The New Museum of Acropolis

The new museum of Acropolis is open at last to the public!!! It's been many years since the beginning of its construction and now, after an impressive grand opening, it is ready to welcome thousands of visitors from all over the world.

The ticket is only 1 euro for now, though by the Fall it will become 5 euros. It's still quite cheap if one takes into consideration how spectacular the exhibitions as well as the museum itself are.

However, objections about the post-modern architecture of the museum and how unfit it is in comparison to the other buildings around it and acropolis itself...unfortunately seem to have a point. Post-modern buildings have their own charm and their own virtue. Yet, this particular building is totally unfit to the surrounding environment as well as to the content of its collections, acquisitions, and exhibitions.

The most important objection is its location and the fact that the museum foundations are laid over ancient building complex of immense importance, since those underlying structures must be philosophical schools, even Aristotle's Lykaion itself (see Hellenic Ministry of Culture, The City beneath the City). The so-called "red zone", one of the most important areas of that excavation has been destroyed by the museum itself and only a few fragments of the entire ancient structure are preserved and can been seen through glass windows from the museum floor. It was always well-known that the area of Makriyianni, where the museum now stands at, is associated with ancient place names and buildings and it was always suspected for hiding great treasures of antiquity beneath it. So, it would be easy for one to choose another place for the museum. However, the thought that this location overlooks Acropolis prevailed, since the museum is primarily about the various artifacts of Acropolis and thus the Acropolis museum had to be located somewhere close to its sacred rock.

Whatever is the case, however, the New Museum of Acropolis is one of the best museums in the world, because of the great treasures it contains and also because of the state-of-the-art museum technology, its breath-taking interior, and its unique exhibition design. It is a jewel of museums and a jewel of Athens. It is an invaluable hope and an "oasis" for a country with many problems and especially in the public sector. Nobody can deny the great effort of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, its tremendous success, probably for the first time ever, and the most important of all: now nobody can really justify the stay of the Parthenon marbles at the British Museum.

The Parthenon marbles were stolen by Lord Elgin in the 19th century, after his request was approved by the local pasha or Turkish ruler of Athens, without the consent of the Greeks. Elgin literally "butchered" and chopped in pieces the beautiful sculptures from the Parthenon's metopes and he send them in crates, which were more than 40! Elgin had the marbles at his own place and exhibited them to his friends out of vanity and when he was facing bankruptcy, he sold them to the British government, in particular, to the British Museum. He didn't do it because he wanted to support art or Greece or to protect the marbles. Nevertheless, the British Museum has the audacity to present Elgin as the savior of the marbles and a benefactor of Greece!  At last, Greece succeeded in making a new home for the Parthenon marbles and the good news is that everyday more and more people from all over the world support the return of the Parthenon marbles to their home, which is Greece and only Greece.

Lord Elgin

Arguments that try to convince the public opinion that Greece is not the right place for the marbles, such as Athens' air pollution, lack of exhibition space or lack of trained personnel have all been proved wrong. In fact, the British Museum has been proven to be not less a vandal than Elgin himself! The reckless businessmen of the British Museum cannot lie anymore and hide the fact that the methods they used in the conservation of the marbles were quite unorthodox and in fact destroyed on purpose the external layers of the marbles in order to make them look...whiter! As a matter of fact, they made the sculptures thinner and actually weaker and more prone to breaking and fractures. And this is not another conspiracy theory, but, on the contrary, that's what some of the world's greatest scholars and archaeologists support, such as Anthony Snodgrass, who has examined the Parthenon marbles and who in fact, is British himself!

The British museum cares only about making money and if it loses the greatest of its acquisitions it will certainly get inflicted with a great loss of both money and prestige. Greece has plenty of young people who are very well-educated and ready to work and unfortunately they face a great deal of unemployment and misery. It's time for those semi-literate toasty curators of the British Museum to give the Parthenon marbles to the hands of people who really have a deep understanding and respect for them.

Let the new Museum of the Acropolis be a new hope for many people who want to work for such a great mission, not only for their country, but for the entire humanity. Let's all who go to Greece this summer visit the New Museum of Acropolis.

                References
The Museum of Acropolis Official Website (2012).

http://www.thenewmuseumofacropolis.gr/
http://www.greekalert.com/2009_06_01_archive.html

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The Socratic Method in Career Education: The Secondary Education Teacher as a facilitator of career development inside and outside the classroom

by Alex Colombos, CRC, MA, MPS, MA Ed

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to integrate the Socratic Method or Socratic Dialogue with Career Education, with an emphasis in Secondary Education. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the Socratic Method has been applied in European and American classrooms alike with much success, not only to the teaching of philosophy, but also to the teaching mathematics and other subjects. Like career education and guidance, the Socratic Method facilitates critical thinking and self-awareness. Besides mere preparation for the word of work, Socratic Career Education places the teacher in and outside the classroom as the facilitator and advisor of students and parents and a leader of whole-class and in-groups classroom discussions that aim to nurture the whole, moral, and self-conscious child through self-directed and critical thinking.

a. What is the Socratic Method?

“Know thyself”. “One thing I know that I know nothing”. These are the phrases that Socrates of Athens (470-399 BCE) is usually associated with. His mother was a midwife and it is not an accident he named his craft after his mother’s own, “midwifery”. In Plato’s Theaetitus, Socrates explained that as the midwife gives birth to children, he gave birth to ideas in young men’s minds. The true triumph of his art, Socrates said, is that “in thoroughly examining whether the thought which the young man is bringing to birth, is a false idol or a noble and true spirit”. Socrates insists and makes clear that his method is self-directed learning through and “leading men to knowledge by question and answer” (Hamilton & Cairns, 1989, p.xiv).

“And like midwives, I am barren, and the reproach which is often against me, that I ask questions of others and have not the wit to answer them myself, is very just; the reason is that the god compels me to be a midwife, but forbids me to bring forth. And therefore I am not myself at all wise, nor have I anything to show which is the invention or birth of my own soul, but those who converse with me profit” (Plato’s Theaetitus).

Socrates himself never wrote anything and it was Plato, his student, who recorded Socrates’ conversation with the youth in his Dialogues and thus a good part of it may reflect his own ideas and theories as well in art, psychology, law, logic, religion and metaphysics (Hamilton & Huntington Cairns, 1989). However, what Socrates saw as the Socratic Method may not be different from what Plato experienced himself as a student and by observing dialogues with other students and Socrates. As Huntington Cairns wrote, Plato started his career writing mimes, so with example of the Socratic Method, it would, perhaps, be natural for him to adopt the form he did (Hamilton, Huntington Cairns, 1989). However, in the modern application of the Socratic Method in the classroom, adaptations and different models of its role and application have been invented in the twentieth century educational movement of the Socratic Method and critical philosophy in the classroom.

b. How the Socratic Method has been applied in Education?

