Monday, April 28, 2014

1984-Socratic Seminar Reflection #1

       The seminar influenced my thinking about a topic because I gained some more insight into how

Oceania's society functioned.  I learned about how it connected to the real world as well, since there

have been histories of people with authoritarian governments.  Several examples of this are Germany,

during the Nazi era, as well as North Korea.  To start the seminar, I asked, "Why does everyone call

each other 'comrade?'"  I thought that it was a result of the country always being at war, but the

responses I got were that it was just a word used to address each other, just as Mr. and Mrs. would be

used.
 
      I agreed with the idea that the citizens had to be careful about what they said and thought because

they were being watched by Big Brother and his regime.  The citizens could be arrested for saying or

doing anything that the government viewed as a threat.  I didn't really disagree with anything that was

said, because I thought that everyone's ideas made sense.  I should have told the group my response to

the question, because it could have presented an opportunity to take the conversation in another

direction, but I didn't.
       
 Everyone had good ideas and the discussion was thought-provoking in general.  Everyone shared their

insights and views on certain topics.  People were attentive and engaged in the discussion.  Sasha did a

good job of facilitating it and making sure that everyone was involved.  Some questions were really

good, as well, I had to think for a while to come up with the answer several times.
     
  The main thing that people should work on is making their questions clear and relatively easy to

comprehend.  There were several times that I had no idea how to answer a question because it was

either too complicated or it didn't get to the point.  In both cases, I had no idea what some of those

questions were asking, which might have limited some opportunities to make a really insightful

comment.  That is the main thing that people should work on.

No comments:

Post a Comment