The Socratic club - 22nd September 2024

This was a tremendous set of Socratic sessions with some new faces joining too and plenty of confident displays of public speaking. It was also particularly pleasing to see members using debating skills from last term (without as yet a refresher) in their discussions and incorporating new skills/emphasis on proposition argumentation from this term. Well done all!

Our skills of the week looked at how to tackle/manage public speaking nerves and how best to use Points of Information (POIs). The key here on POIs is to make an impression (often to the audience too) and support your argument, whilst not allowing the opposition/opposite side an easy point to then use against one. 

For warm-up question we looked at the Philosophical question(s) (with 'Why'/justification absolutely crucial and also an understanding that this may not have a right/wrong answer):

(i) What qualifies as art? / Who decides what art is? / is beauty in the eye of the beholder? 

This led to a fascinating discussion - from purpose, to contemporary and renaissance examples, from da Vinci to Jackson Pollock, to whether animals (such as an elephant) could also produce art / or if this was solely in the domain of human beings? 

Well done all!

We then turned to a Newsround focussing on: 

• The US Presidential Election

• Donations to Political parties in the UK 

• Another assassination attempt on Donald Trump

• Keir Starmer's US and Italian visits

• The War in Ukraine 

• The widening conflict in the Middle East

• Harvest Festival

• Sporting news (Arsenal vs Man City)

• Dancing Competitions 

• Space news from the ISS to the recent private sponsored space walk

• The coal mine explosion in Iran 

• Shooting / Gun use in the US

Our debates covered the motions:

(i) 'This House would ban junk food online advertising and television advertising (before 9pm)' 

- here we saw an excellent debate with finance, jobs and practicality battling against the need to make progress on childhood obesity and any percentage difference would help society. Questions over freedom of choice, finance, impact and managing expectations all came up. 

The Junior group voted 71% in favour of the ban at the first telling, and at the concluding vote this had moved to 100% in favour. Even a small amount of progress was seen as worth pushing for. The Senior group voted against the motion by 60% at both tellings. Practicality and Finance weighed most heavily here and the fear of a 'nanny state'. 

(ii) 'This House would ban mobile phone use in schools' following a recent decision by one of England's largest academy trusts. 

In the Junior session we saw a significant change in voting following our debate. At the outset 71% were against a ban, with many saying that phones could be useful not just from safety (going to and from school) but as educational tools, from calculators to dictionaries (foreign language too). However, by the end, voting had moved to 57% in favour of a ban with fear of social media, addiction to phone time and lack of sociability making the difference in those that changed their minds. Some excellent active listening here! 

In the Senior group the voting was more evenly balanced with 60% against a ban at the first telling, moving to 50/50 by the conclusion of the discussion. 

In the context of health we also looked at an unseen at the end of our sessions - seeing if students could recognise the health secretary (Wes Streeting), and if they had that role, what would they prioritise in the UK system? Prevention or Cure? or a balance of the two?

The voting was as follows:

Junior

Cure: 14%

Prevention: 14%

A balance: 72%

Senior

Cure: 30%

Prevention: 10%

A balance: 60%

Well done all for such interesting argumentation and discussion.