If Socrates was alive, I think he would be disappointed to see that most of the students in the United States rely on their memory to learn. He would also dislike that the principal way of teaching in the classrooms is through lectures; the professor talks, and the students listen and answer to the professor's questions according with what they heard. Socrates had another learning method called Socratic Method or elenchus. Through Socrates' way, students do not memorize the lesson, but they think about the questions and come up with an answer using their reason and minds. Socratic Method uses discussion instead of lectures to teach. The main role in the traditional teaching method is the teacher's because the teacher is who ask the questions but also has the answers, so the teacher has an absolute power like a gatekeeper. However, the main role in the Socratic Method is the students' because the teacher asks the questions, but it is the students who have to come up with the answers, so they become active participants debating among themselves. Because with the traditional way of teaching students only learn and memorize what others say, they become like travelers walking through already defined paths. However, the elenchus allow students to think by themselves and expose their own ideas, so they can discover new paths. Socrates generally used the elenchus to look for answers to moral dilemmas in life. Socrates thought that people who do not care about improving their lives should be better dead. When people hear about life's improvement, they may think about making a lot of money, having a family, and being successful at work. However, this kind of improvement was not what Socrates had in mind. For Socrates, improving your life morally was more important than being wealthy and healthy. Many students go to school nowadays although they are not truly interested in learning because they want to get a degree, so they can earn a lot of money and improve their lives economically. Socrates would say that these students are missing the true purpose of life: knowledge. In order to improve their lives morally, people have to review through their internal characteristics and their actions using the elenchus method, find their imperfections and fix them moving forward to a more virtuous life. Socrates believed that the only way to achieve virtue was through knowledge. So, those people who do not want to acquire knowledge are not virtuous. Socrates also thought that virtue was the principal component of happiness. So, those people who are not virtuous cannot be happy. Socrates thought about happiness different from the way it is seen today. People nowadays think that they are going to be happy if they get what they want or need. For example, an overweight woman may think that if she loses weight, she is going to be happy. So, she goes under plastic surgery. People spend their money in the gym, surgeries, medicines, and treatments to look young, beautiful, and healthy. However, they change only the exterior, but they are not willing to improve their character. Socrates said that people who improve external factors but not the internal part of themselves may enjoy life at certain moments, but they continue to be miserable because the only way to be happy is by being virtuous. Virtue is not something that is born with the person, but it is obtained with effort and time. How does this apply in education? Well, a student who is not virtuous may feel unhappy and incomplete because there is not a real motivation to learn. Socrates' way to happiness and personal realization was like a chain that initiated with the elenchus. The elenchus was necessary to ask moral questions and look for answers. The more questions people were able to answer the more knowledge people obtain. Consequently, the person became more virtuous, and virtue would bring the person happiness. Socratic ideas are very different from the ideas that people have nowadays, so American schools would have to change their traditional curriculum in order to teach using the Socratic method. I think that it would not be a bad experience to learn like Socrates liked it because students would be better thinkers, better prepared, more virtuous, and at the end more happy with themselves and what they have achieved.
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