50 Great Teachers: Socrates, The Ancient World's Teaching Superstar

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DAVID GREENE, HOST: Many of us have been lucky enough to have had teachers who influenced our lives, and it's with that in mind that today NPR's education team kicks off a year-long series called 50 Great Teachers. We start with a man who arguably helped define exactly what a great teacher is - Socrates.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BILL AND TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE")

ALEX WINTER: (As Bill S. Preston Esq.) Socrates. The only true wisdom consists in knowing that you know nothing.

KEANU REEVES: (As Ted Logan) That's us, dude.

WINTER: (As Bill S. Preston Esq.) Oh, yeah.

GREENE: OK, that clip from, "Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure" is a pretty good primer on the man who helped form Western philosophy. He's been dead for over 2,400 years, but today the Socratic method, his question-and-dialogue teaching style, still lives on in many, many classrooms. NPR's Eric Westervelt takes us in search of Socrates.

MARYANN WOLFE: What I wanted us to do is to sort of reflect back on what we were talking about yesterday.

ERIC WESTERVELT, BYLINE: I went to Oakland Technical Public High School to try to see whether the philosopher is alive and well in the 21st century. It's morning, and student Annelise Eeckman is sparring with teacher Maryann Wolfe about Social Security, the roller coaster nature of the U.S. stock market and what role the market should play in workers' retirement plans.

WOLFE: It's not influencing me?

ANNELISE EECKMAN: You're not retired currently.

WOLFE: But I have stock. You know what happened Thursday and Friday, right? Friday it started going back up again. Yesterday it went up a little bit more.

EECKMAN: And what if tomorrow it dips?

WOLFE: Well, yeah, but do you depend on one day?

WESTERVELT: In this 12th-grade advanced placement American government class, students are not just encouraged, they're expected to question the teacher and each other. That's at the heart of the Socratic method. It's comes down to us from the streets of Athens - dialogue-based critical inquiry. The goal is to focus on the text and ideas and facts, not just opinions, and to dig deeper through discussion.

WOLFE: I mean, what? I'm just trying to figure out what the Republicans must be thinking - what Pat Buchanan must be thinking.

EECKMAN: Well, if we look at the group of people that the Republicans tend to focus their opinions on, they're usually of the more wealthy classes.

WESTERVELT: On this morning, students are tackling the history of third parties in American politics. They're pouring over platforms by past candidates, including Ross Perot, Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan. Senior Jonah Oderberg confidently pushes back on the issue of school vouchers that teacher Wolfe is defending.

JONAH ODERBERG: Well, I think if you have that high-enough income to afford that private education, that should be coming out of your own pocket. There's already adequate public schools.

WOLFE: So you want me to pay double?

ODERBERG: No.

(LAUGHTER)

WOLFE: Sounds like it.

WESTERVELT: They discuss third parties smacking up against entrenched two-party money, power and the Electoral College's fuzzy math. This is good classroom jousting. OK, one student is falling asleep, but everyone else is awake and into it.

WOLFE: I think the Socratic method, it means that you're going to have a whole bunch of different ideas floating to the surface.

WESTERVELT: Maryann Wolfe launched Oakland's first advanced placement class and helped build this school's Socratic seminar program.

WOLFE: I want them to see the complexity of issues. I believe the students really learn that way. Because they have to speak, they have to be engaged.

WESTERVELT: For Wolfe, the Socratic method at its core means getting students to actually listen to each other and to differing opinions. It's been her main teaching tool during her nearly three decades in the classroom.

WOLFE: Maybe we won't find exact truths in this class, but we will at least look at all the possibilities. And they will have a truth right at that moment. And the moment comes when they have to stand up and debate it, when they have to write an essay about it. They have to take a side.

WESTERVELT: As part of the class, Wolfe requires students to get involved with a political campaign, issue or ballot measure. Senior Sierra Robbins is volunteering for a local effort to boost the minimum wage. The process, she says, has changed her views about the power of civic engagement and the role of government.

SIERRA ROBBINS: It just felt so distant and just too big to be really changed, and I talked to a lot of people. And it felt very different. Like you can really do something.

WESTERVELT: Socrates didn't write anything down, and many details of his life remain unknown. His ideas and life as a teacher and philosopher are mostly known through the writings of his best student, Plato, in his dialogues. But we do know Socrates, the man and myth, valued reasoned, logical, oral arguments that sought truth through probing discourse.

WOLFE: All right, so let's move on to the next topic here.

WESTERVELT: Today you can call Wolfe's Oakland classes Socratic. But maybe this is just what good teaching looks like - an engaged, passionate teacher facilitating a critical dialogue, acting as a kind of intellectual coach, not lecturing or teaching to a test. I asked 17-year-old Maddie Ahlers what she's gotten out of the program.

MADDIE AHLERS: I think that the Socratic method has to be part of good teaching because it's one thing to write an essay or be able to take a test, but you also, later in life, are going to have to be able to articulate your views and say verbally what you think about an issue or anything you believe. If school is really prepping you for the rest of your life, you're going to have to learn those valuable skills.

WESTERVELT: At Oakland Tech, Socrates lives on mainly in its AP classes and seminars, part of what's called the Paideia program. At some other schools, Socrates is literally everywhere.

TIM OGBURN: Now, remember in the inner circle, we don't need to raise hands. Let's just try to have a conversation with each other. Outer circle, for right now, I just want you guys listening.

WESTERVELT: At Black Pine Circle, a private school in Berkeley, Socrates's stenciled face peers out at students from the walls and hallways. Every class here - well, maybe except gym - is imbued with Socratic style, including regular Socratic seminars.

UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT: When you hear, like, people tell a story, it kind of gives you an idea of who they are like...

WESTERVELT: Seventh graders in Tim Ogburn's class are discussing a Japanese creation myth. One circle's tasked with talking, while another's supposed to just listen and think. Ogburn's trying to get students to look beyond the basics, that the myth was part of what a pre-scientific society used to explain the world.

OGBURN: So, inner circle, tell me how is this story about balance?

WESTERVELT: When done right, Ogburn says, he's facilitating a real dialogue. It's a method he hopes his students can use to approach lifelong learning, as well as life itself.

OGBURN: In our world, especially, everybody demands a debate; are you for this or are you against it? And the Socratic method forces us to take a step back from that and ask questions like, what's going on here? What does this possibly mean? What's important here? What's less important?

JOHN CARLSTROEM: What we're trying to teach kids is to ask the question, what makes you say that?

WESTERVELT: John Carlstroem is head of school at Black Pine Circle.

CARLSTROEM: And I think that the best scientists and mathematicians - that's the question they're asking in all of their work, is, what makes us say that? What gives us this idea?

WESTERVELT: Scholars today are still trying to parse what's truly Socratic from Plato's idealized accounts. Was the great teacher mainly a creation of his student? Maybe it doesn't matter. I asked John Carlstroem.

CARLSTROEM: Would we still do it if it was called Frodo's Practice? And my answer is, yes, because the proof is in the pudding. When we look at what happens in a Socratic classroom and how it works, it's amazing. And I think that the reason we call it Socratic practice is because, like a lot of things, we're working at it.

WESTERVELT: Working at it, practicing and refining the techniques of critical thinking all the time, a process, he says, that's never really finished. Eric Westervelt, NPR News, San Francisco.

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