Good work!

Would like to commend all of you for reading through Gorgias and writing these comments. I don't think that it is easy and I am glad that all of you ploughed through it and made it. I hope that this is a good learning experience for you that really it doesn't matter whether you have studied literature or english, so long as you are willing to read, try to understand... you can pick up just about any text and get somewhere.

I think most of you have gotten somewhere. As before, I would like to encourage all of you to read and also comment on each other's postings as well. It helps in our learning process.

Okay, the Socratic Method....
Some of you hated it and some of you liked it...

To be honest, I also dislike Socrates way of leading his opponents by the nose until they ended contradicting themselves. And yes, I also do find it rather manipulative.... much as there is a part of me that really doesn't like debating and debaters.... (I like the winning part of it though)

However, it is important to understand the fundamentals of the Socratic method... I am glad that Inez has gone on to do some research. It is really about teaching by asking questions and having students answer those questions. The starting point of the Socratic method is really that the teacher is a guide, facilitator... asking the right questions to get the student to learn themselves. I am sure you hear about the Montessori method, and this is what underlies this as well (if we strip away all the hype behind it) is the belief that children can be and ought to be self-directed learners.

So the Socratic Method is really about learner-directed learning... with the learner charting out his own path of learning...

In some ways, this is what I am hoping to achieve when I get you guys to blog about what you have read. I hope to pick out the salient points that you have raised and try to teach based on the points that you have raised. Ultimately however, you will find that the most part of the learning experience is reading the books for yourselves, commenting on them and reading other people's comments.