Lesson 6: Learning and Thinking in Athens
MATERIALS:
 Textbook or PowerPoint presentation on philosophers
OBJECTIVES:
In this lesson, students will:
 Compare and contrast their own education with that of ancient Athenian
boys.
 Identify and reflect on the big ideas of famous Greek philosophers.
 Analyze the influence of Greek philosophy on our culture today.
Goal 1
x
Goal 2
x
Goal 3
Goal 4
Goal 5
x
Vocabulary:
 Philosophy / philosopher
PROCEDURES:
Preparation:
 This lesson asks you to lead a Socratic-style
discussion. This will be a good warm-up for the
Socratic Seminar, which is later in the unit, and
will show student how Socrates taught and why it
was so different from other teachers and schools.
In order to do this well, you have to prepare a bit.


First, decide on a topic (there are suggestions
listed below). It should be close to students’
experience. Is the class having friendship
troubles? Ask what is friendship. Are kids
struggling with their new label of gifted? Ask what
is giftedness.
You might find it helpful to have your own “cheat
sheet” with Socratic questioning stems. When in
doubt, ask a student why they think a certain way
and if anyone asks a question, ask them what they
think the answer is. This will get you a long way.
Introduction:
 Briefly review what was discussed in the previous
lesson about daily life and government in Athens
and Sparta.
Learning Activities:
 Using their notes about Greek children’s schooling
from lesson 5 and using page 120 in the text (or
TEACHER NOTES:
Don’t be intimidated by the
thought of leading a Socratic
dialogue. Kids are great
philosophers. For proof and
some example Socratic
dialogues, check out Socrates
Café by Christopher Phillips.
A quick Google search for
“Socratic questioning” will
yield many teacher-created
pages with tips on how to use
Socratic questioning in the
classroom.
Lesson 6: Learning and Thinking in Athens
another source about ancient Greek education) as
a reference, have students create Venn diagrams
comparing and contrasting Athenian educational
practices with Spartan ones.

Ask the class to guess which polis produced the
most famous thinkers: Athens or Sparta.
Encourage students to support their answers with
facts.

Explain that some of the most famous thinkers in
history were Athenians. Ask: what was it about
Athenian culture as opposed to Spartan culture
that influenced its citizens to think about and
discuss big ideas? (less militaristic society, more
emphasis on the individual)

Ask students to quietly gather on the floor, close
their eyes, and visualize sitting in the Athenian
agora. Say something like: You are sitting outdoors
under a long colonnade with all the hustle and
bustle of the marketplace all around you. You can
hear the sound of vendors selling grain, olive oil,
wine, figs, and produced goods such as pottery and
cloth. You can smell the incense burning in the
temples of Hephaestus, the god of craftsmen,
Aphrodite, the goddess of love, and Hermes, the
messenger god. You see people going in and out of
the tall, marble temples, the law court, and the
mint where they produce all of Athens’ coins.
There are people all around you going about their
daily business: shopping, working, or worshipping
at the temples, but you are seated here under this
colonnade to listen to the famous teacher and
thinker named Socrates speak. And as you open
your eyes I want you to imagine that it is Socrates
that is asking you, “What is wisdom?” (or learning
or friendship or giftedness or any other topic
pertinent to this group of kids. The closer to their
experience, the better. )

Lead students in a Socratic discussion. You can let
this go on for as long as you’d like. Socratic
discussions tend to end with more questions than
answers; so don’t worry about ending things
Grouping Tip:
Making the Venn diagram
could easily be an individual,
small group, or whole-group
activity.
Having kids change locations
(from desks to floor) for the
visualization and subsequent
discussion makes it seem
different and special. It also
gives kids a chance to move.
Lesson 6: Learning and Thinking in Athens
without a neat conclusion. The idea here is for
students to get a taste of what made Socrates and
his teaching style so special.

As students return to their seats, Ask: What did
you think about that discussion? How was
Socrates’ way of teaching different than other
teachers?

Explain that Socrates met with people all the time
and had those kinds of discussions. He believed
that wisdom was the greatest thing someone could
have and that any wrong people did was because
of their ignorance. Therefore, if people could
become wise they would also become good,
because they would know the right things to do.
Socrates and people like him were called (and are
still called) philosophers, which in Greek literally
means lovers of wisdom.

To further expand on Socrates, Plato, and
Aristotle, you could either have students look at
pages 133-134 in the text or put together a brief
PowerPoint with information about each
philosopher (there are some ready-made
PowerPoints that you could modify on Mr. Donn’s
history page, which is listed in the Resource
section of this unit.)

Key ideas: Socratic method and Socrates’ influence
on Plato, Plato’s theory of forms, Plato’s influence
on Aristotle, Aristotle’s contributions to Science
and the idea of the philosopher-scientist

Take some time to have students think about and
discuss these philosophers’ ideas. It’s more
important for students to wrestle with some of
these ideas than memorize them.
Closure:
 Ask students to reflect on the ways in which the
concept of influence is seen here. (i.e. beginning
the field of philosophy, the way they influenced
each other, the aspects of government influence in
Socrates’ death, etc.) What generalizations do
Lesson 6: Learning and Thinking in Athens
these observations support?
Extensions:
 This list of three philosophers just scratches the
surface of Greek philosophers and philosopherscientists. The whole class or individual students
could study Hippocrates, Pythagoras, Archimedes,
Anaxagoras, Aristotle, etc. Some of these men are
in the textbook, but information about all of them
is easily available online and in children’s books
about ancient Greece.

Invite a philosophy professor from a local college
or university to come in and speak to the class
about what a philosopher does. This person could
speak to the influence that these three
philosophers had on the philosophy in general as
well.

Some students may want to start a philosopher’s
club, in which they meet to have philosophical
discussions on various topics. This could happen
during the school day (perhaps a brown bag lunch
club) or after school.

Alexander the Great was deeply influenced by his
teacher, Aristotle. Have students research this
relationship and the influence it had on
Alexander’s life and on the later spread of
Hellenistic culture.
Homework:
DD: philosophy
Other HW options:
 Which philosopher do you think was the most
important or influential? Write a paragraph with
reasons to support your argument.


Do you think you’d like to have Socrates, Plato, or
Aristotle for a teacher? Write a paragraph with
reasons supporting your choice.
Philosophers wonder about all kinds of things.
What do you wonder about? Write down some
Questions kids come up with
can be the basis of later
Socratic discussions. Students
can vote on what they’d like
Lesson 6: Learning and Thinking in Athens
questions you wonder about in your notebook and
bring them to class tomorrow.
to discuss or you could choose.