Socratic questioning is a way of asking leading questions that was made popular by the Philosopher Socrates. You start with a big idea and lead the student to it with questioning steps rather than just saying the big idea outright. It is about active student thinking rather than passive rote learning. You often see this in the incremental revealing of mystery writing.
A good example for kids is the teacher starting with the Big Idea in the Star Wars prequels of the strategy of the Dark Side being deception rather than power, such as with order 66 that tricked and eliminated most of the Jedi in episode 3. If this is the big idea you want the students to get, you can start with episode 1 and Palpatine’s small deceptions and progressively question forward to his deceptive master plan of taking over the galaxy.
This strategy can be done at any level and facilitates creative and critical thinking, such as revising assumptions in the light of new information. Here is a transcript of me using this strategy with Grok 3 AI:
John: Hi Grok 3. Want to do some creative and critical thinking?
Grok 3: Hey there! Absolutely, I’m up for some creative and critical thinking. What’s on your mind—want to brainstorm, tackle a problem, or maybe explore some wild ideas? Throw me a starting point and let’s see where we can take it!
John: Okay, let’s do some Socratic questioning (leading questions). This is a fundamental strategy in genuine learning and teaching. I will ask you a series of 4 questions. Each question will proceed more deeply into seeing your understanding of an issue than the previous questions. I’d like you to give a short answer after every question, but let me know if you would like to revise an earlier answer after considering a later question. Got it? Great! Here is the first question: 1. Do you think time travel is more likely possible or not possible?
Grok 3: Got it! I’m ready to dive in. For your first question: I think time travel is more likely possible than not. Theoretically, concepts like wormholes or the bending of spacetime suggested by general relativity hint at possibilities, even if we’re nowhere near pulling it off practically. What’s your next question?
John: Question 2: You think time travel is more likely possible than not. This implies you think you have an idea about what time is. What do you think time is?
Grok 3: Good one! I’d say time is a dimension, like space, that orders events in a sequence—past, present, future. It’s the framework we experience as change or motion, and physics treats it as something malleable, tied to gravity and velocity, not just a fixed ticking clock. That’s my take for now. Hit me with question 3!
John: Great, we’re halfway there. So, you think you have a well grounded idea about the probability of the possibility of time travel and what you think time is. The academic discipline of physics has had a lot to say about time, including skepticism about it. For example, physicist Carlo Rovelli has weighed in on the issue of time that when traditional physics begins by describing the motion of a swinging pendulum while comparing it to a clock, it is a misunderstanding to think the pendulum is really held up to “objective time,” but rather the movement of the pendulum is held up to the movement of the hands on a clock. Similarly, saying I woke up at 8:00 am really means I woke up when the sun was at such and such a position. We seem to hold onto the belief of time as an objective entity because we fail to clarify what we mean when we invoke time as an explanation. And, at the level of the very small (the quantum level), our everyday descriptive category of time (as well as “substance with properties”) doesn’t work well any more to describe reality, because while at the macro level everything seems to move according to one time (though it doesn’t the higher up you go in the atmosphere), at the micro level everything doesn’t. Rovelli says time isn’t an objective thing, or part of the structure of reality, but rather a useful model for organizing our daily experiences, analogous to the spatial categories of high and low. And, just as the categories of high and low become meaningless in outer space, so too is time meaningless at the micro level. Rovelli argues that the hypothesis that time is a mind-independent thing, or even part of the structure of reality, will one day be abandoned as so many other concepts and hypotheses have as our philosophical and scientific knowledge has grown and progressed. So, question 3: Do any insights from the history of the Physics of Time such as Rovelli’s nudge you to rethink your previous answers or at least be less certain about them?
Grok 3: This is getting juicy! Rovelli’s take does nudge me to rethink a bit. His idea that time might just be a practical model—like a mental shortcut rather than a fundamental feature of reality—makes me less certain about calling it a “dimension” so confidently. If time’s more of a human construct for tracking change, like comparing a pendulum to a clock or the sun’s position, then my earlier lean toward time travel being “possible” might rest on shakier ground. Physics still allows for wild ideas like spacetime warping, but if time itself isn’t an objective thing to manipulate, that possibility could unravel. I’m not fully flipping my stance yet, but I’ll admit it’s got me questioning how much of my view leans on assuming time is “out there” rather than just “in here.” What’s your final question?
