Theory

My beliefs about learning and teaching, as any good product of the Great Books education might claim, stem from the Platonic dialogue Meno, in which Socrates explores the nature of acquiring any sort of knowledge when Meno first asks him whether or not virtue specifically can be taught. Though I cannot do the dialogue justice here, briefly put, Socrates claims (perhaps not quite literally but as an analogy or metaphor) that every individual possesses an immortal, omniscient soul that forgets all knowledge when birthed in flesh. It is therefore mankind's duty to both seek recollection of this knowledge and help diffuse such knowledge as is possible. Unfortunately, owing to human failing, the eternal truths which humanity must seek are often beyond comprehension, or worse, mistakenly understood and perceived, so that the student and teacher must not only seek and diffuse knowledge but also become trained in logic in order to differentiate false teachings from the true. Thus is born the need for and foundation of Socratic method and inquiry, presupposing that humanity's most noble purpose is to learn but that humanity requires a proper methodology for this pursuit, transmitted through the wise who merely help the student recollect of his own volition what his soul has forgotten. In sum, learning cannot take place without a willing student and a capable teacher. (We might do well today to focus on this simple fact rather than continuing to fetishize content knowledge and standardized testing.) I shall allow Socrates to speak for himself: "...you should always confidently try to seek out and recollect what you do not know at present... I do not insistr that my argument is right in all other respects, but... we will be better men... if we believe that one must search for the things one does not know, rather than if we believe that it is not possible to find out what we do not know..."+ +Plato, Meno 86b

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