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The Use and Abuse of Socrates in Present Day Teaching
Abstract The Greek philosopher Socrates is used as an example of a master teacher in in many contexts, from elementary school discussions, to college philosophy classes, to law school. I examine a number of current uses of Socratic teaching, and expose inconsistencies among them. I analyze critically recent practitioners of Socratic teaching, such as Mortimer Adler, and I consider how the celebrated primary teacher Vivian Gussin Paley enacts the Socratic legacy in a novel way. I argue that the misuse, or abuse, of the Socratic legacy occurs chiefly when his teaching is interpreted narrowly as a pedagogical technique devoid of context and irony. Anthony G. Rud Jr.
Purdue University
Introduction
The title of my paper is a deliberate play upon Friedrich Nietzsche's well-known essay, The Use and Abuse of History (1874, 1979). In that work, Nietzsche turned his eye upon his culture to decry what he termed its "malignant historical fever" (p. 4). He believed that a mere studying of the past, particularly by self-absorbed scholars, was not a vital use of historical tradition. Rather, knowledge of the past must instead serve both the present and future (p. 22), and not become merely an abstract item devoid of the context that initially gave it life (pp. 11-12). Today, such a figure from the past serves as an important model and inspiration for much current pedagogy. The Greek philosopher Socrates is used as an example of the master teacher in many contexts, from philosophy classes to law school. There is effort underway to incorporate "Socratic" dialogue into many programs at the precollegiate level (Lipman et. al., 1980; Obermiller, 1989). On the surface, then, it would seem that this particular bit of history, brought to life for us through Plato, Xenophon, and Aristophanes, is also alive in teaching and learning, beyond the careful scholarship of the university classicist or philosopher. This diversity in the use of the legacy of Socrates in current pedagogy does signify a vital tradition. Many of the uses of this legacy are admirable. Yet, understandings of a "Socratic method" differ widely. There is, for example, disagreement over whether Socrates offered a pedagogical method as that term is understood today. I propose to examine a number of uses of Socratic pedagogy in different contexts in order to show inconsistency among them, particularly in reference to the Platonic Socrates. I build upon other recent work (Haroutunian-Gordon, 1991; Burbules, 1993; Pekarsky, 1994) that explore the Socratic legacy for education, while offering insights into additional recent Socratic practitioners (Paley, 1986, 1990; Adler, 1982, 1990; Weiss, 1987). I conclude that there is widespread use of the term "Socratic" in descriptions of certain types of teaching. Yet, when Socratic teaching is taken to mean everything from dialectical examination of philosophical issues of justice, the good, and the like, (Gray, 1988) to the use of questions by a teacher, independent of the subject matter (Kay and Young, 1986), there needs to be a clearer understanding of the uses of the Socratic legacy for teaching. Background: Some Recent Commentators on Socrates
Several current critical views of Socrates should be taken into account if we are to fully understand and be able to appraise critically that legacy. Moreover, such criticism is a key element in a determination of the uses of Socrates for present day teaching, as I shall argue at the end of this paper. Recent commentators on both the historical and Platonic Socrates, among them Bruce Kimball (1986), I. F. Stone (1988), and Friedrich Nietzsche (1872, 1956), have been critical of Socrates and his legacy. Stone sees a Socrates as the enemy of the nascent Greek democracy, Nietzsche portrays a degenerate destroyer of the heroic legacy of the tragic age of Greece, and Kimball rues the emphasis of Socratic rationality over Ciceronian oratory in liberal education. Nietzsche, though of at least two minds about Socrates (Dannhauser, 1974, especially pp. 269f.), began his career with a full-force attack upon the Greek. In The Birth of Tragedy (1872, 1956), he laments the emergence of the Socratic spirit of exhaustive analysis that put an end to the Apollinian-Dionysian mix that spawned early Greek tragedy. Nietzsche notes that Socrates was incapable of appreciating the earlier tragedians, like Aeschylus, and only attended the plays of Euripides (whom Nietzsche sneeringly calls the first rational tragedian (pp. 81-83). Socrates’s insistence upon painstaking analysis signaled for Nietzsche not only the end of the vitality of Greek culture, but also the beginning of an age of men with diminished spirits dependent upon rational analysis rather than creative myth. An even more blistering attack, though from a different angle, comes from the late journalist I. F. Stone (1988). Stone sees Socrates as democracy's enemy, one who believed that the herd of men needed to be firmly ruled (p. 38). This political view, coupled with the belief that knowledge