Round of opinions

Suzie Harrison

The students were seated in a circle to promote improved

discussion and participation. It was much like a round table found in

a college philosophy class. However, these scholars weren’t studying

Aristotle or Descartes, they were being taught an open-minded

philosophy of a free and open forum, forming one’s own opinion and

respecting the opinion of others.

The class is called Great Books and is being taught to

second-graders at Top of the World Elementary School. It’s a way of

learning and studying literature that teachers hope will continue

through to college. The students in Lois Rake’s class are in the

junior program and were intently engaged through the entire class

period without signs of the typical restlessness that is natural for

7- and 8-year-olds.

“It’s a different method, seminar style with shared inquiry,” said

Dottie Moss, volunteer teacher’s aid for 20 years. “The purpose is a

Socratic method. They read the story three times before coming to

class. The idea is that they learn that there’s more than one answer,

learn to form their own opinion and respect the opinion of others.”

The 10 students in the group discussed the story, “The Happy

Lion.” On the whiteboard was posed the question, “Why is the lion

happy even though he isn’t free?”

“Let everyone think for themselves .There are no right or wrong

answers,” Rake said. “Everyone has their own thought.”

With pencils moving quickly, the class diligently wrote answers in

the blanks. Students went on to interpret the story, each was given a

chance to express their own thoughts as well as agree or disagree

with others.

“The lion is happy because he is not in Africa and the hunters

don’t try and shoot him,” Alia Manneta, 8, said. “His home was not

the hot plains and dangerous parts of Africa where hunters wait with

their guns.”

Other students felt he was safe at the zoo because he didn’t have

to hunt and had many friends.

“Because he has all the things he needs he doesn’t like being

free,” Elliott Glass, 7, said.

Going through the obstacles that the lion faced through the story

led the students to challenge the meaning of what free actually

meant.

“In the story, there’s a lot of exciting stuff,” Elliott said.

“Whenever you turn the page, there’s new stuff and you get to use

lots of imagination.”

After all angles were covered and everyone had a chance to express

their opinion and discuss it with other students, the teacher said it

was time for the resolution. Moss had written down all of the

student’s replies and she, with the class, summed up all their ideas

and listened to the responses completing the introduction of a

process of interactive learning Rake hopes will help the students

throughout their education.