Perhaps disgruntled is too harsh a word; frustrated may be more appropriate. While I understand both the origin and aim of the Socratic Method, I have personally never found it very useful. Many will disagree with me, and that's just fine. My brain just isn't wired to function that way. Perhaps this is why I did not study philosophy (that and the fact that it seemed like a perfect waste of a degree to me) I would much prefer to listen to a well-crafted lecture on a subject, take appropriate notes and supplement those with the text, study, and take a test. It is quite irritating to me to spend a great deal of time preparing for a class by learning material that is not directly related to that on the final, spend all of class listening to a professor ask me questions and answer all of my questions with more questions. If one of my students had asked me "What happens if I do not keep the airplane coordinated when I stall?" and I answered, "What is the purpose of coordination?" how would my student feel about my services as an instructor? Granted, if we had covered this topic on previous occasions, I will be more likely to help them discover the answer themselves, but before they can do that, I should have taught them the answer in the first place. Returning to my previous scenario, the student stalls the airplane without maintaining proper coordination and a wing drops, the student panics and attempts to recover using aileron. The classic spin develops.
Student: "What do I do now?"
Me: "Why is the airplane spinning?"
Student: "I didn't stay coordinated??!"
Me: "How do you recover from a spin?"
Student: "How do I recover from a spin?!"
Me: "Didn't you read that last night?"
Student: "Yeah, but I had some questions about it..."
Me: "Well, we'd better figure it out pretty quick **Sound of Impact**
Ok, so I'll admit, different subjects might call for different approaches. Regardless, I much prefer discussing the substance rather than learning the material in a roundabout manner. I guess I'm just too direct.
The material: fascinating. The procedure: irritating.
ciao,
Jeff C.