is absolute and unattainable, and that virtue and knowledge could not be taught (pp. 63f.), makes it difficult for Stone to see how Socrates could be defended as a teacher or even citizen of Athens. Stone's book made a splash in the trade press because he attempted to defend Athenian democracy against Socrates. A more measured critique of Socrates's influence can be found in Bruce Kimball's widely discussed book, Orators and Philosophers (1986). Kimball points out that the philosophical tradition of Socrates has won out in contemporary liberal education over the oratorical tradition of Cicero. Kimball sees a tension between the pursuit of knowledge on the one hand, and the recognition and maintenance of the importance of historical traditions within learning communities on the other hand. Kimball's discussion has crucial educational import. It challenges us to find ways to keep alive the Socratic spirit, however corrosive or parasitic of myth and culture, while also maintaining an appreciation and a cultivation of tradition and custom advocated in the Ciceronian oratorical view. This challenge was of course Nietzsche's own too, made clear in The Use and Abuse of History. We shall keep this theme from Kimball and Nietzsche in mind as we examine contemporary Socratic pedagogy. Such views were not voiced specifically apropos of educational practice; yet they are key to understanding Socratic pedagogy today. This import is evident in a heated published exchange between Richard Paul and Louis Goldman concerning the role of Socratic inquiry in the schools (Goldman,1984; Paul,1984). Goldman believes that Socratic questioning can be dangerous if begun too early: "A proper education of the young must begin with a firm grounding in the nature and values of our culture" (Goldman, 1984, p. 60; see also Nietzsche 1872, 1956; Beatty, 1984; Kimball, 1986). He notes that Plato advocated dialectics only after a long preparatory education. Socratic questioning can become dynamite in the wrong hands, and we only approximate his practice (p. 62). Goldman recommends that we attend to traditional (Ciceronian, in Kimball's term) education for the young, and not encourage too early an introduction to dialectics. Richard Paul, perhaps the most well known advocate of critical thinking in the schools, disagrees with Goldman. He believes that we must foster the habit of thinking critically at the same time and in tandem with an appreciation of culture. He takes up the challenge offered by Kimball and others. To borrow Kimball's terms, Paul believes that a synthesis of Socratic inquiry and Ciceronian traditionalism should be fostered. Paul goes further by making a claim common to theorists interested in philosophy for the young (Matthews, 1980; Lipman, Sharp, & Oscanyan, 1980). Thinking philosophically occurs naturally in children. Infectious curiosity manifested in childlike wonder and the persistent questioning that attends such wonder should be harnessed by a sensitive teacher to further the appreciation of cultural traditions and other educational aims.
Socrates as Teacher: A Reexamination
Prominent philosophers of education extend these perspectives, from Nietzsche to current debates in the area of critical thinking. Perhaps the most sustained attempt to grapple with the legacy of Socrates for pedagogy has been made by Sophie Haroutunian-Gordon and her colleagues (Hansen 1988; Haroutunian-Gordon 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991; Haroutunian and Jackson 1986). Through a close reading of several of the Socratic dialogues, particularly the Gorgias, Meno, Philebus, Phaedo, and Protagoras, Haroutunian-Gordon challenges the notion of a "Socratic method." For instance, she points out Socratic inconsistencies that call into question use of the term. She makes a further claim that the reason Socrates does not follow a prescribed formal method is that he is in what educational researchers now call an "ill-structured teaching situation." Following a predetermined dialectical blueprint will not suffice for the way that a discussion may have gone "awry" (Haroutunian-Gordon, 1988, p. 231). In such situations, the questions one asks depend on the content of the conversation, and how nuance and shadings of meaning issue forth their own structure. Certainly many post-Wittgensteinian philosophers, as diverse as Grice and Gadamer, have explored this phenomenon long known to writers of imaginative literature. For our purposes, so too have experienced teachers known how to work their way out of ill-structured situations to effect learning for diverse students. Elsewhere, by way of showing again the inadequacy of a formal description of Socrates’s teaching, Haroutunian-Gordon attempts to "identify pedagogical aims" (1987, pp. 119f.) by giving four suggestions about what these might be: 1) bring interlocutors to aporia; 2) pursue truth about fundamental questions; 3) teach proper intellectual habits; 4) modify the moral principles of the interlocutors. Though Socrates may advocate the philosophical life via these aims according to Haroutunian-Gordon, he does not demand that others follow this life, nor are these purported aims necessarily relevant to the "task of explaining why he did what he did in the dialogues" (1987, p. 129). Haroutunian-Gordon's arguments are important, for they powerfully undermine an easy mimicry of the use of Plato's Socrates in one's pedagogy. Socratic Pedagogy in the Meno
