tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3258082.post2835207887761692268..comments2024-01-12T08:44:54.145+00:00Comments on While looking for something else...: On the Socratic methodUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3258082.post-25552397039535066922014-04-27T07:17:26.376+01:002014-04-27T07:17:26.376+01:00This is the danger of not reading primary sources....This is the danger of not reading primary sources. Amandanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3258082.post-37882775945307602092013-10-09T11:49:10.781+01:002013-10-09T11:49:10.781+01:00Very well done with the post. I am so glad that yo...Very well done with the post. I am so glad that you decided to share the same with your readers.Psychologist in Athertonhttp://www.wellness.com/find/psychologist/ca/alta%20lomanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3258082.post-58836107898305707562010-11-27T23:45:29.939+00:002010-11-27T23:45:29.939+00:00Good point James – I can hear the wounded sacred c...Good point James – I can hear the wounded sacred cow baying away in the background!<br /><br />However, I’m not so sure that I wholly agree about the method not working. But then perhaps we need first to agree on what the “method” actually is. If it were a case of “ask them the right questions so that they will find out for themselves” it seems to me to be a great way to teach, particularly circumstances that ask the student to make a leap of faith of some kind.<br /><br />No one likes being wrong, but it's bloody hard to be told you're wrong when you think you're right, especially by someone who makes you feel like a fool for being so misguided. And even if they don't intend to make you feel stupid it's remarkably easy to form such an impression because being wrong rarely feels like anything other than failure and the more you've invested in your error, the worse it feels. No wonder Socrates was so unpopular. <br /><br />For this reason, as a teacher, when it comes to difficult or unfamiliar ideas, it's often far better to find a way to intimate the truth so that people feel like they've discovered it on their own rather than foisting it upon them. Indeed, as a teacher, you might not even know the ‘truth’ yourself. You might only know the general direction where it might be sought, and you can use your intuition and experience to guide the discussion to a realisation for both the student and yourself. This is what I gather the “Socratic Method” has come to mean, but you’re absolutely right to point out that Socrates didn’t actually seem to be very good at it himself or even to use it for the same reasons as we might. But perhaps we need to separate the method from the man. The important thing to remember about Socrates is how extraordinarily much we’ve learned from him, even though he hasn’t taught us anything:<br /><br /> <i>“If Socrates thought we’d learned something he would still not have thought he’d taught us. […] …at the core of what we think education probably is - to discuss with people in this open minded, open ended way that allows them to reflect on what they think and us to reflect on what we think without telling, without dogma, without insistence and without imperative to ask people to think about what they really think. And what that asks them to do is, if you like, to be true to themselves, asks them to be sincere about their beliefs and asks them to be honest about how their beliefs fit together. It also asks for the interlocutor to have some respect for the person they’re talking to and I think, perhaps, that’s a lesson that we do rightly learn from Socrates.” </i>-MM McCabe ( http://tinyurl.com/36asm8m )Jim Hamlynhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16488331333061422244noreply@blogger.com