Midwifery in Mentorship

Melanie Bengtson
1/31/17

In this section of Theaetetus, Socrates referred to himself as a midwife several

times. I interpreted this as he is a midwife of knowledge, being that person that can

bring forth knowledge from a person, without actually knowing the subject itself, just like

a midwife helps bring life into the world without giving birth herself. In 150c, Socrates

explains “For one thing which I have in common with the ordinary midwives is that I

myself am barren of wisdom.” And then he proceeds to explains that he is the one

asking the questions, and not providing any answer. He does this because he yearns to

birth and develop a soul, and not a body. He accomplishes this by letting his peers

discover the knowledge within themselves. It is a very clever analogy, how he uses his

lack of knowledge to question his peers and challenge them to explore their inner soul.

I think that as a mentor, it is important to remember to let your mentee explore

their own beliefs and knowledge by challenging them and not always providing the

simple answer right away. It is important because they need to be able to have their

own experiences and learn from those as well as taking their mentor’s knowledge and

perspectives into consideration. Just like how in my last reflection, I mentioned how

knowledge is not only reciting information, but it is being able to provide evidence from

experience. Mentees are not just there to soak up lectures of knowledge all the time,

they are there to be guided by their mentor in having their own experiences. In a way, a

mentor is sort of like a midwife in the way that sometimes we may not have the correct

knowledge about a given subject, but that does not mean that we are then useless, it

just means that it is an opportunity to act as a midwife and let them discover it on their

own with their mentor there as a peer of support and guidance.