“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” Mike Tyson (and every Omnibus Teacher)

Omnibus, like life, can be frustrating. Sometimes, you create your lesson plan, you review your questions, and you see this beautiful, thoughtful, nay, riveting discussion in your imagination. The students will burst into sincere, enthusiastic applause at the end of the discussion. Many years from now, maybe at a wedding during a toast or at a church when one of your students is giving his testimony, no doubt, he will say, “Remember that discussion on Livy?” A hush will fall over those gathered, and you will see former students in the crowd nodding in agreement, “That discussion changed my life!” I hope all of your discussions- either in class for you Omnibus teachers, or around the dinner table for you parents of Omnibus students, follow this pattern and that you go from triumph to triumph, but that is not usually how life goes.

Some days, the students are in a bad mood; sometimes, you are. Sometimes, the class discussion you believe will draw them in begins, and you see more yawns than interest. What do you do when your discussion falls flat? What do you do when you, as Mike Tyson so eloquently said, “get punched in the mouth”? Here are a few do’s and don’t for those times when your discussion is nearer Hades than Elysium:

Technique 1: Keep Your Cool and Don’t Catechize

This is the worst mistake that I see teachers make. They hit choppy waters and either give up or, like the guy hit by Mike Tyson, they forget everything, tempted to give up. Know this: you are not negotiating with terrorists; you are training them. Now, all of your students are fallen, but some or at least one is not only fallen but, in addition, they have a tendency to be both sharp and sometimes lazy. If you cave in and end your discussion, you are training that sharp, lazy student in what to do next time they don’t want to do their reading.

The second problem in this section is almost as bad as the first. When you get hit, you forget everything and turn the discussion into a catechism class. I am not against catechisms, but a catechism is not a Socratic discussion. You ask yes or no questions, or you start doing all of the talking.

When the discussion is burning down around you, take a deep breath, remember who you are and what you are doing, and move on to technique 2.

Technique 2: Get Foundational

Every Omnibus discussion starts with the student. Our first job in a discussion is to stir up interest. That is why we have the section called A Question to Consider. Students might struggle with the question, “What are the Platonic forms?” But they have a much greater likelihood of answering, “What makes a dog a dog?” or “Are the words “dog” and “cat” just names that we stick onto things, or is there something that is actually fundamental to being a dog or a cat?” There is little that finite humans can know with certainty. Most of them know what they themselves think—even if they are wrong. Take time stirring up interest. Don’t rush. If you don’t do this, you might be unable to have a good discussion.

Technique 3: Move Around

There are times when students need to move around—especially right after lunch. If you can, use Technique 2 and then take the students to a place where you can look at something and think about that foundational question, take a few minutes to jot down their thoughts, and then jump back into sharing their reflections. Once, when considering the forms, I remember sending the students out into the courtyard. There are several trees in the courtyard. I asked them to take five minutes and look at a few trees. They were to catalog their thoughts on what makes a tree a tree.

The last two concepts come out of the concept of Pre-Discussion from David Hicks's wonderful book Norms and Nobility. This book was one of the main positive forces that pushed me to think carefully about capturing the students' attention before plowing forward into the text. I highly recommend any Omnibus teachers reading this pithy, brief book.

Sometimes, our best-laid plans fall apart. Measure yourself as a parent of an Omnibus student or Omnibus teacher not by whether you have discussions that fizzle but by what you do when they fizzle to get your students interested and reengaged in the discussion.