The Socratic legacy offered up by Haroutunian-Gordon and her colleagues, along with the views discussed by recent commentators, make it difficult to see how Socrates has become such a pervasive pedagogical model. He says repeatedly that he is not a teacher, and then seems almost intent on proving that claim by irony, inconsistent action, and an occasional long-winded speech, as at the end of the Gorgias. Yet, perhaps we can turn to one place where many have looked when they speak of Socratic teaching, Plato’s dialogue Meno. An old man drawing geometric figures in the sand for a young slave boy is a powerful image of what many believe Socratic teaching to be. Nevertheless, we must be careful with this seemingly transparent instance of pedagogy. Though an important theme of the dialogue comes when Socrates extracts the distinction between knowledge and true opinion through coaxing and vivid imagery, his supposed drawing out of the recollected geometric wisdom from the slave boy is troublesome as a display of pedagogy. Socrates begins his lesson by putting words in the mouth of the slave boy (82B f.). Is this a convincing display of pedagogy? Leaving aside the blatant (to my eyes at least) problems of power and dominance of an elderly Greek citizen teaching a slave boy, this example of teaching has always left me cold. It is not apparent at all that teaching has occurred though it is a convincing display of inference as R. E. Allen (1959) has pointed out. It is not made clear in the dialogue that the slave boy is somehow capable of using his knowledge. He appears more like a sounding board for Socrates, who here seems to be just a mouthpiece for the theories of recollection (anamnesis) and innate knowledge. I grant that a more generous reading of the Meno that sets aside this power differential is possible (Macmillan and Garrison, 1988; Burbules, 1993, pp. 120-122). Here Socrates is actually teaching when he asks his leading questions of the slave boy, because these questions are disguised answers to the questions that the boy should be asking. These questions are "stepwise" (Burbules, 1993, p. 122) in an instructional kind of dialogue where the end is known by the teacher, and implicitly known by the slave boy (Macmillan and Garrison, 1988, p. 154).
Contemporary Inspiration: Capturing, and Missing, the Socratic Spirit
Though the Meno may be troublesome to some as pedagogy, it has provided inspiration to classroom teachers. The famous passage (80A-B) where Meno chides Socrates for being like the electric ray (or torpedo) for delivering perplexing questions has provided Donald Thomas (1985) with a way to teach so that students will go out on their own and dig under the surface. In a brief and thoughtful essay, Thomas describes an episode in his early secondary school teaching career when he dramatically presented a sermon by the Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards for his students. He wanted to stun his students into a perplexity that might be uncomfortable, much as Socrates makes Meno uncomfortable with his persistent questions. Thomas wanted them to see Edwards come alive so that these contemporary students would not forget the Puritan's images. The "torpedo's touch" was there, much to the chagrin of a team of behaviorally oriented evaluators in the back of the room. Many years after this incident, Thomas still uses the "torpedo's touch" in his pedagogical array. Like Socrates, he often begins with pleasantries and surface talk, waiting for the right moment to deliver the stark and perplexing questions that may provoke wonder coupled with a realization of ignorance in his students (p. 222). Yet, Thomas's essay is too brief for him to give us examples of his questions, and to recreate a number of different pedagogical scenarios. Furthermore, we would want to know just how his questions were akin to those of Socrates beyond being perplexing and intellectually numbing. While Thomas has taken inspiration from Socrates in his classroom practice, others attempt to devise Socratic teaching strategies devoid of such spirit. Some of the most flagrant "abuses" associated with using Socrates as a pedagogic model come when superficial aspects of the Platonic Socrates are used uncritically as pedagogic strategies. Fishman (1985) notes several of these "misconceptions." The Socratic method is often seen and used today as an open-ended question and answer process (p. 185). Kay and Young (1986) equate Socratic teaching with asking more questions in the classroom and with the encouragement of students to become independent and autonomous thinkers. They compare Socratic questioning with a teaching strategy called "ReQuest," developed by the educationist Anthony Manzo. No mention of content or aim of the questions is given by Kay and Young; apparently to them it seems sufficient that the teacher is a full-time questioner in order to be dubbed Socratic. Beyond Inspiration: Current Socratic Teaching
