'The Ancient Greek Iconoclast’s Philosophy of Education\r'

'The basic philosophic foundation that supports the Socratic philosophy of education Socrates, in The Republic, begins his query by asking how is it silk hat to expect unrivalled”s life? He suggests the best life is lived in such a modality that is tributary to creating a just ordering. Such a society is the one designed that is most conducive to justice, and so to comfort, as opposed to pleasure. Remember that enjoyment for the Greeks was not a matter of individual self-fulfillment. Rather, Socrates considered happiness as fulfilling one”s most meet vocational role in society. Socrates arranged a society that is best in autocratic terms-a shoemaker should not rule, and a potential ruler or philosopher should not make shoes, because this is antithetical to their natural abilities and fitness.\r\n only if although Socrates advocatord oligarchy as the fittest system of governance, he did not advocate aristocracy. In one of his earlier dialogues, called the â⠂¬Å"Meno,” Socrates is shown leading a slave boy by mathematical proofs. With fabricate prompting the boy is indeed able to tame innate knowledge about the world. Thus Socrates maxim capable gifts as intrinsic to the human read/write head and not necessarily based on the cleverness of the tutor. This is why Socrates did not charge for his teaching methods, unlike the Sophists. (Kemerling, 2002,”Socrates,” The school of thought Pages)\r\nBut to accept the Socratic doctrine one must also believe that potential intellectual abilities are not democratically bestowed upon individuals as suggested by the Sophists, who aimed to teach all people to rhetorically divert the people in the constabulary courts and in the governmental sphere, by using clever phrases. Socrates believed that there was an subjective paradox in acquring knowledge â€Å"the most unplumbed questions about our own nature and government agency,” are very unaswerable and undemons tratable by cat valium rhetorical devices, therefore â€Å"it seems unachievable for us to learn anything. The only escape, Socrates proposed, is to acknowledge â€Å"that we already know what we need to know.” (Kemerling, 2002, â€Å"Plato: Immortality and the Forms-Doctrine of Recollection,” Philosophy Pages)\r\nHow does this philosophy define the roles of instructor?\r\nFrom the â€Å"Meno” cited above, it might seem that Socrates saw himself earlier as a questioner and a facilitator of the memorial innate gifts. â€Å"The dialogue form was probably invented by Plato” to portray the Socratic system, otherwise known as the dialectic.” (Huffman, 2005) The method known as the Socratic method of teaching, still practiced in many schools (particularly law schools) today, â€Å"consisted of asking questions like ‘What is courage?” of people who were footsure of the dish out. Socrates, claiming ignorance of the settlements to the questions, would gradually show the peoples beliefs to be contradictory. Socrates did not answer his questions, though much could be learned from the billet of the discussion.” (Huffman, 2005)\r\nHow will this philosophy guide the learning expectations in a classroom?\r\nUsing questions places the instructor in some authority, as the teacher directs the discussion through involved questioning. However, it also demands a great speak of preparedness and attentiveness on the part of the student, combine with a willingness to question what the student”s society may deem to be common sense. Students of innately high ability are supposed to continually excel, to justify the teacher”s expectations of the students gifts. Ultimately, this questioning of common sense doctrine resulted in the condemnation of Socrates for contaminating the youth of Athens and of questioning the piety of the Greek gods. (Huffman, 2005)\r\nHow will this philosophy exemplify the high standa rds of teaching?\r\nOn one hand, the Socratic dialectic may seem to be an equalizing form of philosophy. Anyone can answer the questions of the teacher. But because the method stresses student recollection, rather than the teacher”s ability to mold or gift knowledge upon a blank slate, it did not function as such in Socrates” actual practice. The Republic, the motion picture of the ideal state, advances a tiered parting of society, mimicking the division of the body into soul, eye, and lower regions-rulers are innately of the mind, warriors of the heart or hands, and laborers of the lower regions of the body. â€Å"Only those with a philosophical temperament, Plato supposed, are competent to judge between what exclusively seems to be the case and what really is, between the misleading, ephemeral appearances of sensible objects and the the permanent reality of unchanging, abstract forms.” (Kemerling, 2002, Philsophy Pages, â€Å"Plato: schooling and the Val ue of Justice”)\r\nHow will this philosophy channelise public expectations concerning student achievement? Accountability?\r\nIn the world of the Republic, students of high levels of ability do not necessarily have empowerment over their education. Although they are subjected to rigorous Socratic questioning, they are also unbroken away from members of other classes of society, and not permitted to be pervert by fairytales and myths that could take them away from their innate gifts of stringently understanding the nature of virtue and the world of the forms.\r\nâ€Å" possibly our best alternative, Socrates held, is to suppose that virtue is a (divinely bestowed?) admittedly opinion that merely happens to lack the sort of cerebral justification which would earn it the status of certain knowledge,” and therefore virtue is unteachable. (Kemerling, 2002, â€Å"Plato: Immortality and the Forms-Doctrine of Recollection,” Philosophy Pages) Student achievement thu s ultimately lies in the ability of the student, and the accountability of the teacher lies in his or her ability to select the specify student for the correct form of learning, rather than his or function as a teacher in the classroom.\r\n'