What is Plan B? Not Plan A!
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Socrates (469-399 BC) - method man
Socrates was one of the few teachers who actually died for his
craft, executed by the Athenian authorities for supposedly corrupting the
young. Most learning professionals will have heard of the ‘Socratic method’ but
few will know that he never wrote a single word describing this method, fewer
still will know that the method is not what it is commonly represented to be.
How many have read the Socratic dialogues? How many know what he
meant by his method and how he practised his approach? Socrates, in fact, wrote
absolutely nothing. It was Plato and Xenophon who record his thoughts and
methods through the lens of their own beliefs. We must remember, therefore,
that Socrates is in fact a mouthpiece for the views of others. In fact the two
pictures painted of Socrates by these two commentators differ hugely. In the
Platonic Dialogues he is witty, playful and a great philosophical theorist, in
Xenophon he is a dull moraliser.
Socratic
method
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