Thinking is often characterized as an internal dialogue because we make use of words even in our private reflections. Dialogue with another often helps us to clarify further to ourselves just what we really do mean, especially when the other has asked the right questions. A good teacher is able, through the right questions to make us aware of our most basic ideas in the light of which we are able to make judgments about other things. This is why Socrates searched the souls of his disciples with questions. If any responded saying "I have heard such and such...", he would invariably reply: "But what do you think?" He was not asking for their opinion; he was asking just what they really thought and knew about things. It is not easy to say accurately just what we really think. Often upon hearing a response, Socrates would ask, "But don't you also think such and such about it? How do these two ideas fit together?" And so the discussion would go until the disciple began to harmonize his own thoughts. Socrates was not ready to quit until the disciple delivered his own brain child by his own labor, for until the disciple could bring his own concept out and into the "light of day"; he would never know what he really knew.
We take each concept recommended by a state for a particular grade level. We break it into a series of sub-concepts. These concepts are taught by asking and not by telling! Our instructors ask a lot of questions - each carefully designed to probe the depths of the student's knowledge as well as misconceptions. The dialogues are designed to help the student "discover" the knowledge, construct it in her own words and articulate it from within. The questions are numerous, but each pushes a student's understanding of a concept to a new higher level. Because the students are constantly articulating new ideas about the concept under discussion, misconceptions are very easy to catch and rectify.
