quotes

[inavalan]

"SELF-EXPRESSION

The power of brainwashing lies in the fact that the subject is not expressing views that someone else has put in his mouth. On the contrary, he knows full well that he has generated these views himself.

Ultimately, the growing gap between his self-image as a loyal American and the fact of his increasingly long list of disloyal confessions causes what psychologist Leon Festinger called a cognitive dissonance—a jarring inconsistency in a person’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior. According to Festinger, people have a strong tendency to eliminate cognitive dissonance. If you force yourself to smile and act cheerful when you are sad, for example, you will eventually react to the cognitive dissonance by either giving up the pretense of happiness or actually becoming happy. You cannot maintain the two conflicting states for very long."

--- "The Einstein Factor", Win Wenger

[inavalan]

'SOCRATIC METHOD

Nowadays, we think of education as a process of cramming information into a student’s head. But the Latin word educare means literally “to draw out.” In ancient times, it was the educator’s job to draw out the students’ own subtle perceptions and insights.

This education followed Socratic Method. Although Socrates didn’t invent it, he greatly popularized the technique. In Socratic Method, the teacher asks a series of acute questions, forcing students to examine, defend, and describe their perceptions and ideas.

Among the many benefits of Socratic Method is that it causes students to reach their own insights and express them in their own words. As the Chinese brainwashers would no doubt agree, there is no surer way to make a lasting impact.

The word educate comes from Latin educare, “to draw out.” The ancients believed that wisdom came from within. In Classical Athens, great teachers like Socrates drew out their students’ subtle perceptions through Socratic questioning.

Socratic Method benefits the teacher as much as the student. Indeed, the ancient Greeks formed schools as much for the benefit of the learned teachers as for their students. Through teaching, the leading thinkers of Classical Greece ensured that they would have audiences before which to air their ideas and perceptions. These teachers, called Sophists, would then return the favor by drawing out the perceptions of their listeners or students, through Socratic questioning. Both sides availed themselves of a powerful feedback loop that spurred their intellect and widened their perceptions. A remnant of this system survives in the popular aphorism “If you wish to learn a subject, teach it.” '

--- "The Einstein Factor", Win Wenger