Okay, so this week I still find Socrates annoying in his style (the way that Plato writes him), and I still yell at the text, and still laugh when people score a point against him... but I like the question that he is so obsessed about: What role does the sophist play in the grooming virtue, moral character? What role does a wise person, with a claim to being a teacher, who in some ways takes over when the parents leave off, play in the raising of a person? In asking about virtue I feel like Socrates is more making a comment on education in general, and stating an educational philosophy (that the one on one nature of instruction is key); for him it is important that education take place for the whole person.
Its hard to begrudge a guy this... and I think that the change in the philosophies at the end of Protagoras is really interesting when we think of it in terms of educational philosophy. Protagoras claims that he will help a student develop wisdom/virtue in many things, and later is baffled and starts to think virtue is not teachable. Socrates goes the other way of course, at the end begging for more instruction in virtue. Nature verses nurture again, and it likely lands somewhere in the middle. I was intrigued with Protagoras brought up how we don't blame people for "natural" deficiencies (like being physically weak), and we blame them completely if they have a moral deficiency... and we punish them because we believe that people can learn to be virtuous. This was a pretty good argument and I was on board. Then Socrates points to the vague-ness of virtue: we don't really know how it works. Which, surprisingly, was also an interesting point and lead me to believe that virtue is not so clear cut.
So, right now I am pretty convinced that we have been having very similar arguments about people, education, and the role of teachers for a long time... and still don't have any answers.