In what follows, I explore a number of examples of Socratic teaching strategies that have gone beyond either drawing inspiration from the dialogues or missing that inspiration. A weakness in Thomas's approach is that a pedagogical strategy, rich with examples, is not spelled out in his brief essay. On the other hand, if an understanding of the Socratic mission is absent, we may be led to the lifting and distorting of formal qualities of Socratic practice in our teaching, as with Kay and Young (1986). The teaching of Vivian Gussin Paley and another Chicago based Socratic practitioner, Mortimer Adler, provide our next examples as we enrich our horizon concerning Socratic pedagogy. Vivian Paley, recently retired from years of teaching kindergarten, tells us of numbness of a different kind from that of Thomas's "torpedo's touch." She describes candidly her lack of interest and enjoyment in her early years of teaching (1986). She happened to observe a colleague using the "old Socratic method" (p. 123) she too had once used as a Great Books discussion leader. Then she began to realize how excited she was about the process of thinking going on in the minds of her students. She now affirms the place of this process over any other outcome, or product, in her teaching (1990). Children are not interested in answers, she claims, but are fascinated by process (1990; see also Matthews, 1980) and entranced by meaning making and the play of language. The impetus for renewed interest and curiosity about her own teaching came from the hard realization that she did not know the answers to the questions that her young charges were posing. Paley was thus forced to keep asking relevant questions, based not on her own preconceptions, but rather on how the child was thinking about a topic (1986, p. 124). The classroom drama, in which her students enacted imaginative stories of their own construction, became for her "a paper chain of magical imaginings mixed with some solid facts" (1986, p. 123). This paper chain offered Paley abundant opportunities for her version of Socratic probing. Yet Paley the teacher goes beyond Socratic questioning in the classroom. She turns the questioning reflexively upon herself and her own thinking with a "specific tool" (1990) she has used for years, the tape recorder. Paley tapes daily ninety minutes of her students' stories and the accompanying dialogue. The tape recorder, with its "unrelenting fidelity" (1986, p. 123) trained her to listen precisely to what the children say. In transcribing the taped dialogue, large chunks of which appear in her books, Paley has the opportunity to review all that went on in the classroom. Using what she calls an "internalized Socratic method" (Obermiller, 1986, p. 19), she takes herself to task in preparation for her writing, asking herself questions like "why did I ignore that question?" or "is that something I could have taken up with him?" (1990). For Paley, this activity is part of the "intellectual game of teaching" (1990). Interacting with preschoolers as they play with blocks is not merely play, but also the process of thinking and intellectual inquiry. Her exhausting teaching, taping, and transcribing regimen is an important living manifestation of the Socratic notion of the worth of the examined life. This element of reflexive inquiry aimed at self-knowledge, difficult to achieve, is absent from such purported Socratic teaching advocated by practitioners like Kay and Young. Paley's methods have attracted attention and acclaim. Yet Mortimer Adler and his supporters espouse an even more widespread version of Socratic teaching. Adler's Paideia Proposal (1982) is one of the key documents of the recent school reform movement. In this brief work he advocates three interrelated ways of learning (p. 23) that should be followed by all students regardless of age or ability: 1) the acquisition of knowledge by lectures, memorization, and other means; 2) the development of intellectual skills, through coaching; 3) the enlargement of understanding through Socratic discussion of ideas and texts. However, the overwhelming majority of the focus given in the implementation of the Paideia Proposal, has been on the third type of learning, the Socratic seminar (Gray, 1988, Sizer, 1984, Chapter 5). Let us turn to a discussion of Adler's version of Socratic pedagogy. Adler's description of seminar pedagogy is deceptively simple: A "discussion in which students both ask and answer questions" (1982, p. 53). One of his close associates, Patricia Weiss, defines a seminar as: "(an) educationally oriented discussion in which ideas, issues, or principles are examined...The main teaching method used in seminars is one of questioning and examining responses. This style of teaching is often referred to as Socratic teaching, named after Socrates who used questions in his teaching of the youth of Athens in 400 BC" (1987, p. 1; emphasis added). Weiss then describes the three