Socratic Method
A teaching technique based on rigorous questioning — the teacher asks open, probing questions rather than supplying answers, leading students to examine their own assumptions and reach understanding by reasoning.
Origin and idea
Named after the Greek philosopher Socrates, the method is over 2,400 years old but remains one of the most powerful tools in modern teaching. The teacher's job is not to deliver knowledge but to ask the right next question — 'Why do you think that?', 'What is the evidence?', 'What would change your mind?'
Where it fits in school
Socratic questioning shines in Literature, History, Civics, Philosophy and Science discussions where there is more than one defensible answer. It is also effective in Math — asking 'Why does that work?' rather than 'What's the answer?' deepens conceptual understanding.
The Socratic teacher
A Socratic teacher tolerates silence, never punishes a wrong answer, and rewards the child who asks the next question. Done well, it builds the most valuable academic habit of all: thinking before speaking, and speaking with reasons.
Related terms
Inquiry-Based Learning
A pedagogy where the lesson starts with a question or problem and students investigate, hypothesise and arrive at understanding — rather than receiving information first.
Peer Learning
A structured approach where students learn from and with each other — through pair work, group projects, peer tutoring and discussion — rather than only from the teacher.
Bloom's Taxonomy
A framework, first proposed by Benjamin Bloom in 1956 and revised in 2001, that classifies learning into six levels — Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyse, Evaluate, Create — from simplest recall to most complex thinking.