Philosophy in education? Can that happen? Well, this is old news. Attempts to apply not only the Socratic Method, but philosophy in general in the classroom, and not as merely a method for the instruction of other subjects, but literally teaching philosophy, has been done already. Despite Kohlberg’s theory of moral development that may consider abstract and philosophical thinking too early thinking for very young children, many educators believe that philosophy can be applied early in education, as this is professed by the Center or the Advancement of philosophy for Children (CAPFC) (Zevin, 2000). If it can happen in early education, why not in secondary education?

Leonard Nelson, the father of the Socratic Method’s application in the classroom, defined it as “the art, not of teaching about philosophers but making philosophers of the students…..instead of lecturing to you, (I would) take up a philosophical problem and deal with it according to the Socratic Method” (Nelson, 2004). It is a student-centered method of inquiry of morality and insightful knowledge that goes beyond merely knowing the facts or relying on somebody in order to obtain knowledge, wisdom or moral guidance. Nelson’s educational model fundamentally transforms the Socratic teacher, since the dialogue does not occur between two people, but a group (Birnbacher & Krohn, 2004). Nelson’s educational philosophy began in the 1920’s emphasizing learner’s autonomy and critical reason (Saran & Neisser, 2004), rationality, clarity, and authenticity (Birnbacher & Krohn, 2004). Those Neo-Kantian ideas governed the procedure of knowledge comprehension that should be along argumentative competence

(Birnbacher & Krohn, 2004). It involves a non-specialist’s way of philosophizing and it received Neo-Kantian influences from Nelson, Heckmann, and other philosophers (Saran & Neisser, 2004). Gustav Heckman experimented on implementing the Socratic Method in schools of Germany and Netherlands as well as he adopted this method to his adult education teaching at the Philosophical-Political Academy (PPA) in Germany. Nelson founded his own boarding school practicing the method, however banned as PPA was too, by the Nazis to have PPA only reestablished in 1949. Nelson’s ideas are more cooperative learning-oriented while Heckmann’s are more independent learning-oriented.

Nelson’s ideas were also influenced by Jacob Friedrich Fries’s concept of regressive abstraction or in a similar way to the inductive method, analysis of the particular excludes even the generalization of empirical cases, thus placing a grave importance on concrete inner and personal experience of the learner (Birnbacher & Krohn, 2004).

According to Saran & Neisser, 2004, Nelson’s model was based on the following aims: a) Reaching outcome: to answer philosophical question by seeking out the truth about the nature of concepts, such as freedom, tolerance, justice, responsibility, and to finally reach a consensus; b) Process: to engage in co-operative activity of seeking answers to questions and to understand each other through the exploration of concrete experiences. That requires volunteer participation and the experiences are chosen by the participants of the group for detailed analysis; c) Insights & Understanding: to deepen insights and understandings through the dialogic process; d) Approach to Life: to gain through dialogue a better approach to life that may benefit conduct and offer the student clarity in the picture of his/her own self. The above aims are important to the learning process and

Have profound meaning for one’s life. Saran & Neisser, 2004 feel that in the age of electronics, TV, and video games, it is important to ask for a more active intellectual and inner activity that can be reflective and combine independent self-directed learning with co-operative (collaborative) learning that may both offer skills in dialogue, social harmony, and morality as well as independent development of cognitive and emotional competences (Birnbacher & Krohn, 2004).

Heckmann’s educational model was based on the idea of the teacher as a facilitator in a group of students, pretty similar to today’s role of the teacher as a facilitator of collaborative learning in the American classroom. Heckmann’s model consists of the following six measures (Heckmann, 2004):

a) Content Impartiality: teacher is ahead of the students in the understanding of the topic to be introduced and therefore he/she should be facilitate insights and alertness as well as put weight at the most important topics of the topic

b) Working with the Concrete: Concepts introduced in the classroom should be linked with real life and students’ everyday experiences through examples.

c) Mutual Understanding: The facilitator has to watch to see whether the students have really understand. All participants should take efforts in two ways: to be understood by others and to grasp other’s understanding.

d) Focus on the Current Situation: It is natural that the dialogue may digress sometimes to different or even irrelevant questions, but the facilitator needs to make sure that he/she keeps the dialogue focused on the current question and work on it thoroughly. Reflection on experience is determined by the structure of reasoning, rather than what is erroneous and what true, step by step in dialogue. It is a task of trial and error. Nothing is free from error.

e) Striving for the Consensus: In the Socratic Dialogue we want to get beyond mere subjective opinion. That’s why we seek out what reasons our arguments have. Reaching a consensus is of provisional character in the Socratic Dialogue, but a point of view that we did not think of may arise in a sense of gaining insight.

This is achieved through a step-by-step inductive process of juxtaposing different or conflicting ideas and trying to see the other side of the argument.

f) Facilitator Interventions: Use of organizers, manipulatives, flipcharts, and other audiovisual materials and tools may help the dialogic and learning process by

recording arguments and models of thinking. Nelson mentioned that by writing down conflicting arguments, showed erroneous patterns of propositions, thus leading to the collapse of the argument and steering the participant’s attention to the discussion.

In the 1970’s, there was another technique or concept introduced to the Socratic Dialogue in the classroom or Content Dialogue, the Meta-dialogue. After the Content Dialogue, the Meta-dialogue focused on the behavior of the participants and not on the content or subject of the dialogue. It supports the Content Dialogue and going further to the participants’ self-awareness inside the group, thus making the Content Dialogue more transparent, asking for the ponderous, unproductive and confusing elements or patterns pinpointed in the Content Dialogue and how those could be minimized (Krohn, 2004).

Gisela Raupach-Strey (2004), experienced in the use of the Socratic Method in German schools, came up with four models:

a) One-off dialogues: taking placing within the framework of the school either in theme weeks or for a limited period or during normal class time.

b) Elements of the Socratic Method: where considered fruitful, they are singly integrated into a usual lesson.

c) Teaching a Subject on Socratic Lines Overall: balancing Socratic requirements

with practical institutional requirements (e.g. award of grades) and educational and theoretical nature (e.g. the acquisition of certain areas of knowledge) can be struck by incompleteness and various dilemmas. So, there is a combination of both Socratic and non-Socratic approaches. The model is not equally suitable for all subjects and it works better with teaching philosophy and ethics.

d) The Socratic Dialogue as a Supplementary Tool: it is a critical supplementary tool

for improving and deepening the teaching of subjects by reflecting on basic philosophical foundations.

