Educational Method on Trial

Socrates v. Dewey

An excellent, in-depth essay by Thomas R. Orr, Esq., contrasting the Classical education method and the modern Lecture method. A short excerpt:

Just as our modern educators fail to appreciate the difference between memory and understanding, so do they fail to appreciate an important corollary distinction, i.e., the difference between opinion and knowledge. Knowledge requires an understanding based on an evaluation of reasons and evidence. Students can acquire knowledge with or without the aid of teachers-by thinking and making their own discoveries. As Saint Thomas Aquinas once explained: "There is a two-fold way of acquiring knowledge-by discovery and by being taught. . . . Discovery is higher." Genuine teachers act as cooperative artists to inspire students to think on their own either through coaching or the Socratic method. The only authority that a genuine teacher can appeal to is the rule of reason in light of existing evidence. The student is then expected to use his own reason to think through and understand-to know.

Read the rest of the article at the Angelicum website