tasks of the seminar leader proposed by Adler: " 1) to ask a series of questions, 2) to examine the answers by trying to draw out the reasons for them, or their implications, 3) to engage the participants in a two-way talk with one another when views appear to be in conflict" (p. 1). I can recognize Socrates in 1 and 2, though I cannot recall anywhere in the dialogues where Socrates encourages his interlocutors to debate each other. Rather, with few exceptions (Callicles comes to mind), these interlocutors are more likely to give monosyllabic replies to Socrates's withering questions, prompting more than one reader to wonder just how dialogic these accounts were intended to be. One the other hand, though this Adlerian technique may not be true to the Platonic Socrates, might it be seen as a commendable development of Socratic practice? After all it does seem odd (unless you consider Plato's own agenda for his created characters) that these interlocutors, many of whom are absurdly laconic, rarely argue amongst themselves (the Gorgias being a striking exception). Sadly, though, at least in my repeated observation of seminars led by Adler himself and some of his associates, this third task of a seminar leader is as rarely practiced today as it might have been in ancient Athens. Let us now turn to a closer examination of how Weiss practices Socratic teaching. In her manual that accompanies the videotapes of Adler leading seminars for high school students (1987), Weiss provides a detailed discussion of how to structure a seminar. She suggests that the teacher first set an atmosphere that will allow students to feel at ease in asking questions. This may include putting to one side any expertises students may bring to the text at hand (Gray, 1988) so that general discussion among (near) equals may be established. Weiss begins her classes with a variety of nonthreatening questioning techniques (e.g., round robin, voting, random call on whether students like or dislike Socrates are typical in her teaching of the Apology) to get discussion going. Once discussion is underway, Weiss may move to ask whether Socrates is a teacher, opinions on the charges made against him in the Apology, or whether he is guilty or innocent. Like Haroutunian-Gordon (1988), Weiss acknowledges the "ill-structured teaching situation" through this emphasis upon making teachers aware of the importance of being prepared to ask unscripted follow-up questions (Weiss, 1987, p. 2). These practices are all commendable, but they rest upon a crucial assumption, made clear by another Paideia advocate, Dennis Gray. Even as Gray asserts that Socrates had no syllabus, he declares that the purpose of Socratic teaching is to focus always on texts, with even the opening question based upon a close study of the text at hand (1988). The changes we moderns have made in the name of Socrates could not be clearer. Socrates, of course, did not use a common reading around a seminar table. Furthermore, this assertion by Gray makes apparent another related assumption of the Paideia method, namely that great works will contain great ideas.
The Dark Side of the Socratic Legend
The image of Socratic teaching presented above has been mixed. Socrates can be difficult and disarming. Yet we educators are often intent upon seeing Socrates in the warm glow of history as the one who began humanistic inquiry. In this section, I shall return to an unromantic view of Socrates that I have so far only presented through other writers such as Stone and Nietzsche. I shall suggest the importance, though with qualifications, of the dark side of the Socratic spirit by turning to some first-hand accounts of legal pedagogy, and the use of the "Socratic method" in law schools. In spite of Adler's inroads into the nation's schools, the popular image of Socratic teaching often comes from the so-called "Socratic method" used in law schools. I gleaned insight from colleagues from graduate school who hold the doctoral degree in philosophy and have also studied law. Many of us have never entered a law class, but we feel that we know what goes on there. We have seen John Houseman's portrayal of Professor Kingsfield in the film and television show, "The Paper Chase." Houseman's depiction of an unforgiving taskmaster asking his often-timid students withering questions is the beginning and the end of legal pedagogy for most of us, and for our perceptions on how Socrates is used in legal teaching. In consulting two colleagues who have experienced legal pedagogy, I was able to deepen my understanding of Socratic legal teaching beyond this popular image. Peter Suber, professor of philosophy at Earlham College, holds both the PhD and JD degrees from Northwestern University. His description of a law class is truly harrowing: "Incorrect answers, undue delays in answering, or overt signs of nervousness are punished with sardonic jibes or withering glances. The atmosphere is humiliation; the punishment is humiliation...The consensus among students is that the method is not 'educational' in any traditional sense. It does not help one learn cases or legal