Saran (2004a) has written about her experiences in teaching in secondary schools of Britain and Germany. In her First Experience, she believes that, by raising a challenging question and aiming to arrive at agreement, students’ reasoning is improved. She gives the example of a dialogue in a British secondary school where the following questions were asked: “are all rules necessary”, “when rules are necessary”, “In what circumstances are rules necessary?”, “Why are rules necessary”, the most popular and stressed question. Students wrote down their experiences, complains and judgments from their everyday school experiences giving examples of what they thought to be just or unjust rules in the school and debating those in the classroom seeking for rights and obligations and judging upon punishment or reward on certain behaviors and attitudes toward school rules. Saran (2004b) also gave more examples, such as a discussion in a London secondary school on bullying in schools. The procedure consisted of: collecting and choosing examples, working with a chosen example, reaching a consensus, and, finally, evaluation both by the students and the facilitator. Some girls chose to speak about a teacher who, in an infraction, was sure that the boys did it, thus talking about gender and bullying in the classroom and pinpointing teacher’s stereotypes as well as facts about boys aggressive pattern of behavior and boys tendency not to show emotion, as factors that may put them on the target of suspicion for infraction.

Besides the teaching of philosophy and ethics or advisory in the secondary classroom or in adult education, the Socratic Method has been applied also in the elementary classroom as well as in the teaching of mathematics. Goldstein (2004) has used the Socratic Method in teaching a geometrical problem to fourteen and fifteen year old students for inquiring logical thinking. Throughout Plato’s dialogues, we may see references to science and mathematics, such as arithmetic, geometry, and logic,

with examples of easy mathematical operations, such as addition in order to foster reasoning in an argument. Simple and concrete moral questions can be raised in the elementary classroom and integration of this method in teaching subjects can occur both in math and some metacognitive questions that ask for self-awareness of what the student has learn may be used in other subjects, too. Delgehausen (2004) has applied the Socratic Method in elementary schools t students aged seven to nine raising philosophical questions. However, our focus here is rather on secondary education. Next subject remaining to discuss is…what else? Career education.

c. How can the Socratic Method be applied in Career Education?

We do not really need to find mention subjects in Plato’s Dialogues in order to consider those subjects qualified for the application of the Socratic Method, because the Socratic Method is a works alongside the content and deals with information processing, rational and critical thinking and self-awareness or metacognition, that is knowledge about our own thinking (Woolfolk, 1995). However, in career education, we are lucky enough to find innumerous examples of professions and occupations discussed in Plato’s Dialogues, sometimes used as a metaphor or an analogy to covey a totally a totally irrelevant concept, such as using the midwife to show how he uses the Socratic Method while in other instances, he directly speaks about the role of the politician or the medical doctor and their ethical responsibilities or the doctor’s education or the politician’s

education. Professions discussed in the Dialogues range from the shoemaker to the politician and from the craftsman to the artist. Distribution of Labor discussed gives insights on social policy, unemployment, government, and political philosophy. That’s a combination of discussion on morality, rules & authority as well as his students’ guidance on vocational values, such as altruism, creativity, working with others, and so on. But what is the most important to keep as the main message is that virtue and goodness of the person is what matters, not merely skill. So, a musician who deals with music must have a harmonic and beautiful soul and character, as the music he/she plays. Likewise, the athlete should have not only an exercised, healthy and beautiful body, but and sharp, healthy, and beautiful mind, as well, intact from any substance abuse, or, as one modern would say, a whole person clean from steroids or drugs.

Here are some examples:

In the Republic, Socrates argues with Glaucon that music and gymnastics (gym/physical education) should be taken very seriously as subjects taught in schools (Socrates narrates his discussion with Glaucon):

“And is it not for this reason, Glaucon, said I, that education in music is most sovereign, because more than nothing else rhythm and harmony find their way to inmost soul and take strongest hold upon it, bringing with them and imparting grace, if one is rightly trained, and otherwise the contrary? And further, because omissions and the failure of beauty in things badly made or grown would be most quickly preserved by one who has been properly educated in music, and so, feeling distaste rightly he would praise beautiful things and take delight in them and receive them into his soul to foster its growth and become himself beautiful and good. The ugly he would rightly

disprove and hate while still young and yet unable to apprehend the reason, but when reason came the man thus nurtured would be the first to give her welcome, for by this affinity he would know her. --I certainly think, he said, that such is the cause of education in music…..” (Republic, III, 402).

“…..After music our youth are to be educated by gymnastics?

--Certainly.

In this too they must be carefully trained from boyhood through life, and the way of it is this, I believe, but consider it yourself too. For I, for my part, do not believe that a sound body by its excellence makes the soul good, but on the contrary that a good soul by its true virtue renders the body the best that is possible. What is your opinion? ---I think so too. Then if we sufficiently train the mind and turn over to it the minutiae of the care of the body, and content ourselves with merely indicating the norms or patterns, not to make a long story of it, we should be acting rightly? --By all means (he said). From intoxication we said that they must abstain. For a guardian is surely the last person in the world to whom it is allowable to get drunk and not know

where on earth he is. –Yes, he said, it would be absurd that the guardian should need a guard....”

(Republic, III, 403d-e)

The above dialogue gives us insights especially when we engage students and parents in a dialogue, especially when parents do not want their children to become musicians or athletes or when children want to be athletes for vanity, to be stars and other swallow reasons. Also, quite often administrators and politicians underestimate music and physical education and misrepresent those subjects in curricula, so that music teachers and gym teachers need sometimes to remove students for rehearsals during other subjects and the teachers of those subjects get usually upset about it. But the most important is to the use of the Socratic Method for their aesthetic and moral development and the appreciation of the contribution of music and athletics in personal growth and humanity, in general. Math, science, and language arts have become the only important subjects today, because modern vocational values focus on standardized tests, getting into college, and getting a job, rather than developing a whole and moral child with hobbies that could also become career goals. Socrates disproves that materialism and positivism (too much science and mathematical reasoning) by saying that math and science are not enough to be secure methods of inquiry if there is not a sense of morality and sound vocational values that go beyond personal interest. Thus, scientific data may be manipulated as well. In our modern society, everybody is preoccupied with becoming “good” at something, competent, but the thing is how good we are as people in order to use those skills for the good of everybody and society, which is wiser than being wise merely in our subject or career skills.

Speaking in Lesser Hippias on voluntary and involuntary wrongdoing and the nature of falsehood as well as when falsehood is due to lack of skill or not, Socrates examines skill

and error in the mathematician and the astronomer:

“SOCRATES: And tell me, Hippias, are you not a skillful calculator and arithmetician?

HIPPIAS: Yes, Socrates, assuredly, I am.

SOCRATES: And if someone were to ask you what is the sum of 3 multiplied by 700, would you tell him the true answer in a moment if you pleased?

HIPPIAS: Yes.

(……………………………………………………….)

