What Can We Learn from How Socrates Dominates Thrasymachus in Plato’s Republic?

Abstract

In this paper I will show how Socrates dominated Thrasymachus by failing to create a relationship with Thrasymachus in which meaningful learning could occur. Although this is a negative example of how a teacher did not help a student learn, from it I believe that we can learn the importance of creating relationships with our students to help them learn and thereby modeling for them how to create such relationships with their students. Listening to, respecting, and responding to our students as they are, to their questions, and to their motivations to learn or not to learn are essential ways for us to help them learn what they and we believe is important for living fulfilling lives. This is justice in teaching.