Please excuse this slight detour from our class material...

In one of my classes today I wished that the professor* leading our discussion was a student in our Philosophy of Teaching, Learning, and Knowing class. He said some things about Plato that I didn't agree with. (I.e. he told us that Plato believed art and poetry are merely copies of copies, and thus they are far removed from Truth.) He brought this up simply in comparison to our discussion topic, so I didn't want to correct him because it would slow down the class discussion, which would be disrespectful to my fellow students. I also thought that I should respect his position as teacher by acknowledging that he may have had some purpose for simplifying Plato that I do not comprehend. I think that excessive nit-picking is disrespectful anyway. What he said about Plato wasn't heinously wrong, though I think he over-simplified. Regardless, I felt that his comparison between Plato and our discussion topic was legitimate, for our purposes, so I kept mum on the subject.... until now.

Should teacher-student relationships include the possibility of remonstration? And if they should, how and when should it be done?


Walk in Beauty ~ Lisa


*Author's Note: I avoided mentioning the name of the professor, class, and subject matter on purpose.

"Handing a student who challenges your expertise with an insightful question"

I love the webcomic "xkcd". This one is especially pertinent to the pedagogical aims of our class. Look below or check out the original at the following url: http://www.xkcd.com/803/

I wish that Socrates would respond to his students' questions more often with the "right" response, but usually he settles for the "wrong" one. But on the other side of the desk, I wish that Adimantus and Glaucon would challenge Socrates more often. They often force him to elaborate on certain issues, which hopefully helps them learn better. But I don't think they exhibit much of the critical thinking skills that Socrates (may have) wanted them to develop. Do Socrates' goals of keeping his students out of politics and teaching them to think critically conflict with one another? And what, if anything, is Socrates learning from his students if they accept everything he says at face value? If he tailors everything in the conversation to fit his goal of keeping his students out of politics, then Socrates is interrupting the natural flow of conversation and philosophical thought process. And how does Socrates know that keeping his students out of politics is what's best for Athens anyway?