Philippine Normal University

The National Center for Teacher Education

Mindanao
Multicultural Education Hub

Name: Khaira Racel Jay A. Pucot

Year & Section: BSSE-IV Score: _____________

PSSJ7 (Disciplinal Thinking in Social Science)

REFLECTION

In the process of teaching and learning, the teachers are dealing with the different type
of learners. They are different in terms of their learning styles, capacities, potentials, social
status, gender, races, and culture. To provide all the needs of the learners and achieved the
expected outcomes and make learning an effective and efficient, the teacher must have variety
of teaching styles. Last meeting we discussed about Socratic Dialogue, Socratic Methods,
Platonism, The Republic and The Ideal State. These topics give great influence to me as a
future educator.

First topic is the Socratic dialogue. As it was defined, it is a formal method by which a
small group, guided by a facilitator, finds a precise answer to a universal question. This helps
the group to discover what something is, as opposed it what it isn’t. Upon understanding the
report, I learned that this method gives me an idea on applying this method to my future
students. It doesn’t give pressure to the students because they will just base their answer to
their own experience, simple and brief and not too emotional. Aside from that, Socratic dialogue
is neither a debate nor any other kind of competition; there are no winners and losers. I can
say that Socratic dialogue helps the students develop their critical thinking skills because they
will find the universal answer to the given question. Aside from developing the critical thinking
skills, their confidence will also develop. Thus, I can say that this strategy is good to be use in
the future.

Second topic is the Socratic Method. As it was discussed, it is also can be known as
maieutic, method of elenchus or Socratic debate, is a form of cooperative argumentative
dialogue between individuals, based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical
thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presumptions. It is a dialectical method,
involving a discussion in which the defense of one point of view is questioned; one participant
may lead another to contradict themselves in some way, thus weakening the defender's point.
Aside from that, this method searches for general, commonly held truths that shape beliefs and
scrutinizes them to determine their consistency with other beliefs. This method would help to
develop the number of skills of students and helps to have an excellent instructional tool for
educators because it is employed to bring out definitions implicit in the interlocutors' beliefs, or
to help them further their understanding. As a future 21st century educator, I can say that this
method is very helpful because it teaches students to think quickly and through this method,
the critical thinking skills of the students will surely develop.

Third topic is the Platonism. Platonism refers to the philosophy that affirms the existence
of abstract objects, which are asserted to "exist" in a "third realm" distinct both from the
sensible external world and from the internal world of consciousness, and is the opposite of
nominalism. Furthermore, Platonism is the view that there exist such things as abstract objects
— where an abstract object is an object that does not exist in space or time and which is
therefore entirely non-physical and non-mental. Platonism in this sense is a contemporary view.
Through this topic, I can say that we must view objects real meaning not just its physical
appearance. As what I’d understand, in the future I must know the reasons behind the
characteristics and attitude that showed by the students. We must not judge on what we see
but we must go further and know its in depth meaning or reasons.

Forth topic is The Republic. The Republic's central theme is justice. What is it, and why
should we want it? In Book I, one of Plato’s characters named Thrasymachus argues that
justice is merely "the advantage of the stronger". Whoever controls society gets to define what
justice is, and they will inevitably define it to further their own interests. Justice is just a social
construct that society brainwashes its members into believing.
By analogy to the just city, where the philosophers rule over the masses, Plato defines the just
man as one whose rational part of the soul rules over the appetitive and spirited parts. Because
this is independent of society, Plato’s justice is "objective". Because being a rational person is
better than being a total glutton or an excessively violent person, Plato argues that being just is
better than being unjust.

Last is the Plato’s Ideal City-State. Plato describes the ideal state at length and
concludes that his ideal state is the only truly natural form of polis. Plato reaches his conclusion
by first explaining what characteristics an ideal city would have. Plato states first that the polis
comes into being because no person is completely self-sufficient. An ideal state, he reasons will
exist when each person does only what he is naturally suited for in order to guarantee the best
quality work. The object of the ideal state is for the city as a whole to be as happy as nature
allows, which is accomplished through specialization. After explaining the various specifics of
the different specialized levels of labor needed for the ideal city, including the producing class
and a class of guardians, he concludes that this ideal city centered on strict specialization based
on natural talent is completely good. In his claim, we can define justice as facilitating nature
and obviously existing in conjunction with nature. This means that a state can only be natural if
it is just, as defined by Plato, a condition not present in any existing state. Hence, we reach the
conclusion that no state is natural except Plato’s ideal state.