My First Socratic Seminar

A setting in which I have collaborated with people who have differing beliefs and experiences is whenever I have had to participate in a Socratic seminar with my peers of a English class but, I have to say the most impactful Socratic seminar I ever participated in was my first. A Socratic seminar simply put is a form of a graded discussion in which all participants are seated in a circle and discuss different topics. Seeing as to how it was in all of my English classes the topics were usually based around the book that we were reading at that time. My first Socratic seminar was in my seventh grade WAVE Pre/AP GT class at Westbrook Intermediate. WAVE which stands for Webster Academy Visions in Education is for kids who were apart of the GT Magnet
I would always stumble over my words, my throat would dry up and my hands would become clammy and no matter how many presentations I gave it never seemed to change. I was always scared that people would laugh at me or they would think that my opinion was wrong. The night before the seminar I prepared questions I had about the book and things about the book that I found interesting. I went to class the next day hoping for the best but anticipating the worst. The teacher told us we had to speak one time and started us off with a question that she felt we should bring up and from there it was free reign. I decided in my head at that moment that I would speak first so that I could get it out of the way. I raised my hand and gave my point, hands shaking, voice rattling and heavily breathing. Once I finished speaking I expected to hear laughter or pure silence but, instead, a peer of mine raised their hand and expanded upon my point. This changed everything. The fact that someone actually agreed with what I had to say made everything
Was that a bad point? Why did I even say anything?” but just as quick as my peer (peer A) disagreed another disagreed about peer A’s point. I then thought “wait so they are wrong? Or are they?” and that’s when it clicked in my head, just because people don’t agree with what you say doesn’t make your statement wrong and it doesn’t mean that they are trying to make fun of you if they don’t agree with you it just means that they don’t agree with you on that subject and that’s the end of it. I learned that my opinion is just as important as someone else’s and that every side should be weighed in order to give a better understanding of a subject. I gained confidence at that point. That is not to say that all of a sudden I no longer feared speaking in front of people; by no means was that the case. But at that point I had something I could think about whenever I had to give a presentation or had to participate in a Socratic seminar. This is what gave me the strength to give an hour long presentation over a project for the innovation of a knee brace to help athletes who have torn their