SOCRATES: And could you speak falsehoods about them equally well? I must beg you, Hippias, that you will answer me with the same frankness and magnanimity which has hitherto characterized you. If a person were to ask you what is the sum of 3 multiplied by 700, would not you be the best and most consistent teller of falsehood (…………). Would the ignorant man be better able to tell a falsehood in matters of calculation than you would be (………..)? Might he not sometimes stumble upon the truth, when he may wanted to tell a lie , because he did not know, whereas you who are the wise man, if you wanted to tell a lie would always and consistently lie?

HIPPIAS: Yes, there you are quite right.

SOCRATES: Does the false man tell lies about other things, but not number, or when he is making a calculation?

HIPPIAS: To be sure, he would tell as many lies about the number as about other things.

(…………………………………………………………………………….)

SOCRATES: Who can they be (those who speak falsely about numbers)? For you have admitted

That he who is false must have the ability to be false. You said, as I remember, that he who is unable to be false.

HIPPIAS: Yes, I remember, it was so said.

SOCRATES: And were you not yourself just shown to be best able to speak falsely about calculation?

HIPPIAS: Certainly.

SOCRATES: Then the same person is able to speak both falsely and truly about calculation?

And that person is he who is good at calculation-the arithmetician?

HIPPIAS: Yes.

SOCRATES: Who, then, Hippias, is discovered to be false at calculation? Is he not the good man? For the good man is the able man, and he is the true man.

HIPPIAS: That is evident.

SOCRATES: Do you see, then that the same man is false and true about the same matters?

And the true man is not better than the false, for indeed he is the same with him and not very opposite, as you were just now imagining.

HIPPIAS: In that instance, clearly.

(…………………………………………………………………..)

SOCRATES: And in astronomy, too, if any man be able to speak falsely it will be the good astronomer, but he who is not able will not speak falsely, for he has no knowledge.

HIPPIAS: Certainly not.

SOCRATES: Then in astronomy also, the same man will be true and false?

HIPPIAS: It would seem so.

(LESSER HIPPIAS, 366c-368a)

We can find innumerous professions and occupations discussed in Plato. However, what would be interesting to look at is when Socrates examines the concept of labor division and when he refers not to academic professions only or those of the rich people or even the middle class, but of the working class. In his search for the ideal city in Plato’s Republic II, Socrates embarks in a painstaking examination of the labor ecology of a city and explores the forces that make it sustainable. (When we say city we need to understand that in those times it was rather a small town or settlement with a rural periphery). Socrates discuses with Adimantus the contribution of all the occupations, starting from those of the working class. That would give us ideas for creating such discussions with students in the classroom from career education to economics, history, and government. Students may understand how important all occupations are for the “homeostasis” of a city. That requires specialization of labor and only the most suitable and well trained can do a specific job. Thus, every job from the bottom to the top is important and must be done not only with skill, but also with conscience and responsibility, otherwise the whole city is in disharmony:

“Again, would a man do better working at many tasks or one at one? ---One at one, he said.

And, furthermore, this, I fancy, is obvious-that is if one lets slip the right season, the favorable moment in any task, the work is spoiled. ---Obvious (Adimantus said). That, I take it, is because the business will not wait upon the leisure of the workman must attend to it as his main affair, and not as a bywork. ---He must indeed (Adimantus said). The result, then, is that more things are produced, and better and more easily when one man performs one task according to his nature, at the right moment, and at leisure from other occupations. ---By all means (Adimantus said). Then, Adimantus, we need more than four citizens (four have been examined so far) for the provision of the things we have mentioned. For the farmer, it appears, will not make his own plow if it is to be

a good one, nor his hoe, nor his other agricultural implements, nor will the builder, who also needs

many, and similarly the weaver and cobbler. ---True (Adimantus said). Carpenters, then, and smiths and many similar craftsmen, associating themselves with our hamlet, will enlarge it considerably. ---Certainly (Adimantus said). Yet it still wouldn’t be a very large even if we should add to them neatherds and shepherds and other herders, so that the farmers might have cattle for plowing, and the builders oxen to use with the farmers for transportation, and the weavers and cobblers hides and fleeces to use.

(Republic II, 370a-e)

One may notice that Socrates has the lead in the discussion and that his students or participants are rather either condescending or objecting with a few additional brief statements here and there. However it might seem teacher-centered to some, there are some instances where more than two people participate in the dialogue, when the participant speaks in long paragraphs. But one thing is for sure, that this is not a lecture and it essential to go through a systematic step-by-step guided dialogue with the teacher as the leader who in the beginning of a lesson in the modern classroom offers a form of a 10 minute mini-lesson presenting a demonstration dialogue with volunteer(s) for modeling in-groups discussions, as in the Workshop Model, which “intends for the students to learn reading and writing skills through much participation amongst themselves and their peers” (www.tqnyc.org/NYC052376/whatisworkshop_new.html). In whole-class discussions, the teacher aims to sparkle a whole class or in-groups (of four, let’s say) discussion with the teacher as the “referee”, “traffic controller” or facilitator of the discussion flow. We could use the Heckmann’s six measures for the class discussion and Nelson’s four aims for a one-to-one discussion or dialogue outside the classroom, since teachers, besides their teaching role, quite often are seen by their students or students’ parents and engage into a discussion on students’ academic, career, behavioral (conduct) or even personal issues and concerns. Meta-dialogue could follow after a class discussion for metacognitive strategies, self-awareness and evaluation/self-evaluation. Curriculum does not have to be restricted to the Socratic Method and it shouldn’t. As in Saran’s own experience, classroom teaching should encompass both the didactic and the Socratic Method alongside. Remember, Socrates himself said he did not really teach any kind of knowledge. He was rather a facilitator and a midwife of reasonable thoughts and ideas.

Maria Malikozi-Loizou (2001), a Greek professor of counseling psychology, in her book Counseling Psychology in Education, highlights the importance of the teacher as an advisor or counselor in and outside the classroom, since recent research, she says, has shown the importance of the teacher in the development of students’ personality and she particularly refers to Hunter, 1985, Ryan, Jackson & Levinson, 1986 and Wood, 1987. She points that there is not the right training of teachers for this purpose and she insists on the involvement of teacher’s classroom guidance on raising discussion on concepts that we saw already discussed in the German and British classrooms on the concepts of freedom, individuality, honesty and moral responsibility. She connects this teacher’s role to Socrates and his method, since it focuses on self-awareness and she shows Socratic influences on Kierkegaard’s dialectics who influenced Rollo May and Carl Rogers as well as Descartes, and Rousseau.

Of course, we must say here that the guidance role is, no doubt, irreplaceable and different than the teacher’s and includes individual and group interview, assessment, information about the world of work, intervention in academic, personal and family problems that interfere with career development and helping the student applying to college, internship or job. Besides, the counselor is the one who may train the teacher in communication & counseling/guidance skills in order to be effective and professional in and outside the classroom.

