Socrates in the classroom develops students' thinking and changes the distribution of power

It seems as if this ritualized structure and the nurturing culture of the seminar provide a safe circle, helping the participants to try new, bold ideas that they might otherwise not have tested, Ann S Pihlgren says. By cooperating when examining the ideas they also seem to learn a way to address problems on their own without teacher intervention.

To work with methods connected to the ancient philosopher Socrates may seem out-of-date in a modern school, but that is absolutely not the case, Ann S Pihlgren states.

The Socratic seminars have been seen as a complement to traditional classroom teaching for hundreds of years. But it is not easy to learn how to stage them to get positive effects. It is especially hard for teachers, who often fall back to their traditional, controlling “teacher” roles. The dissertation offers excellent tools for teachers who want to develop students’ thinking and to foster cooperative group dialogue.

The name of the dissertation: Socrates in the Classroom. Rationales and Effects of Philosophizing with Children. The dissertation could be downloaded as pdf at http://www.diva-portal.org/su/theses/abstract.xsql?dbid=7392 .

Additional facts

Socrates (470-399 BC) Greek philosopher assumed in his dialogues that human reason has a right to impartially explore all subjects. He left no written work, we know him mostly through Plato’s (427-347 BC) dialogues. Plato was Socrates disciple and a prominent figure within the idealistic tradition of Western philosophy. Socrates worked through what he called maieutics, midwifery. Through elenchus (Greek for inquiring, refuting), exploring questioning the questioner will help the participants to give birth to their thoughts. Similar methods was developed and practiced in the beginning of 20th century by the Swedish popular educators Hans Larsson and Oscar Olsson, in Germany in the 1920s by Leonard Nelson and in the USA during the later 20th century by Mortimer J Adler. In Sweden the dialogues were introduced by Lars Lindström. The seminars are practiced as a pedagogical method at the Freinet Academy in Norrtälje, Sweden www.mimer.org.

The students in the study are 5 to 16 years old (grade 9).