Socrates was the first educator in the west who put forward the enlightenment teaching or discovery method. In terms of teaching methods, Socrates formed his own unique teaching method through long-term teaching practice, which he called "Socrates method" and "midwifery". His mother is a midwife, which is a metaphor for his teaching methods. His mother's midwifery is midwifery, and his teaching principle of midwifery is to deliver babies for ideas and to guide people to produce correct ideas.

Socrates' method is always in the form of questions and answers between teachers and students, so it is also called "question and answer method". When Socrates taught students to acquire a certain concept, he did not tell them directly, but first asked the students questions and asked them to answer. If a student answers wrong, he doesn't correct it directly, but asks other questions to guide them to think, so as to draw a correct conclusion step by step. It laid the foundation for heuristic teaching.