In her own empirical research with Greek secondary and college students, Malikozi-Loizou (2001) noted that some of the topics that students are really interested in and for which they turn to teachers and professors during and after class or in the educators’ offices, are related to career choice, vocational interests, skills, and values, familial influence and parental pressure on students’ future plans and on their career choice, pressure on academic achievement, and so on. Parents also have conferences with teachers, especially when report cards are awarded and students’ academic and career issues are discussed. Malikozi-Loizou, in an attempt to help teachers deal with those challenges, came up with three aims of education in counseling: self-awareness, training on interpersonal relationships, and knowledge of principles and conditions of learning facilitation. She also came up with a model of teachers’ training on counseling and guidance in and out of the classroom that consists of: a) training on communication skills; b) developing groups of sensitization and empathy that trains teachers on understanding and perceiving others as well as accepting differences, and finally, c) guidance & counseling skills. Malikozi-Loizou (2001) offers a plethora of examples of how a teacher may use counseling skills when dealing with students and parents, such as paraphrasing, recapitulation, clarification and so on. She also gives a number of examples on how to objectively inform students without transferring his/her own biases or fragments of information or inaccurate pieces of information. For instance, she gives the following example (de jure transl. from Greek):

“Male Student speaks to his female High School teacher:

---I would like you to tell me what I should do in order to study medicine?

Teacher’s answer/reaction:

---First of all, you need to graduate from High School with a very high grade point average, that is excellent in fact, and then you fill out the application form according to your preferences for medical school programs (NOTE: in Greece, medical schools offer undergraduate programs alongside with graduate). Evaluation: here the teacher offers career information in order to help the student in his decision-making for his future” (Malikozi-Loizou, 2001, p.143).

d) Conclusion

We may conclude that the most important contribution of the Socratic Method in Career Education is not just to provide a sound method often used with success in other subjects, so why not to career education, too. THE SOCRATIC METHOD IS A METHOD OF GUIDANCE and Plato’s Dialogues have Socrates offering not a mere discussion on careers, but a deeper concept that students have to learn in career education: what takes to have a professional who is not just skilled or “good” in his/her job, but good, conscientious and responsible as a whole person. Thus, in education, which Socrates and Plato thought to be so essential, the whole child is taken under consideration, not just a student that we need to test his/her career interests, skills, aptitudes, and values or merely inform about the world of work. Socratic career education goes beyond producing well-informed students. It aims to an education that starts inwards, as Socrates and Plato always believed and the teacher is but the facilitator and the mentor. Since the teacher plays such a profound role in the student’s life, he/she must receive some training in counseling & guidance skills, as Malikozi-Loizou pointed out, without of course replacing the guidance counselor, whose job is quite different and equally important and who is the one to train the teacher in talking with students and parents and in the use of counseling & guidance skills inside and outside the classroom. For the use and application of the Socratic Method in Career Education, Heckman’s six measures could be used in a discussion that stimulates in-groups career issues discussion and Nelson’s four models for whole-class career issues discussion. This career issues discussion goes deeper to the ethical responsibilities and the underlying social parameters of each profession, the interaction of people and jobs, the meaning of work, and the vocational values as those are discovered from the “midwifery” of ideas, which is a work with one’s self and a work on intra-personal and inter-personal relationships rather than collecting information about job titles and college/training programs or the mere nature of jobs, their pros and cons and how well they pay. Also, students can model from the teacher and do the dialogue with each other in groups. Meta-dialogue can follow for metacognitive strategies and evaluation reminding us what Socrates said:

ΓΝΩΘΙ Σ΄ ΑΥΤΟΝ (Know thyself).

References

--Birnbacher, D. & Krohn, D. (2004). Socratic Dialogue and Self-Directed Learning. In Enquiring Minds: Socratic Dialogues in Education (ed. Saran, R. & Neisser, B.). Virginia: Trentham Books.

--Delgehausen, I. (2004). Experiences with Socratic Dialogue in primary Schools. In Enquiring Minds: Socratic Dialogues in Education (ed. Saran, R. & Neisser, B.). Virginia: Trentham Books.

--Goldstein, M. (2004). “We had to think for ourseves”-using the Socratic Dialogue in mathematics lessons in a secondary school. In Enquiring Minds: Socratic Dialogues in Education (ed. Saran, R. & Neisser, B.). Virginia: Trentham Books.

--Hamilton, E. & Cairns, H. (ed.). (1989). The Collected Dialogues of Plato. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, Bollingen Series LXXI.

--Heckmann, G. (2004). Six Pedagogical Measures and Socratic Facilitation. In Enquiring Minds: Socratic Dialogues in Education (ed. Saran, R. & Neisser, B.). Virginia: Trentham Books.

--Krohn, D. (2004). Theory and Practice of Socratic Dialogue. In Enquiring Minds: Socratic Dialogues in Education (ed. Saran, R. & Neisser, B.). Virginia: Trentham Books.

--Malikozi-Loizou, M. (2001). Counseling Psychology in Education: from theory to practice. Athens: Greek Letters (in Greek).

--Nelson, L. (2004). The Socratic Method. In Enquiring Minds: Socratic Dialogues in Education (ed. Saran, R. & Neisser, B.). Virginia: Trentham Books.

--Raupach-Strey, G. (2004). The Socratic Approach at School Level: Four Models. In Enquiring Minds: Socratic Dialogues in Education (ed. Saran, R. & Neisser, B.). Virginia: Trentham Books.--Saran, R. (2004 a). Socratic Dialogue-My First Experience. In Enquiring Minds: Socratic Dialogues in Education (ed. Saran, R. & Neisser, B.). Virginia: Trentham Books.

--Saran, R. (2004 b). Experiences with Socratic Dialogue in Secondary Schools. In Enquiring Minds: Socratic Dialogues in Education (ed. Saran, R. & Neisser, B.). Virginia: Trentham Books.

--Saran, R. & Neisser, B. (2004). Introduction. In Enquiring Minds: Socratic Dialogues in Education (ed. Saran, R. & Neisser, B.). Virginia: Trentham Books.

--Woolfolk, A. (1995). Educational Psychology. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

--Workshop Model (http://www.tqnyc.org/NYC052376/main_new.html).

--Zevin, J. (2000). Social Studies for the Twenty-First Century. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.

An Article on Teaching about Careers in Secondary Schools of Greece

CAREER EDUCATION IN GREECE (ΣΕΠ: Σχολικός Επαγγελματικός Προσανατολισμός or SEP): a personal experience (Case Study)
By Alex Colombos, MA, MPS

I''ve spent my whole life in Greece, as I and my family moved there only a few months after I was born in 1976 and stayed there until I was 19. Right after I graduated from Lykeion, the Greek High School, I moved to the United States for my college education.

