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2161 - Great Teachers,
Socrates was a great teacher, his student was Plato (B:428 B.C.), his student was Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) and
his student was Alexander the Great. Socrates taught by always answering a question
with a question. He believed that active
participation required that the student figure out the answers for themselves. Aristotle was a teacher who listened eagerly
to others; he freely altered his views when presented with compelling evidence
that he was wrong. He often went back
and modified his own writings when he learned more.
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---------------------------------- 2161 - Great
Teachers, Socrates and Aristotle
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----------------------------------------- Aristotle 384 -322 B.C.
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-
- Socrates was
a great teacher, his student was Plato (B:428 B.C.), his student was Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) and
his student was Alexander the Great. Great
Teachers Beget Great Teachers.
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- Aristotle,
the teacher, founded his school in Athens, Greece, in 335 B.C. when he was 29
years old. His father died when he was
10 years old. He lost his mother too and
was raised by a family friend until he was 17.
Then he entered the academy founded by Plato and was there as a student
/ teacher for 20 years.
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- Aristotle was
known to have a mind of his own. He
never felt bound by his teacher’s teachings.
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought
without accepting it.” (It is a mark of
an educated teacher to teach students to think for themselves).
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- Aristotle
believed that reality was what you could observe and touch. He had a scientific mind. The topics in his school included physics,
astronomy, zoology, and psychology. And,
these fields of study did not exist before he originated them.
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- Aristotle
used inductive reasoning. He started by
developing underlying principles derived from observations. He insisted on defining each of his subjects,
first for similarities, then for differences.
He used logic to determine axioms and then axioms to derive
theorems. He would establish facts by
taking two known quantities to establish a third.
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- Fact: To be a
teacher you must have a student.
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- Fact: To be a student you must want to
learn. Therefore, teachers can only
teach people you want to learn.
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- These were
ancient times. Aristotle had to make his
observations fixing time without a clock, comparing degrees of heat without a
thermometer, observing the heavens without a telescope, and observing the
weather without a barometer.
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- Aristotle was
a teacher who listened eagerly to others; he freely altered his views when
presented with compelling evidence that he was wrong. He often went back and modified his own
writings when he learned more.
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- His school
was called the Peripatetic School because he held his lectures and discussions
while walking around in the school gardens. (peripatetic means “walk about”). Modern
teachers would do better teaching if they had their students stand and/or walk
and not simply sit at a desk.
-
- Socrates
taught by always answering a question with a question. He believed that active participation
required that the student figure out the answers for themselves.
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- Aristotle’s
writings became a “ university library”, over 150 volumes, and eventually they
served as the kernel for the great Library of Alexandria.
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- Every teacher
must have a student. Every student must
want to learn. Confucius say: “First you must become a student then a teacher
will come.” Great teachers beget great
teachers. You have not really mastered a
subject until you teach it to someone else.
(These old guys were pretty smart)
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- Socrates was renowned
as the world’s greatest teacher, but he
never wrote anything down. And, he
always answered a question with a question forcing the inquirer to think for
himself. Plato was his student and Aristotle
was Plato’s student. Aristotle’s student
was Alexander the Great.
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- Plato was
born in 428 B.C. in Athens, Greece. His
given name was Aristocles but his nickname was Plato, which means “broad”
presumably in reference to his build.
Athens was a democracy and free speech abounded. But, there is always some politics that intervenes.
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- Socrates
would wander the city and speak his philosophy to the common folks. He was trying to get people to examine their
own ideas more closely. He maintained
that an unexamined life is not worth living.
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- He was executed in the year 399 on charges of
irreverence to Greek gods and corrupting the city’s youth. Plato was in the audience when his teacher
defended himself against the charges.
The jury voted 280 to 220 for the death sentence. Plato wrote the “Apology” reflecting on the
death of his teacher.
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- Plato began
writing dialogues, conversations between two people debating philosophical
questions. Much of these come from
Socrates’ teachings. In 387 Plato
founded his school called the Academy.
It offered courses in astronomy, biology, rhetoric, mathematics,
philosophy, and political theory. Above
the door was written: “Let no one
ignorant of mathematics enter here.“
Aristotle was one of the students who entered.
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- Plato’s book
the “Republic” gets into the nature of justice.
A just man is one in whom every component of personality harmoniously
plays its proper role, while reason is paramount. Plato was working on defining a just society
when he died in 347 B.C.
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- Plato said:
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- He who thinks
nothing of bodily pleasures is almost as though he were dead.
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- That is true
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- What again
shall we say of the actual acquirement of knowledge?-- is the body, if invited
to share in the inquiry, a hinderer or a helper? I mean to say, have sight and hearing any
truth in them? Are they not, as the poets
are always telling us, inaccurate witnesses?
And yet, if even they are inaccurate and indistinct, what is to be said
of the other senses? For you will allow
that they are the best of them? (Don’t
believe everything you see or hear.)
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- Certainly, he
replied.
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- Then when
does the soul attain truth? -- for in attempting to consider anything in
company with the body she is obviously deceived. (Take care in examining your
own thoughts and the thoughts of others).
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- Yes, that is
true.
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- Then must not
existence be revealed to her in thought, if at all?
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- Yes.
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- And thought
is best when the mind is gathered into herself and none of these things trouble
her
neither sounds
nor sights nor pain nor any pleasure -- when she has as little as possible to
do with the body, and has not bodily sense or feeling , but is aspiring after
being? (Some of your best thinking occurs in your sleep. It is a good thing to sleep on your
thoughts.)
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- That is true.
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- And is this
the philosopher who dishonors the body, his soul runs away from the body and
desires to be alone and by herself.
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- That is true.
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- Well, but
there is another thing, Simmias: Is
there or is there not an absolute justice?
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- Assuredly
there is.
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- And an
absolute beauty and absolute good?
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- Of course.
- But did you
ever behold any of them with your eyes? (These things occur in the mind, they
cannot be written, read, taught, or experienced in a bodily sense. Material possessions, power, money, will not
bring them to you.)
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- Plato’s view of astronomy was that the
spheres of the planets made celestial music.
The idea that the heavens only contained perfect circles was considered
fact up until Kepler’s time, 2000 years later.
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- Plato
invented the fictitious land “ Atlantis” that adventurers are still searching
for to this day.
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- Aristotle
lectured to students while walking about in the garden. Recent studies have shown that overweight
American kids could benefit from this teaching technique. Aristotle’s collection of manuscripts became
the great Library of Alexandria. His
lectures collected into 150 volumes.
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- Great
teachers are not always right. Aristotle
believed the heart was the center of life and the brain merely a cooling organ
for the blood. Well, on second thought, maybe he was
right. He was the first to propose the
“aether” which astronomers are just now reconsidering in the “light” of Dark
Energy.
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- Aristotle was convinced that the Earth was
round because traveling north new stars appeared over the northern horizon, old
ones disappeared over the southern horizon.
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- See Review
1988 for more about Socrates.
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- November 10, 2018. 667 651
An Index of recent Reviews is available.
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