reasoning. It is sadistic" (1990). Suber sees ample evidence in the dialogues to think that Socrates behaved similarly. Furthermore, Suber believes that the so-called legal Socratic method is used in different ways in law schools of different levels of prestige (1990). In the most prestigious category, students behave in the "Paper Chase" fashion, reciting the facts and attendant arguments while standing and attempting to answer the professor's questions. On the other hand, Suber notes what he calls second echelon schools and below may be places where the method is more humane. Here there may be more emphasis upon reasoning and thinking rather than performance. Unlike the first instance cited, this gentler use of the method may in fact emphasize "respond(ing) to well-crafted counterfactuals again and again" (1990) in an atmosphere of support and trust. Another former colleague, Mark Olson, also holds the doctoral degree in philosophy from Northwestern University and a law degree from the University of California at Berkeley. Olson, now a practicing attorney, takes a different tack in discussing his experience. He begins by offering a definition of what he carefully calls the "legal Socratic method: "(It) employs the use of actual recorded court cases to teach students the rules of law and their application and justification (whether clear or not, whether persuasive or not), through the instructor's use of a series of hypotheticals based on the main case and through the students' discussion of the case and the hypotheticals. Its successful use and reception calls for skill and wit" (1990). Olson reminds us of other factors that I agree are crucial to the understanding of the legacy of Socrates for pedagogy. The Socratic method evolved in law training as a "historical formation, which, in its present form presupposed the existence of a legal casebook" (1990). Above all for Olson, the method is not a technique; when it is so practiced it is characteristic of inept instructors. In those classes students are not probed, but are allowed to give "unreflective (knee-jerk) responses to complex social issues" (1990). One of my deep seated and cherished beliefs has again been questioned by this knowledge. I want to believe, along with Adler and other sanguine educators, that Socratic teaching is a means to search for truth. I still muse in uncritical moments about a Socrates, beneficent and maligned, leading the youth of Athens on the golden path of instruction. Even in graduate programs in philosophy one does not discuss often the darker side of this practice as argued by Stone and Nietzsche, and brought to the fore here in a different way by Suber and Olson. Stone's criticism of Socrates is too recent; besides, he built his reputation as the consummate outsider journalist who only taught himself Greek in his waning years. He did not belong to the anointed academic club of classical scholarship. Nietzsche, though a classical scholar, is often dismissed as a German at best and a raving crank at worst, particularly when it comes to his views on Socrates. Yet, this "darker" side of Socrates must be preserved, as I shall contend in the following section, if we are to truly "use" and not "abuse" Socrates in present day teaching. Suber's description of a harrowing law class may be an extreme version of such practice, though a recent feminist critique of legal education supports Suber’s claims. Guinier, Fine, and Balin (1997) go even further to call the legal Socratic method "ritualized combat" that is harmful and counterproductive to the education and well-being of women law students. Suber’s description of the "sadistic" querying that may go on in higher echelon law schools may be true to Socrates in one sense; he was relentless and oftentimes unpleasant. But we must ask to what end these displays are headed. In the following section, I shall seek to show that we must preserve the wily, irascible Socrates most of us have come to love (or hate) so that at the same time we preserve the core of his mission. Conclusion: Determining the Use and Abuse of Socrates
We have seen how Socrates is part of many classroom situations, from Paley's kindergarten on up to law school. Which of these are legitimate uses of Socrates and which are abusive? To determine such appraisals, I believe we must use several standards. Abuse of Socrates does not necessarily come, as might be first thought, when the Socratic "victim" is mischievously questioned and pierced with sardonic barbs. Abuse may come rather more from well-meaning educators who, perhaps in the joy of discovering a technique that is liberating and aims toward thinking, strip Socrates of his power. How could the Socratic legacy be so diminished? First, we may forget that Socrates at his best was attempting to uncover self-knowledge and encouraging others to do so too.. He followed his daemon and eschewed followers. As both Stone and Suber underscore, Socrates was devious and crafty. These factors must lie at the core of any interpretation of Socrates for present day teaching. If we apply (and I use this term deliberately) a Socratic