Public proof of conceptQuick startAboutInboxAccount

Teacher studio

Guide the formation.
See the preparation.

View as learner →

Where a leader plans an hour and a teacher builds a course, and how the Institute leads the conversation both are for.

How the Institute leads a conversation, set out for anyone who will lead one. The practice is Dr. Andrew Seeley’s, from the Institute’s own workshops on leading discussion, and everything the Studio builds for seminars, the reader’s preparation and the leader’s plan, is built to serve it.

I. Leading a conversation

  1. The author is the teacherThe leader is a leading learner — the room’s first reader, not its lecturer. What the text says outranks what anyone at the table, leader included, would rather it said.
  2. One question, and then the leader mostly listensOne question that can open the whole reading is put to the group, with one or two in reserve and never a list to get through — and then the leader waits, lets answers meet each other, and returns to the question from time to time to take stock aloud.
  3. Opinion owes evidenceEvidence must be something the whole table can judge: the words on the page, or experience all share, never private expertise. When a passage is cited, the reading waits until every copy is open to the place.
  4. Conclusions are earned, and summarizedThe leader summarizes what was said, not what they wish had been said. A seminar often ends in honest disagreement; seeing the real question more clearly is progress, and the good questions are expected to outlast the hour.

II. The hour’s shape

  1. 05Open the passage

    Read aloud the lines the question rises from, once every copy is open to them.

  2. 75The one question

    Put it, then wait. The room answers each other; return to the question from time to time and take stock aloud.

  3. 10Close by summarizing

    Summarize what was actually said, not what you wish had been said, and say where the question now stands.

At the table

  • Wait, listen, wait. Let answers meet each other before you respond to any of them.
  • When a passage is cited, hold the reading until every copy is open to the place.
  • Opinion owes evidence the whole table can judge — the words on the page, or experience all share.
  • Summarize from time to time: what was said, not what you wish had been said, and let the room correct you.
  • Draw in the quiet, and remember the remark the conversation ran past.
  • You have time. Most errors need no correction on the spot; the important ones return.
  • Expect the question to outlast the hour — seeing it more clearly is progress.

III. The opening question, by example

From Dr. Seeley’s workshop on the Mary-and-Martha passages of John: four kinds of question a leader might open with, of which only the first opens the whole text.

  1. A good oneGeneral enough to open the whole text and particular enough to be answered from it, so the table can begin anywhere and end up everywhere.
    • Compare Mary and Martha.
    • Why did Jesus wait two days?
    • Jesus shows many emotions in this passage.
  2. Too suggestiveIt carries its answer in the asking, and the table can only agree or resist.
    • Jesus often seems to misunderstand people. Do you see evidence of this here?
  3. A pretext for a conversationIt leaves the text behind for a topic the text is only an occasion for.
    • In what ways is Christ like a parent to his followers?
  4. Too particularIt can be answered in a line and opens nothing beyond it. Ask of it: how will this open up the whole text?
    • What is the ‘one thing’ necessary?

IV. The habits a session asks for

  1. AnnotatingA session asks for marks with a reason: which passage, and why it mattered, so the reading leaves a trace the seminar can cite.
  2. OutliningEach reading is set down in outline in the reader’s own words, the shape of the argument before any opinion of it, and kept in the record as a document rather than a copy.
  3. QuestioningAfter every long stretch of reading, a reflective question of the reader’s own, the kind they would bring to a seminar, is asked and may be shared to the leader, who may choose it to open the hour and invite its asker to raise it.

V. Resources

These are live programs, held now by video call and in person; the software is built around them rather than the other way round.

  1. The two-year fellowshipIt meets for ninety minutes each week, online, with an in-person summer component. Members of the first cohort said plainly that they would not have kept up their intellectual life without the structure of the group.
  2. Summer universityIt runs three days in person, with mini-courses drawn from the seven liberal arts. This is the part of the year where the conversation continues over meals as much as in session.
  3. Mathematics conferenceThis is a yearly gathering around the quadrivium, and the setting where much of the interactive geometry work in this Studium was first asked for.
  4. Fellows AcademyFellows teach high-school students, and Institute faculty support the teachers rather than teaching the classes directly.
The seminars convened →