My first career class was in the third year of Gymnasion (Junior High School/Intermediate/Middle School) , which is like the American eight grade.  My second career education was in the third year of Lykeion, which is like the American twelve grade. My gymansion school was private, while my Lykeion school was public. School counselors do not exist in Greece and that is why they have those classes which are not even regular classes.  There are no school psychologists working at schools either except a few expensive private schools for the elite depsite there are university graduate programs in school psychology (masters programs).  Counseling in Greece is not an independent field unlike USA.  It is rather an inderdisciplinary area usually monopolized by psychologists, mos of holding undergraduate degrees from Greece and masters from other countries, including USA which is the leading country in counseling.  Teachers usually are trained in a major that is their content subject they teach and only a few may had 1-3 undergraduate classes in education.   Some years ago, there were not teachers exams, no they have to take the so called ASEP, exams for government employers.  Those exams include education and behavioral content, but as candidates usually have no background in those areas, they resort to learning centers that prepare them for those exams.

Thus, teachers in Greece are not really prepared not only for teaching career education, but not even for acquiring the behavioral and teaching skills to teach their own subjects!  Not to mention knowledge of special education or speech pathology in order to be able to understand and teach effectively their mainstreamed students, those who have disabilities, but attend general education classes.  Therefore, it is not an accident that SEP, the Career Guidance or Career Education class in Greece, is rather a classroom seminar that takes place in the last quarter of the Spring Semester, the Third Trimester (Τρίτο Τρίμηνο) as it is called and it does not count towards students' grades.  That's why for most students and teachers, it's like doing doing chores and it is not an accident it's literally nicknamed "kid's hour" ('η ώρα του παιδιού"), when students just waste their time and fool around...

The reason the system wanted us to take those mandatory classes at those grades was because in Greece mandatory education is until Gymansion. Lykeion is not mandatory, though the vast majority of students go not only to Lykeion, but also to university. At the last grade of those levels of education, middle school and high school, students needed to be prepared for the world of work, but also to get informed about academic options after middle school and after high school. Besides, the educational system is so complicated both for academic, technical and vocational education and preparation for university and higher education school is so long, tight and demanding that a good inquiry is important for the Greek youth. Also, the problem of unemployment necessitates the existence of career education.

At eight grade, I remember, my home economics teacher taught that class. The class was taught only in the second quarter of the school year and we met once a week. Her course organization was very flexible and she focused a lot on the students' interests, needs and skills. Because that middle school was private, many students went there just to graduate and enter the job market or go first to technical and vocational schools. However, there were students like me who went there, because their parents thought that private schools were better organized, equipped and had better teachers. Indeed, there were courses offered in private schools that were not offered in public schools (intensive computer classes, many different foreign languages, variety of sports, intensive courses in art, dance and music, a lot of competitive extra-curricular activities and so on).


I remember we did not use a particular textbook, but various reference books. We took notes from the board, but mostly the teacher dictated. We wrote down about the levels of education, the system of technical and vocational schools and the programs they offered. There was dialogue between the teacher and the students and the students asked many questions about the options they had, what programs were in the same field and which was the most suitable for them in order to get prepared for the profession of their choice. The nature, education/training, advantages and disadvantages, earnings, personality traits and popularity or the future of the occupations were discussed.


At twelve grade, my career education teacher was my math teacher. He looked less knowledgeable than my middle school career teacher whose subject was home economics and thus she was trained in economics, labor studies and vocational education (if you visit the websites of Greek home economics college programs, such as that of Harokopeion University, you may notice that). The first day, he looked totally embarrassed and unprepared. He ended up talking about his own experience after high school and how he majored in math, the college students' lifestyle, his expectations prior to his college entrance and what he experienced after his admission to college. He used a reference book almost like a catalogue of Greek college programs ,Roads after High School, published by the Ministry of Education that exclusively focused on university and community college programs, police & military academies and other post-secondary programs that are all public, since higher education is constitutionally defined as public. The class was taught only in the second quarter of the school year and we met once a week. There was no assessment of students and no grading policy. Since students did not receive any grade for this class, it was regarded both by students and teachers as of lesser in comparison to the rest of the curriculum. Many hours though were spent for other intensive subjects important for the college admission examinations or irrelevant discussion. Since my school was a General High School (academic curriculum) and not a Technical & Vocational High School most emphasis was given on how to get informed about higher education. We also spent valuable hours in how to fill out the application forms for higher education programs. That was very important for us, since we learnt all rules and regulations as well as secrets, tips and tricks for successfully completing that complicated bureaucratic procedure that could affect our entire future and it was extremely anxiety-provoking for all students. Students also had the chance to ask the teacher questions, especially those who liked programs close to what the teacher attended (math), so he had more information for them. For the others, both teacher and students looked at the book and tried to find information or the teacher wrote down the questions and came up next session with answers.


Career education was introduced in Greece due to the following reasons: 1) pressure form EEC which funded Greece for those programs; 2) because of the complicated educational system; 3)the legal barriers for college education (public and with tough entrance examinations); 4) the obsession of Greek students, and especially their demanding parents, with successful admission to college and prestigious professions that require long and demanding higher education; 5) chaotic conditions of unemployment and fast changing business cycles.

Those classes are something that is missing from the United States. Here in the States, this gap is supposed to be fulfilled by the individual sessions of the school counselor and the student, but that is not good enough. In addition to that (individual career counseling) which is missing in Greece, a less occasional, more knowledge-oriented, more systematic, generalized and academic set of classroom sessions is needed. That is also because discussion, exchange of information, dialogue, support, group work, sharing creative ideas and brainstorming shared with others are highly needed for the students. In Greece, however, there was not a systematic and organized curriculum, but it rather reminded me the level of function that we see in the States in other courses, such as advisory or homemaking and on, though the career class was more practical and more important and that too much flexibility at least ensured a personal communication with teacher and students in exchanging personal information and experiences about the world of work and education. However, especially in high school, it was mostly about how higher education functions, including admission requirements, structure and type of college programs, rather than the world of work, though for middle school it was mostly about the technical & vocational schools and training programs that awaited the students who did not want to continue to Higher School after middle school, since only Elementary and Middle school are mandatory in Greece. Very few was taught about what really happens after you finish training or college and what you really do when you become a professional. Less was told about what a working person really needs to go through. However, as a part of home economics in combination with the career class, we visited with my school a textile factory and we discussed about the occupations needed there and had the chance to talk to some professionals and workers.


