Rhetoric and Education

Rhetoric and Education

Rhetoric is one of the oldest forms of educational methods in the ancient world; the practitioners of this form of education are called sophist or orators. Sophists were paid to teach people the oratory or speech, a sophist did not carry texts or teach how to write their whole educational system was done orally, it’s the same as teaching a person how to be a better public speaker to win elections or higher seats in the council by dazzling the audiences with their slick talking and word play. Sophist were brutally criticized by other scholars such as Plato who states that a sophist is more concern with appearance rather than substance in his play called Gorgias, another scholar who did not refer to himself as a scholar stated that a sophist spend their time trying to make a bad idea seem like a good idea, usually to suit their needs. Speech and words are very powerful weapons to a sophist, matter of fact one of secretes’ accuser a man by the name of Lycon who himself was an orator; Socrates used his methods of truth seeking to make a mockery of him. Aristotle was the sophist who discover the topic or its Greek name topoi, topics were use to make better arguments and to give a starting point to a discussion.
The greatest orator was a man by the name of Marcus tullius Cicero, he was the one responsible for what is regarded as the greatest tool to a rhetorician which was called the canon, this consist of invention; which is basically coming up with the idea to be discussed, arrangement; setting the idea in a way it flows well, which will eliminate confusion from the audience, style; how you present the product, it could be hard, sad and even happy, memory; not having to look at the written text every time, you must keep eye contact with the audience, and delivery; speaking the words and making them make sense to the audience to keep their attention.
After Rome fail and the Christians took over, rhetoric underwent many different changes one change was the most significant, traditional rhetoricians did not use text but under the new regime they were not using text books to write down their arguments, St. Augustine was the person who actually saved the rhetoric’s tradition from being erased, he acknowledge the rhetorician could use their style of persuasion to teach the Christian bible to the people.