Socratic Seminar Reflection

Reflecting on my Socratic Seminar I realize that my performance was poor, not only because I failed to react to others ideas and opinions but because words barely came out at all. In the question 2 seminar, the one discussing Mond and John's talk in chapter 17, I did bring up a few points on soma and how it caged their emotions, made them dull when they should have been emotional, forced their lives to be lifeless, and how later John would cry freedom and throw the soma out the window. This idea would later be extended by Ms. Huff, saying that John could have represented Jesus Christ in that Jesus saved man and John tried to save man through crying freedom from soma. Making the thought go even more extended I continued saying that the two are more alike in that they would both be whipped and killed in the end. The most enjoyable part of the seminar was learning about other's thoughts and feelings on the book. I learned, from Becky, that soma was real and even has similar effects with the fictional version. The most important thing the seminar did was to relate the fictional novel to the real world and how the two have more in common that I had thought or like to think. How soma is real and how we, as in scientists, are moving toward clones in that we can clone bulls and other animals and how we can change embryos to select certain genes that don't cause cancer. If changing one thing was possible I would force myself to tell my thoughts and ideas much more often. If that single area would improve the seminar would have been perfect.