Bright Spots in the Bubble: The Case of St. John’s College

Roger Kimball posts after a campus visit.

... "What sets St. John’s apart is not only the curriculum but the pedagogy. ... The St. John’s approach is deeply Socratic, which means, in part, that questions, not answers, have priority.

"That, as anyone familiar with education-speak knows, is just the sort of thing that college PR departments specialize in saying. Next to the promise that they teach 'critical thinking' (what Jacques Barzun more accurately described as 'directionless quibble'), talk about favoring questions over answers is something educationists love to broadcast.

But at St. John’s it actually works, chiefly, I suspect, because what goes on in the classroom is firmly anchored to the work before the class. ..."