method to any topic, this strategy does not necessarily guarantee that self-knowledge will occur. Self-knowledge is a difficult concept, as the irony used by a Socrates or a Soren Kierkegaard seems to suggest. Yet to forget the unsavory aspects of Socrates is to forsake the Socratic spirit, and thus to abuse the legacy of Socrates for education. A related abuse of Socrates in present day teaching comes when we believe uncritically that Socrates himself was a teacher. The word teacher makes most of us who are in the "education business" think of someone who may devise and implement a curricular rationale. If Socrates was indeed a teacher, then he must have had a specific pedagogy and a specific set of topics that can be learned by others, the reasoning goes. A central insight of Burbules’s recent book on dialogical teaching (1993) is in seeing clearly Socratic teaching as a multifarious repertoire. Burbules argues that Socratically inspired teachers play a dialogical "game" that, though guided by rules, is sensitive to context. Plato’s own writing of the dialogue is itself a Socratic teaching act. The writer is the teacher, and the reader, the student, both of the dialogue, and, reflexively, of him or herself. But this has not deterred other educators from advocating what they suppose are simple teachable strategies and curricular objectives derived from Plato's character. While I have observed Mortimer Adler using irony and even humiliation in a manner akin to Socrates, it is not clear that those trained by him have the confidence or the temperament to use these ploys. I have watched well-intentioned teachers trained under Adler leading supposedly "Socratic" discussions without suggesting even a hint of irony or challenge, something Adler himself criticizes as "watered-down" seminars (Adler, 1990). Perhaps a good number of teachers find themselves incapable of being "mischievous, disingenuous, and cunning, and occasionally even devious" (Suber, 1990) in the way that Plato's Socrates was. Conflicts between Socratic teaching and other aims of education are also apparent and disturbing. Educators are urged to be supportive, to nurture their students, many of whom are currently "at-risk." Teachers must often serve as surrogate parents to students from dysfunctional families. I have taught Plato’s Socrates to a number of graduate students in special education. They have all told me that using Socratic dialogue moves in their teaching would be highly problematic if not impossible. It is thus difficult and perhaps even at cross-purposes to use such a pedagogical method and encourage the cultivation of self-knowledge with these students. Here is where the sensitivity, knowledge, and skill of a teacher, well-versed in a Socratically inspired repertoire of pedagogical strategies and moves in the dialogue game (Burbules, 1993), comes into play. In addition, such a teacher must have a sympathetic understanding of each student and the nuances of that particular classroom climate. Otherwise such abuses already discussed such as either a stripping of Socratic teaching to just a questioning exercise, on the one hand, or the "ritualized combat" experienced by many women in law classes, could occur. My argument points to the need to recognize an enduring core of the Socratic legacy for teaching. Haroutunian-Gordon and others have given enough textual evidence in order for us to be suspicious of thinking that Socrates was a teacher in any conventional or current sense of that term. Other commentators as diverse as Nietzsche, I.F. Stone, Bruce Kimball, and Louis Goldman have called attention to the corrosive and even dangerous qualities of Socratic inquiry. Yet why does Socrates continue to leave the torpedo's deep marks upon most anyone who reads the dialogues, and on those of us who are inspired to model his actions in our own teaching? The Socrates of Plato's dialogues continually cuts past areas of knowledge apprehended by either episteme or phronesis, theory or practice. Socrates can make us feel that the failure to sustain a thesis or find a definition is not just a defeat of intelligence, but rather a moral disaster (Vlastos, 1971, 1980, p. 6). Socrates may not have given us a simple "method" that we can apply to any topic, and it may be difficult to teach Socratically in today's "antidialogical" schools (Burbules, 1993). Yet the larger issues raised in the dialogues must not be ignored. If anything, Socratic irony confounds many of the simplistic interpretations of the Socratic legacy for teachiing. The care of the soul, the project of moral inquiry, and a searching that cuts across social class should be the first and foremost use, and ultimate worth, of Socrates for present-day teaching (Vlastos 1971, 1980; see also Gadamer, 1986; Seeskin, 1987; Johnson, 1989). Note: This paper is based on a presentation at AERA. I wish to thank Jim Garrison, Sophie Haroutunian-Gordon, Michael Jones, and Ralph Page for comments upon several subsequent drafts prior to submission, and Gene Glass and four anonymous reviewers for this journal for their comments subsequent to submission.