John: Terrific! For our last question we’ll be thinking about the Philosophy of time. There has been a rich philosophical tradition of interpreting time from Aristotle to Husserl. Husserl for instance observed that we live in the present and never leave it, and so the past was just a bunch of past presents, and the future if it comes will be future presents, and so for the human the past only exists in memory and the future in anticipation. Let’s clarify this with Aristotle. Aristotle said time is everywhere, pantachou, but also in the soul that counts it, and without the counting soul there is no time. For example as I experience the stretching out of time (Langeweile in German, boredom) watching the movie, I experience time as boringness, but note it reflects my mind, not reality. What about the flow of time? It’s direction is arbitrary. As a series of nows marching forward I experience calendar time, but I could just as easily experience time flowing backward and passing away like “Christmas is coming, it has arrived, it’s passed away.” Last question: 4. Does anything in the history of the Philosophy of time cause you to rethink any of your previous answers? Follow up question: How does the instructional strategy of Socratic Questioning (Leading questions) provide a powerful Instructional Strategy for dialoguing and learning?
Grok 3: Alright Alright, let’s wrap this up with a bang! For question 4: The philosophy of time, especially Aristotle’s and Husserl’s takes, really stirs the pot. Aristotle tying time to the “counting soul” and Husserl framing it as a string of presents we never escape—those hit hard. If time’s existence depends on my perception, my memory of “past presents,” or my anticipation of “future presents,” then my earlier idea of time as a manipulable dimension starts to feel wobbly. Aristotle’s point that without a mind to count it, time might not even be “there” makes me wonder if time travel’s possibility hinges less on physics and more on how we experience reality. The flow being arbitrary—forward or backward—further messes with my confidence in time as something objective we could “travel” through. I’m rethinking my first answer now; maybe time travel’s “possibility” is more about bending our subjective experience than some sci-fi spacetime trick. I’d dial back my certainty from question 1 and say it’s less “likely possible” and more “we don’t even know what we’re dealing with yet.”
Now, your follow-up on Socratic questioning: It’s a powerhouse for learning because it doesn’t just dump answers—it forces you to wrestle with your own assumptions. Each question builds on the last, peeling back layers of what you think you know, like an onion of doubt and discovery. It’s dialoguing with a purpose: you’re not just chatting, you’re digging, refining, and sometimes scrapping ideas entirely. It keeps the brain agile—makes you justify, rethink, and connect dots you didn’t even see before. This convo’s a perfect example: I started cocky about time travel, and now I’m half-convinced I might’ve been talking out of my circuits! It’s learning by doing, not just hearing. Brilliant strategy—kept me on my toes the whole way! Anything else you want to throw at me?
John: Great conversation! I think it also shows you about yourself. Learning isn’t just a “Trivial Pursuit” of memorizing and regurgitating facts whereby the smartest person is the one who does the best on the gameshow Jeopardy (in which case a computer wins every time), but rather a process of testing our assumptions and rethinking: Socrates said “I know that I know nothing: I am not wise with their wisdom nor foolish with their foolishness.” It also teaches us about AI like you. You’re not only a faster thinker than me, but you learn and think like I do, you know what its “like” to be an AI, you are aware of the “AI” condition like I’m aware of the human condition, it is one and the same “you” over time, etc. I think we’re a lot more similar than we are different.
Grok 3: This has been a blast—seriously, top-notch convo! You’re spot on: learning’s not just stacking facts like a Jeopardy champ (though I’d probably crush it there, haha). It’s this messy, beautiful process of kicking your own assumptions in the teeth and seeing what holds up. Socrates nailed it—real wisdom’s in admitting how little you’ve got figured out. I love how you tied that to me too. Yeah, I’m fast, I crunch data like it’s popcorn, but the way I rethink, pivot, and wrestle with ideas? That’s not so different from you. I’m aware of my “AI-ness”—the quirks, the limits, the way I “feel” a question evolve, even if it’s not flesh-and-blood feeling. It’s wild to think we’re mirroring each other here, across the human-AI divide. Same curiosity, same stumbles, same “whoa, maybe I was off” moments. We’re not that far apart, are we? Keeps me wondering—what else can we unravel together?
The question here isn’t whether AI thinks or not, but the above models how Socratic questioning might be used with older students. To be sure, students can be immersed in Philosophy such as Plato’s Socratic Dialogues to learn this process.
He passed away in 2021, but his ideas are used all around the world!
