What if: Dinner with Aristotle.

            Reading Sophie's world has got me thinking about many different philosophers, but one in particular stood out to me for many reasons. Aristotle is known for his ways of teaching, and since I want to be a teacher it was very interesting for me to learn about his ways. After thinking long and hard about what topic to do for my blog this week I decided to go with 'What if' because I wanted to ponder the possibility of having dinner with Aristotle. 
            First of all I would make sure to get reservations at a wonderful restaurant that is not too loud and has great lighting. I'd do this just to make sure he is comfortable in a place that he is probably very uncomfortable being in in the first place. Then I would begin talking to him. I feel like our conversation would be very enjoyable and quite easy since both of us have a passion for teaching. He would probably have a lot to say about categories, since this was a min factor in his teachings. I think that he would ask me many questions about our world today since it said in Sophie's World that he was a big questioner. He would most  likely ask me about how people these days are living up to the theories he had back in his time. I would explain to him that his theories about categorizing were for the most part dead on. 
            For example, he says that he could make a prediction for a group of adults as to where they would place different things if they were asked to put them into categories, and they would all put them in the same place that he had predicted. This seems to be common sense for us now, but back when he thought of it it seemed remarkable. There is one portion of his lesson that I think he should have included in more detail, and that is children.
            If I were to have dinner with Aristotle I would explain to him that his theories were correct, but he left out a huge group of people; the children! Since I do want to become a kindergarten teacher in my future, of course this is the first thing I think of when I learn about Aristotle. I would tell him that if he did the same experiment with kids the results would be completely different than what he predicted! And this is simply for the reason that kids have not gotten a chance to learn everything that adults have about how things go together. For example, an adult knows that a tractor and a farm would go together because they both have to do with farming, but a child might not realize that. I can't wait to continue reading this book and learning more about philosophers, but I think, at least so far, that Aristotle would be my first pick for a dinner!