How Does Plato's Allegory Of The Cave Relate To Education

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Plato is an ancient Greek philosopher who was considered to be the father of educational philosophy. Plato used to be a follower of Socratic in education. He is the one who founded the Academy in Athens and wrote many philosophical works including The Republic, which outlines Plato's utopian society and his thoughts about political and educational issues (Gutek, 2009). Historically, Plato's beliefs in philosophical thought are the idea of perennials, perennials is an educational philosophy based on idealism. Idealism is directly traced to Plato, with concepts of the idealistic perspective influencing education today. Plato is a good reason and the most influential philosopher in Western civilization. He makes people think and for Plato, He …show more content…
In the Allegory of the Cave, the prisoners are chained in darkness in a cave. They see only shadows, which they take for reality. One prisoner is freed from his chains, advances up the steep slope and walks into the sunlight where he sees the true source of heat and light. He remembers his friends in the cave and returns to tell them off he has discovered outside but prisoners did not believe him and but rather threaten him. According to Ozmon and Craver (2008), people live in "a cave of shadows and illusions, chained to our ignorance and apathy" (p. 8). When a prisoner loosens his chains, he can begin his education. The good teacher leads the student as far as capable (Reed & Johnson, 2000). To Plato, knowledge is not created but it is discovered through education and where education is the process of turning everyone’s mind in the right direction, specifically in the search for the nothing but the truth. The essence of education is nurturing of the student and making them believe that education is very important to every human life that everyone should acquire and study for it is their way here in worldly life. Nettleship (1935) stresses that Plato sees the human soul as "emphatically and before all else something living, something which we can feed or starve, nourish or poison" (p. 5). Plato has seen education as the method for providing the natural and proper nurture of the souls of every human being. Plato also believes that the young are plastic and malleable and that those who impact the young must take care in the handling and shaping of young minds and bodies. Besides, developing every human’s knowledge base and the physical being of the young, Plato also promotes a foundation of character education whereby to take care and teach a child who is growing up and make a child believe that to make herself greater is to

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