by Kate Nicole Hoffman

I was nervous the morning of the trial. My college roommate wished me luck as I crammed my notes into my backpack, along with my copy of Plato’s Five Dialogues and the Reacting to the Past student handbook. I had spent the last week writing and rewriting my arguments, trying them out with friends, working on new angles. Today was the day, and I was eager for it to go well.

I passed some Thrasybulus Democrats on my way to the courtroom; they narrowed their eyes at me and turned back to their whispered huddle. Plotting outside of the classroom, as we all had these past couple of months. I was eager to get inside and consult with my own cohort.  Although I would be the one speaking in front of the jury today, my remarks would be the culmination of our team effort, and our winning of the trial was essential to our objectives. In 399 BCE, Socrates was condemned to death for the crimes of impiety and corrupting the youth. Over 2,000 years later, we Socratics were getting another chance. Our objective: convince the jury that Socrates ought to go free.

It was strange, perhaps, to find myself here, and filled with enough nerves and excitement as to imagine that this was a real trial, with a man’s life actually at stake. I was a music major who was only taking this Intro to Philosophy class to fulfill a credit for the honors program. Not only that, but I had always been rather shy in classes – reluctant to speak up and preferring to share my thoughts and questions with my teachers in private. And here I was, notes clutched in my hand, walking up to the podium with my prepared speech in Socrates’ defense. They had been absolutely opposed to us Socratics from the beginning – I knew they wouldn’t be convinced.  But I could potentially get through to some of the other factions and various yet undecided Athenian citizens.  Assuming, of course, that they hadn’t already been bribed.

The leader of it all, Dr. Curry, smiled at me from the back of the classroom. He was taking a chance in offering such a nontraditional philosophy class as part of the honors program; even more so because it was his first time using roleplay as a method of teaching. But each week it became more obvious: it was working. How do you take a bunch of awkward freshmen with no experience in philosophy and get them to care about the work of oldies like Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates? Transport them into ancient Athens, give them characters and objectives, and let them see how philosophy was relevant to real decisions made in Athens, the threshold of democracy.  We were learning the art of making and analyzing arguments in a way that was fun and contextualized. And we were all getting really into it.

I shuffled my notes up on the podium, gave a thumbs up to my fellow Socratics, and launched into my prepared arguments. There was something I was realizing: I was good at this.  And not only that: I enjoyed it. I liked figuring out how to form a coherent argument, backed up with evidence and logic. I liked engaging in friendly debates with people who disagreed. I was beginning to see how such skills and endeavors could be useful, not just in the context of this “Athens Game”, but in life.  In ways I could not have anticipated, this game was helping me to see myself as not just a student, but a philosopher.

In 399 BCE, Socrates was sentenced to death and forced to drink hemlock. In 2013 CE, to the cheers of my classmates, Socrates was acquitted.  Granted, the win could be attributed more to chance than to my oratory skills (the vote was nearly tied, but the method for determining the winner, decided by drawing out black and white marbles from an urn, happened to fall in our favor).  But even still, I couldn’t help but feel a stab of pride as I relayed the experience to my roommate later that night (“Yessss girl!!)  The next week, the Thrasybulus managed, for strategic reasons, to convince enough of my classmates to vote me out of the Athenian assembly (Dr. Curry looked through the handbook in surprise – “Yes, I guess you are allowed to do that!”)  Somehow, that felt like a win too.

It was easy for Dr. Curry to convince me to take another philosophy course after my experience with the Reacting to the Past game. I now understood what philosophy was, why it mattered, and what being a philosopher could look like. I took another course.  And another. I eventually got a major.  Just last year, 12 years after taking that first philosophy class, I graduated with a PhD in Philosophy.  I am now actively working in the field.

My friends and I still talk about our experience with the Threshold of Democracy game. Besides being fun, incredibly engaging, and at times intense (not to worry – we all made up with our opponents when all was said and done), the experience gave us an opportunity to learn about both philosophy and history in a way that was contextualized and meaningful.  Our roles and objectives, and our obligations to our teammates, pushed us to understand and engage with the art of argumentation and debate. The experience brought us together as classmates and propelled many of us into future philosophy courses.

Dr. Curry retired just this past month, after a long and very successful career of teaching and mentorship. His family solicited essays, remarks, and other forms of creative media to reflect and honor the role that Dr. Curry played in the lives of his students, colleagues, and friends. My contribution was a reimagined version of the Reacting to the Past handbook, located in our undergraduate philosophy department instead of Athens, with our faculty and students making up the various roles. Under the instructions for my own role, wherein imaginary students could play as my undergraduate self, I wrote: “You’re here to study music, but something about fiercely arguing with your fellow students about sparing the life of Socrates really gets you going.”  Indeed, it did get me going.

I’m now at a point where I have the opportunity to consider how to teach my own philosophy courses. I think back to the 18-year-old version of myself, standing up at that podium, picturing that troublesome Socrates at my side. What about roleplay?, I ask, as I scroll through the Reacting to the Past website…