‘Forgotten Lore’: Can the Socratic method of teaching be used to reduce the attainment gap of black, Asian and minority ethnic students?

Teaching standards within the UK’s higher education sector are under unprecedented scrutiny not only in terms of perceived ‘highly variable’ standards of teaching but also in relation to the clear attainment gap between black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) students and their white counterparts. Gentle taps at the door to the higher education sector, which have highlighted both the inequality of educational experience and the need for reform, have been largely ignored leading, ultimately, to the introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF). The authors suggest that in much the same way that Edger Allen Poe’s slumbering scholar revisits ‘forgotten lore’, so too the time has come for higher education institutions to fundamentally rethink the way in which curriculum delivery should take place for the benefit of all students. Consequently, the authors assert that the proper and effective implementation of the classical Socratic Method could provide a viable response to the TEF’s call of “Nevermore”.