- 2088
- - The goal of teaching must be to teach
students" how to learn".
Students need to cultivate the ability to ask questions. This is the cornerstone of critical thinking.
Adhere to the idea that our learning is
richer for our mistakes. Creativity and
brilliance may be released to some degree in all of us given the right
circumstances. We all need to learn how
to make the best of our brains. That is
the teacher’s challenge as well.
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-
-
----------------------------- 2088 -
Teaching the Socrates Way
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The goal of teaching must be to teach students" how to learn". Students need to cultivate the ability to ask
questions. This is the cornerstone of
critical thinking. It is the exercise needed
to learn how to use creativity.
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-
Teachers asking questions appears to be a transferable skill for
deepening collaborative inquiry.
Socrates, and the Socratic Method of Teaching, is to always answer a
question with another well thought out question. Causing the questioner to think through to
his or her own answers.
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-
Adhere to the idea that our learning is richer for our mistakes. Reframe the question and allow the students
to figure things out. Teach them how to
learn. My boss would say, "the
problem here is we are not making mistakes fast enough".
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Informal learning environments ( ex:
San Francisco Exploratorium ) tolerate “ failure” better than school
environments do. Many teachers have too
little time to allow students to form and pursue their own questions. Too much ground has to be covered in mandated
curriculum and standardized presentations and tests. But, the students need to acquire the skill
somewhere.
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Our democracy relies on an electorate of critical thinkers. Our society depends on people being able to
make critical decisions ….… their own
medical treatment, care of a parent,
global energy demands, what is the truth, filtering through the lies of
mainstream media and politicians and authority.
Our environment is flooded with data and starving for knowledge.
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Learning must not be seen as the ability to retain facts, or to apply
prior knowledge to a new situation.
Learning in schools must be preparation for future learning. It is a lifelong process. The kids need to learn how to learn.
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Of the myriad of courses I have had over nearly 20 years in school
curriculum my most important course was in “ Critical Thinking”. (Request this Review if interested in the course
summary).
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Every human brain is different.
Every human brain has capabilities that we cannot access easily. The left brain offers inhibitors to the right
brain to prevent stimulus from overloading its circuits. Savants are people who overcome these
inhibitors either by accident or by birth.
They learn to accomplish amazing mental feats. Learning can be a process to discover capabilities
that you did not know you had. (See Review
1575 to learn about savants and some of their amazing abilities)
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Genius within is withheld by inhibitors.
Creativity and brilliance may be released to some degree in all of us
given the right circumstances. We all
need to learn how to make the best of our brains. That is the teacher’s challenge as well. If
it were easy everybody would be doing it.
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Socrates was a great teacher. His
method of teaching was not to lecture, not to answer questions. But, more simply to return a more thoughtful
question for every question asked. This
would allow self-discovery in the pursuit of knowledge. Teaching "how to learn".
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To illustrate Socrates teachings.
Get a pencil and paper and follow along as Socrates teaches a slave some
geometry. He begins by drawing a large
square in the sand. He then extends 2
lines through the center to divide the larger square into 4 smaller squares. Now each square is 1 square foot and each
side is 2 feet.
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Socrates: What is the area of the
square? How many square feet are there?
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The slave easily sees that the larger square is 4 square feet, the sum
of the 4 smaller squares.
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Socrates: What would be the
length of one side needed to double the area of this square? Double the area is 8 square feet.
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The slave instinctively says that each side must be 4 feet long.
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Socrates: Instead of telling the
slave his answer is wrong. Socrates
simply takes his answer and draws a larger square 4 feet on a side. He then shows that inside the larger square
are 3 more squares like the previous one.
Again dividing each of the squares into smaller 1 foot squares the slave is quick to see that the area is 16
square feet, not the 8 square feet desired.
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The slave realizes that sides of 2 feet is too small and sides of 4 feet
is too large he says that the answer must be 3 feet sides.
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Socrates: Again Socrates takes his answer and draws another square 3
feet on a side. When divided up the
count is an area of 9 square feet. The area
is too large. How are we going to find
the length of the side that will be the correct answer of 8 square feet?
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The slave says “ I do not know”
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Socrates says this is important knowledge. Before you thought you knew but you were
mistaken. Now, you know you don’t
know. Now, your mind is open to inquiry
for new knowledge.
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To help the slave see the solution Socrates asks the slave to go back to
the original square that is 4 square feet.
Then to the larger square that is 16 square feet. How much bigger is the larger square than the
smaller square?
-
- 4
times bigger.
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Socrates: We want our answer to be 2 times bigger. Take the smaller square and draw a line from
corner across the center to the other corner.
You have divided that square in half.
Do the same to the other 3 squares.
Do the 4 equal lines you drew contain a square inside the larger square?
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Yes!
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What is the area of one triangle that you have created when you divided
the square in half?
-
- ½
for the 4 square feet is 2 square feet.
Each triangle is 2 square feet.
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Socrates: How many triangles are
there?
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- 4
triangles, each 2 square feet, the total area of the new square is 8 square
feet. That is the answer we wanted.
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The line stretching from corner to corner of the new square is the
proper length to have a square that is 8 square feet.-
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If the teacher were Pythagorean, instead of Socrates:
-
---------------------- 2 feet^2
+ 2 feet^2 + 2 feet^2 + 2 feet^2
= 8 feet^2
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---------------------- Square root of ( 2^2 + 2^2 ) * Square root of
( 2^2 + 2^2) = ?
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---------------------- Square root of ( 8 ) * Square root of (
8) =
8
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---------------------- ( 2.83 )
* (2.83) = 8
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Each side is 2.83 feet long and the hypotenuse of the right triangle is
equal to the square root of the sum of the squares of the other 2 sides.
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Teacher: What do you call a
person who keeps talking when people are no longer listening?
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- Noah: A teacher.
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Teacher: Noah, your composition
on “ My Dog” is exactly the same as your sisters. Did you copy Ava’s paper.
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Noah: No sir, it’s the same dog.
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Teacher, Nathan, name one important thing we have today that we did not
have 10 years ago?
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- Noah: Me
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Teacher: Why are you late?
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Noah: Class started before I got
here.
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Teacher: Why are you doing your
math multiplications on the floor?
-
- Noah:
You said to do it without using the tables.
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Maybe it “is” wrong, but you asked me how “ I “ spell it.
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When Jenn was in high school the combined ages of Jenn and Debbie was 44
years. Today Debbie is twice as old as
Jenn when Debbie was half as old as Jenn will be when Jenn is 3 times as old as
Debbie was when Debbie was 3 times as old as Jenn. How old
was Jenn and Debbie when Jenn was in high school?
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When Jenn was in high school the combined ages of Jenn and Debbie was 44
years
-
-(Request Review 1484 to get my answer.)
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---
Some reviews are at:
--------------
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------------------------- Tuesday, May 1, 2018
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