said. “I believe most students would have had expectations, but I didn’t have any for myself; I felt that this lesson suits my personality and it would be helpful to me.”

One problem that occurred during the presentation for some participants was not using evidence to support their ideas.

“Overall the discussion lacked evidence and was more philosophical by talking about the general issues that America faced back then, and new issues that arose in modern day society,” senior Gabrielle Bagtas said. “I don’t think agreement is frustrating but disagreement is always more beneficial because learning all sides of an argument allows for the most growth in understanding. I feel that our similar beliefs came from the fact that we have all learned these concepts together as a class, and so have built similar viewpoints.”

Connecting and learning from each other, some students were able to gain a better understanding on the various subjects. After finishing their seminar, they will soon begin to prepare for their next topic.

“I was looking for my students to make connections with each other and build off of each other and they met my standards; they did really well at applying the concepts they learned with opinions they had,” Juliano said. “Our next seminar is going to be on the idea of liberty and how people are able to define liberty, sort of like a broad idea that they can have a conversation about. I believe that this will help them have a better understanding of content and help build communication skills in many areas.”