Morrie Socratic Seminar Reflections

Prompts:

- Explain how the past four Socratic Seminars have influenced your thinking about Tuesdays with Morrie and life in general.

- What trends did you notice with yourself and your personal goals for each seminar? How did your personal goal(s) change and what did you actively do to change throughout our last four discussions?

- What trends did you notice with the class for each seminar? What did you notice that helped or hindered a specific seminar?  

        The past four Socratic Seminars have influenced my thinking about Tuesday's with Morrie and life in general in many ways. Someone mentioned that Morrie was okay with the tape recorder. Before I thought that Morrie was wasn't okay with it at first because it reminds him on how he is going to leave. Then someone brought up how Morrie has said before that he wanted his thoughts and beliefs to be remembered, even after his death. That evidence persuaded me to thinking that Morrie was okay with the tape recorder. I also listened closer to what Morrie meant in his life lessons. One aphorism was, "Don't cling to things, because everything is impermanent," (Pg. 103). In one of the discussions we really elaborated on that. We focused on the examples he gave such as loneliness. We thought about how it must be easier said that done. Like Morrie said though, it would really improve life.

        Trends I noticed with my personal goals with each seminar was to involve people. One of my goals was to include someone that hasn't contributed to the conversation. Another one was to elaborate on what someone said. I felt like I did improve on those areas. I actively changed throughout our last four seminars because I was more focused and I would always bring someone in. I would also elaborate on what another person said.

       I noticed that in each seminar we brought up aphorisms, and our thoughts on it. One of the aphorisms, "Don't hold on too long, but don't let go too early," (Pg. 103). We thought about what it actually meant. For this one we concluded that if you hold on too long there is no point, but if you leave to early there was so much more you could have done. Another trend is that we usually laugh a lot at the humor in the book. Like how Morrie talks about the Ted Turner message he wouldn't want on his grave. I found it funny that Morrie could joke about it and then he became serious.