I hope in the future, the US educational system mandates a course in career education to be taken in every American middle and high school, like in Greece. However, the entire philosophy and delivery of instruction as well as curriculum design should be done in the American way.  Also the role of school counselors is very important and it should also be established in Greece.  There is no time and no reason for teachers to do the work of school counselors in terms of advising and informing, students on careers and post-secondary academic programs and processing their applications.  Teachers do not have proper training for the above carrying out the above tasks and it is not part of their job anyway.  Also, a very important function of school counseling totally missing in Greece is career assessment and structured or semi-structured interviewing and  motivational interviewing, very important techniques for helping the student understand their interests, skills, aptitudes, lifestyles and values as well as their strengths and weaknesses and their underlying unexplored aspects of their personality that may interfere with academic progress or career choices.  This work cannot be done by teaching.  This is the job of a school counselor or career counselor, trained in psychology, human development, psychology, and behavioral sciences/mental health, especially learning & cognition in adolescence, transition from school to work, developmental psychopathology (learning disabilities, developmental disabilities, behavioral problems & emotional disturbance, etc.) disabilities and assistive technology.  These are important areas of knowledge and skill that should be provided in Greece for the future school professionals who can help students in making informed choices for their future academic and career development.  

Applying the Socratic Method in Special Education: a Case Study

by Alex Colombos, MA, MPS





Living with developmental disabilities is not necessarily a dead end; sun shines when there is support and high quality of life.

Socrates

“John D.” is a 22 year-old Greek American male, of Greek Orthodox Religion (Eastern Christianity) diagnosed with Mild Mental Retardation (IQ 65) and Expressive Language Disorder living with is father at a small apartment in Astoria, NY. He is the only son of Greek immigrants, both diagnosed with depression and his father also with sleep disorder. He is fluent in both English and Greek with a better command of English as his first language. He doesn’t have obvious signs of his condition, except that he does not speak very clearly or confidently express himself in any language, though his problem is mostly in written rather than oral language.


John is very sociable, and a high functioning consumer. He has friends of his age, he participates in his local church’s activities and religious services, and he even has a girlfriend, though they recently did not get along very well and finally they broke up. John is able to pay his bills, independently take care of his grooming, and he successfully displays telephone and computer skills, such as writing simple business letters, taking care of personal and family matters on the phone and using the Internet or playing video games. He has been also trained by his father, who is a building superintendent and a painter, in doing handy work and even to a professional level, since his father has taken him with him to construction jobs.
John’s mother passed by a few moths ago. He found her dead one Friday midnight, laying on the bathroom floor half naked. Doctors attributed her death to heart attack. Her profound obesity and her movement problems may have contributed also to her death, since she could hardly move in the very narrow bathroom. Her movement problems as well as her husband’s mental disabilities had resulted the poor maintenance of their apartment, which was very frequently a main reason for quarrels in the family and repeated requests for finding a new home, since that one was very dirty. John is also very obese and does not have a good diet, since he drinks too much soda and eats junk food. John is a brave young man, vary courageous and full of life and although the recent death of his beloved mother, he did not show any sign of depression, melancholy or withdrawal or any phobia, which is quite common to occur to people with Mental Retardation after having a death in their family.


John has already a rich history of job experience, as a security guard and also as a helper and bag boy in supermarkets and retail stores. He was already a Medicaid Services coordination consumer at our small Medicaid vendor & volunteer agency located in John’s neighborhood, when he joined our new Day Habilitation/Job Training Blended Program, where I was the head teacher, recently promoted after being already a Medicaid Service Coordinator for a few months. John had expressed the desired
to seek for Supported Employment in our agency. At the same time, he would be able to attend a series of educational activities within the Day Habilitation program, such as English reading & writing remediation courses, Greek lessons, since he wanted to learn how to write and read in Greek. Also, lessons in social and behavioral skills were added to his schedule, since John has to work intensively on his procrastination and punctuality progress. For instance, he has the tendency to come very late to the center and he quite often he doesn’t even show up without any notice. He is also somewhat naïve when it comes to friendship and relationship with his peers. He cannot use his judgment effectively to understand the group dynamics of peer friendly and/or romantic relationships and he feels frustrated with peers who “use” him as he says and do not care about him and at the same time they do drugs and tend to juvenile delinquency, though he insists that he has no involvement in such activities and stay away from them when they do so.


In collaboration to Suzan, a certified Mental Health Counselor and the Medicaid Service Coordination team, I and John came up with a series of Valued Outcomes that he approved and liked. When I teach John English reading & writing (literacy skills), I narrate a story to him, either a Greek myth, a fairy tale, a folk story or a story form a picture book. He looks at pictures while listening to the story. I ask him open-ended listening comprehension questions to see how much he retains form the story and how he processes information. Then he draws and colors on a paper using crayons or markers on a topic related to the story. Then, using the picture he draws, I ask him what he draws and how that relates to the story. Using Socrates’ questioning for inner meaning, a method called “Socratic Inquiry” or just the “Socratic Method”, I focus on the rationale or moral lesson of the story and I engage him in a higher thinking process, making sure that it is not too abstract or inappropriate for his mental capacity. For instance, I may ask him about what makes a good friendship or what makes somebody to be a good friend. Then, I ask him questions confronting and reflecting directly on his responses, thus leading him gradually to the point of realizing contradictions between his previous statements or between his words and his actions. He, for instance, may say that he doesn’t like his friends, because “they are bad kids and they do drugs and shoplifting” and yet he continues hang out with them. This type of questions is called in Greek elenchus, which actually means refutation or examination (Brickhouse & Smith, 1994, p.5).
Beside the individual sessions, there is an hour of “social and behavioral skills” session, where all five consumers in our new small Day Habilitation program come and sit in a circle, where in the form of group therapy, I introduce a topic that concerns community, health, behavioral or social issues and using the Socratic style of making questions, I guide the group, after each and every one says his or her own story related to the topic or if there is something of relative urgency to be discussed or shared with the group for support, the consumer is encouraged to talk a little bit about it before the discussion of the current topic of the day’s agenda. This sharing of –personal information leads to encouraging empathy and sympathy being expressed by all members of the group, thus facilitating communication and building community bonds and cultivating interpersonal and intrapersonal skills for each and every consumer.


For the group sessions, I used Gustav Heckmann’s version of Socratic Enquiry modified to suit the needs of groups and real classrooms. Socrates (470-399 BC), the famous Greek philosopher, one of the most influential ever, came up with a method of asking questions based on two basic ideas: “know thyself” (self-awareness) and “an unexamined life is not worth it” (need for self-examination) (Lageman, 1989, p.222). Heckmann’s version consists of six pedagogical measures of Socratic facilitation: i) content impartiality (here Hawaiian Talk Story gets integrated to the process in order to initiate dialogue); ii) working for the concrete; iii) mutual understanding; iv) focus on the current question; v) striving for consensus; vi) facilitator interventions. Everyone comes up with a personal story and shares it with others, as contributing a part to the impartial whole of the group process. Then, the facilitator has to make sure that, feelings, thoughts, and ideas are expressed in a concrete way and that everybody has mutual understanding of the process and that the dialogue does not stray form the current question that is been observed, especially if the group consists of people with Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities. Finally, the facilitator guides the group toward reaching a closing, which more than reaching a mere conclusion or summarizing, but is even more, about reaching a consensus, as everybody needs to be on the same page with the others in the group and thus they all discover a common truth after the dialogue. Facilitator must intervene when needed, especially when the dialogue prolongs inconclusive and derails from the question observed or when there are disruptive side talks, negative arguments, conflicts, and contradictions (Heckmann, 2004).


