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Re: MARCH TPT, The Socratic Method



I am denied the satisfaction of reporting that I cancelled
my TPT on the basis of this excerpt, because through fortuitous
circumstance I have never subscribed.
I can however report some satisfaction in the evident vindication
of my choice to eschew this miserable rag.

Brian Whatcott


At 17:03 4/17/00 -0700, Richard Hake wrote:
In his 2/21/00 Phys-L post "MARCH TPT," Rick Tarara wrote:

".......... Dewey's group also gets blasted in an editorial ......(in
the March 2000 issue of "The Physics Teacher")....."

...
In his sprightly editorial "Buzzwords and Newspeak," TPT editor Cliff
Swartz has this to say (among other things) about PERD:

"In case you aren't keeping up these days, I thought it might be
helpful if I explained some of the new .....(PERD).... words
..........

-'Socratic dialogue.' The epitome of the Socratic method is
described in Plato's 'Meno'. We ran this account in the March 1994
issue of "The Physics Teacher," word for (translated) word, figuring
that it was its own parody. It's hard to do a parody of a parody, so
we'll say no more about it here. If you really want to understand
the method, better look it up in TPT .....(1)...... or in the
original Greek....

Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
24245 Hatteras Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91367
<rrhake@earthlink.net>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>



REFERENCES
1. "The Classic Socratic Method" The Physics Teacher 32(3), 138-141
(1994), a "free translation" from Plato's "Meno." See also ref. 2.

2. R.A. Morse, "The Classic Method of Mrs. Socrates," The Physics
Teacher 32(5), 276-277 (1994).

brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>
Altus OK