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About the Author
Anthony G. Rud Jr.
rud@purdue.eduAssociate Dean
School of Education, 1440 LAEB
Purdue University
West Lafayette, Indiana 47907-1440 USAemail: rud@purdue.edu
Phone: 317-494-6542
Fax: 317-494-5832Home page: http://www.soe.purdue.edu/faculty/rud.html
Anthony Gordon Rud Jr. is associate dean, and associate professor of educational studies, in the School of Education at Purdue University. He received his A.B. with honors from Dartmouth College, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in philosophy from Northwestern University. Rud is a founding member and former officer of the Association for Philosophy of Education, a former member of the Committee on International Relations of the American Educational Research Association and the Committee on Pre-College Instruction of the American Philosophical Association, and a senior associate of the Council for Basic Education. He has served as a consultant for school systems on leadership issues, critical thinking, moral education, and school reform, and for organizations as diverse as the National Paideia Center at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Center for the Advancement of Ethics and Character at Boston University, and the Department of Special Education at the University of South Florida. Rud came to Purdue from The North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching, where he served as Senior Fellow. He also has worked at Dartmouth College as an administrator, adjunct faculty member, and freshman advisor, and taught high school humanities and social studies. Rud's research interests center upon the intersection of the foundations of education and educational practice, with particular emphasis upon the preparation and professional development of teachers and educational leaders. Rud is senior editor and contributor to A Place for Teacher Renewal: Challenging the Intellect, Creating Educational Reform, published by Teachers College Press. The author of a number of articles and reviews, he regularly makes presentations at major professional conferences. Rud serves on the editorial boards of several academic and professional journals, and is the chair of the editorial board of Purdue University Press. He joins James W. Garrison as coeditor and contributor to a volume of essays entitled The Educational Conversation: Closing the Gap, published by the State University of New York Press in 1995. Rud lives in West Lafayette, Indiana with his wife Rita and daughter Rachel.
Copyright 1997 by the Education Policy Analysis Archives
The World Wide Web address for the Education Policy Analysis Archives is http://olam.ed.asu.edu/epaa
General questions about appropriateness of topics or particular articles may be addressed to the Editor, Gene V Glass, glass@asu.edu or reach him at College of Education, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-2411. (602-965-2692). The Book Review Editor is Walter E. Shepherd: shepherd@asu.edu . The Commentary Editor is Casey D. Cobb: casey@olam.ed.asu.edu .
EPAA Editorial Board
Michael W. Apple
University of WisconsinGreg Camilli
Rutgers UniversityJohn Covaleskie
Northern Michigan UniversityAndrew Coulson
a_coulson@msn.comAlan Davis
University of Colorado, DenverSherman Dorn
University of South FloridaMark E. Fetler
California Commission on Teacher CredentialingRichard Garlikov
hmwkhelp@scott.netThomas F. Green
Syracuse UniversityAlison I. Griffith
York UniversityArlen Gullickson
Western Michigan UniversityErnest R. House
University of ColoradoAimee Howley
Marshall UniversityCraig B. Howley
Appalachia Educational LaboratoryWilliam Hunter
University of CalgaryRichard M. Jaeger
University of North Carolina--GreensboroDaniel Kallós
Umeå UniversityBenjamin Levin
University of ManitobaThomas Mauhs-Pugh
Rocky Mountain CollegeDewayne Matthews
Western Interstate Commission for Higher EducationWilliam McInerney
Purdue UniversityMary P. McKeown
Arizona Board of RegentsLes McLean
University of TorontoSusan Bobbitt Nolen
University of WashingtonAnne L. Pemberton
apembert@pen.k12.va.usHugh G. Petrie
SUNY BuffaloRichard C. Richardson
Arizona State UniversityAnthony G. Rud Jr.
Purdue UniversityDennis Sayers
University of California at DavisJay D. Scribner
University of Texas at AustinMichael Scriven
scriven@aol.comRobert E. Stake
University of Illinois--UCRobert Stonehill
U.S. Department of EducationRobert T. Stout
Arizona State University
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