In addition to the Socratic Method, I also used Talk Story, a traditional Hawaiian method of informal conversation that may take the form of storytelling in a group of, at least, two or more participants. The content of the talk may range from something interesting one saw or heard to mere gossip in the local grocery store line on a beautiful exotic island of Hawaii. A definition of talk story might be “rambling personal experience narratives mixed with folk materials” (Taosaka, 2002, p.1). Talk story requires cooperation and collaboration from the participants. In the therapeutic process, however, talk story may most likely resemble an informal and flexible model of group therapy or group counseling. I found talk story quite suitable for John, since he prefers informal and friendly contacts rather than structured therapy/counseling. Besides, talk story has some affinities with the Socratic Method, since it requires a lot of asking questions *Taosaka, 2002, p.10).
Cultural sensitivity is an important factor in talk story and that is also why this model was also appropriate for John. John is a Greek-American, who native language is English, but he also has a good mastery of Greek, as well. He is first generation of American and because of his close tight with and his dependence on his family, due to his condition, he reflects a lot of typical Greek or Mediterranean cultural characteristics. This can be easily deducted from his food preferences, his favorite music, his values, his interests, and even the fact that he likes to come late or he needs more privacy especially during religious observance in the Easter, which is of very great importance for the Greek Orthodox faith.


In talk story, the questions may help each party understand the story and internalize some of its meanings or moral lessons, but it also shows cooperation and collaboration and it is a way to express sympathy and care to the speaker who wants to share his/her experience or problem with you. The Socratic component into this process might be the reach of a common ground, a mutual understanding of a universal reality. So, every time John would report to the center, I engage in an informal 30 minute talk with him, where he would just tell me how was his day, “what else is new” or what current issues may have emerge in his life. From the most irrelevant experience, something that he saw on TV or on the Internet and captured his attention to some memories of his mother who just died a few weeks ago and were rekindled by her cloths or personal accessories he accidently discovered in the closet. All these free associations, as Freudians would say, may emerge during the talk story and transform it into a more therapeutic or cathartic entity.
The positive results of Talk story were that John became even more motivated to show up in time, thus becoming more punctual, as he would not like to miss a meeting with a good friend. He confessed that although he has some friends, he felt different and alienated from them and he thought that they may have used them or they may have not taken him seriously. Also, he didn’t like the fact that his friends smoke marijuana, and he stated with emphasis that this is the reason he avoids them, because he is not a user and he would not like to become one. John seemed to be more dependable and responsible after a number of sessions and invested genuine trust in me, thus making our rapport really positive and solid.


After six months of using this teaching and therapeutic modalities of the Socratic Method and the Hawaiian Talk Story, me and my colleagues at the center noticed that John was more eager to report to the center in time, he felt more responsible and sensed the consequences and the impact of his absence of tardiness to the others and became more aware of himself and less prone to giving cheap excuses for his mistakes. He also built trust and care for the center, its staff and his fellow consumers. The small size of the group helped also a lot. We shouldn’t forget that Socrates’ circle of disciples in his dialogues recorded by Plato was actually small and everybody was familiar with or related to each other within that circle.
The Socratic Method is also called Philosophical Midwifery, since like a midwife, the counselor, teacher or philosopher extracts rational thinking, repressed thoughts or desires and finally leads to self awareness and inner peace and congruity with one’s thoughts and actions. This method helps us pinpoint the pathologos, as Pierre Grimes calls it, which is the pathological or abnormal logos or reasoning, expressed in thoughts, inner speech, daydreaming and oral and written words. This abnormal or irrational reasoning/thinking impedes and backfires everyday relationships and it is quite frequently the source of miscommunication and family pathology (Grimmes & Uliana, 1998). Pierre Grimes, a professor of philosophy and philosophical counselor and Regina Uliana, a clinical psychologist, run together a clinical study of patients who copied with everyday problems, ranging from emotional and family problems to vocational and academic performance and career choice problems and who were treated with a series of sessions were the Socratic Method was integrated in cognitive therapy. They found out that from their data that not only this therapy tremendously helped their patients, but it also stood at the same level of effectiveness and function as the Rational-Emotive Therapy. Thus they named it “Grimes’ Dialectic Rational Psychotherapy” (Grimmes & Uliana, 1998). The Socratic Method has also been successfully implemented in regular classrooms, of both elementary (Delgehausen, 2004) and secondary schools (Saran, 2004), originally in England and Germany and now everywhere in the world.


In combination with the Socratic Method, another ancient one and very traditional in its nature, but still very fresh and commonly used, is the Hawaiian talk story. As a technique of alternative healing rather than a mere family or tribal ritual of getting together and sitting around the hearth, Talk Story has been integrated in counseling and psychotherapy and it is used in cultural events, community centers and other public places in Hawaii, not only as a demonstration of Hawaii’s rich cultural heritage and spirituality, but also for the practical benefit of those who practice it. As it is obvious in the aforementioned case study, both the Socratic Method and the Hawaiian Talk Story can be used, the first in individual sessions in the form of individual counseling and the other in group sessions in the form of group counseling. From my own experience both work with real clients. We live in the age of loneliness and alienation from our inner self and the others around us, and when the true values of humanity are put aside in favor of easy money and no-brainer solutions offered by technology. It is, therefore, the right time for us to return to our roots and start making use of traditional and ancient methods that the eons have tried and prove effective for the best of humanity and the future generations to come.


References
-Brickhouse, T.C. & N.D. Smith (1994). Plato’s Socrates. New York: Oxford University Press.

-Delgehausen, I. (2004). Experiences with Socratic Dialogue in primary schools. Enquiring Minds. Virginia: Trentham Books, Ltd, pp. 41-46.
-Grimes, P. & R. Uliana (1998). Philosophical Midwifery: A New Paradigm for Understanding Human Problems With Its Validation. California: Hyparxis Press.

-Heckmann, G. (2004). Six pedagogical paradigms and Socratic facilitation. Enquiring Minds. Virginia: Trentham Books, Ltd, pp. 107-120.
-Lageman, G. A. (1989). Socrates and Psychotherapy. Journal of Religion and Health. Vol. 28, No 3, pp. 219-223.-Saran, R. (2004). Experiences with Socratic Dialogue in secondary schools. Enquiring Minds. Virginia: Trentham Books, Ltd, pp. 53-70.