Perhaps more concerning is the fact that, as Kirschneret al. point out, the empirical data
demonstrating that discovery-learning is ineffective appears to have little persuasive power over
educational experts and policy advisors who continue to promote these strategies.
In each decade since the mid-1950s, when empirical studies provided solid evidence that the
then popular unguided approach did not work, a similar approach popped up under a different
name with the cycle then repeating itself. Each new set of advocates for unguided approaches
seemed either unaware ofor uninterestedin previous evidence that unguided approaches had
not been validated.^25Stokke illustrates this phenomenon: when education officials in the province of Alberta recently
faced criticism over the discovery-learning method they introduced into the math programs, they
simply changed the name but maintained the same methodologies:“education officials argued that
Alberta Education was actually promoting inquiry-based learning”not“discovery-learning.”^26
Christodoulou reports she“was shocked to stumble across an entire field of educational and
scientific research which completely disproved so many of the theories I had been taught when
training and teaching. I was not just shocked; I was angry.”
Neatby detected the same tendencies toward group-think among education policymakers in the
1950s. She complained that the career educator can become“aspecialistin‘education’without ever
havingbeensubjected toa liberal education.”^27 InCanada,atleast,the educational experts essentially
have a monopoly on education training and curriculum development. So every prospective teacher in
Canada and a great many in the United States will wander“for some time in the Dewey maze,”and it
is only by a stroke of good luck that they will ever hear a serious critique of progressivism or be
compelled to think through any alternative teaching philosophies.^28 Yet these are frequently the same
sources for the pedagogies promoted by teaching and learning centers on university campuses.
So what about the Socratic method? How does it compare to discovery-learning and inquiry-
based learning? Insofar as what is meant by this method is that an instructor conducts their teaching
through questioning and answering, i.e., dialog, with the students in small seminar settings, does
this method not derive much of its strength from the sorts of theories that underlie the progressive
methodologies? By eliciting responses from the students rather than lecturing to them, the method’s
practitioners seem to share the view that memorizing“mere facts”is not the point of education. In
theRepublic,Socrates famously advises Glaucon that no forced learning abides in the soul.^29 And
contemporary scholar Martha Nussbaum states that“Undoubtedly the most influential and
theoretically distinguished Americanpractitioner of Socratic education, John Dewey (1869–
1952), changed the way virtually all American schools understand their task”(emphasis added).^30
Yet Malcolmson, Myers, and O’Connell maintain that the identification of Dewey-esque
discovery-learning or inquiry-learning with the Socratic method is misleading. The Socratic
methodoftenpromotedorevenusedinthecontemporary university has only superficial simi-
larities to the genuine article. Socrates referred to his educational activity as dialectic through which
Socrateswould“leadpeopletothediscoveryoftheir ownignorance,thattheydidnot knowwhatthey
thought they knew.”^31 And whereas Socrates often refused to state exactly what he thought the right
answer to any particular question was, he“always had a very clear idea of what his students needed to
give more thought to.”^32 Because Socrates had already given more thought to the question than they
had he was in a superior position to lead the discussions. He had at least determined more adequately
than they what the genuinely important questions are. This in itself is not discountable knowledge.
Indeed, it may even be an example of trans-historical knowledge that in its timelessness undermines
the historicist claims that lie at the root of much of the progressive and constructivist pedagogies.^33
Moreover, whereas the emphasis is rightly placed on dialog, Socrates did not eschew book
reading. In fact, in a lovely and oft quoted passage from Xenophon’sMemorabilia, Socrates points
out that a favorite and profitable activity for him and his friends is to comb through books and
The Socratic Method and John Dewey 85