course website, which students are required to digest before coming to class, allowing the professor
to transform her“lectures”into critical discussions. A substantial participation grade needs to be
required so that students attend, assessed by a clear rubric (to avoid charges of“subjective”grading)
that possibly includes in-class written assignments, where students reflect on class discussions. The
flipped classroom holds potential for the Socratic professor, provided class is not a simple“review”
for tests and assignments.^14
This shift away from the digital classroom should not be understood as nostalgia for the old-
fashioned“talk and chalk”class; rather, it should be considered“innovatively analog,”comparable
to, say, the resurgence of analog vinyl records in an age of digital music streaming. The analog
classroom, as with an analog recording, is not seeking to destroy the digital world, but to offer
a singular, richer, more nuanced experience in the midst of omnipresent digitalization with its
binary codes.
The Job-Seeking Mentality and the Demand for Employable Skills
The job-seeking mentality emerges out of the societal and corporate demand for skilled workers
who can contribute to the economy. This has led to parental and student focus on receiving hireable
skills through enrollment in STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, mathematics)
and business programs, rather than liberal arts. Most students expect that a university degree
provides opportunity for more lucrative employment. Student recruitment representatives from
universities are constantly faced with the same question from potential students and their parents:
will this degree provide a pathway to employment? The question is not unreasonable; students and
parents hope that the investment required for post-secondary education is worth it. Over the past
few decades, universities have directed energyand resources toward STEM and business programs,
which attract students and private donors. This has led to what Nussbaum disparagingly calls
“education for economic growth”: education that provides skills for jobs that contribute to tech-
nological advancement and GDP growth in a globalized economy.^15 When education is understood
as simply training for future employment, the liberal arts appear to be useless at best, or an enemy of
economic growth at worst. As Nussbaum points out, educators for economic growth not only
ignore the arts, they“fear them”and“campaign against the humanities and arts as ingredients of
basic education. This assault is currently taking place all over the world.”^16 Thus the Socratic
professor, who teaches general electives to STEM and business students, will face the ire of
practically minded students who ask: why do I need to take this course? How can I possibly benefit
from it?
Turning universities into, essentially, vocational institutes leads to a number of problems.
First, it produces graduates who may have technical skills, but who often lack advanced com-
munication skills and abilities to think criticallyand creatively in the workplace. Second, there is
no guarantee that technical skills which are in demand today will not be obsolete within a few
years. Third, this ethos encourages students to view everything instrumentally, including other
people; students are thus more inclined to assess other people on whether they are useful for
monetary success. Such students may be more inclined to treat others disrespectfully if these
others are perceived as either competition or as having no utilitarian value–an ethos reinforced in
popular“reality television”programs, where it is dog-eat-dog on the path to success. Finally, all
of this means that students are being groomed to be employees and consumers, not proper
democratic citizens who are capable of true self-examination, social criticism, and prudential
action. Students who lack the so-called“soft skills”of communication and critical thinking are
less likely to think independently, and more likely to become“yes-men,”performing the
instrumental tasks they are hired to do, even when these tasks need to be rethought. In their social/
political lives they are more prone to be swayed by large groups, compelling demagogues, and
bad arguments.^17
The Socratic Method in Today’s University 141