Plato's Allegory Of The Cave Essay

In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, Plato depicts that humans are prisoners in a cave of everyday life. The prisoners in the story represent the typical human who is unaware of what reality is. Because the only thing they see is the shadows, they believe that the shadows are reality when they are not. Those shadows are meant to represent what a typical person believes is true. At the end of the allegory, Plato states that learning is not like a process of “filling” up a bucket, or soul, with information. It is not passive receiving of information. Learning is process of active participation. Although I agree with Plato that learning requires active participation with others and the outside world, my own claim is that as highly valuable education …show more content…
Looking back at Plato 's Allegory of the Cave the prisoners had very little interaction. All the communication they had was with each other and the interaction with the world were only shadows. Such little interaction and communication can affect a persons education, as you can see in the freed prisoner who was set off into the real world. Freire states, “Knowledge emerges only through inventions and reinvention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry from human beings pursue in the wold, with the world, and with each other.” In other words, Friere believes that in order to gain knowledge people need to communicate with others and the world surroundings. I agree because if you are always isolated form other people and the outside world, you are not correctly gaining the knowledge and understanding of life principles. But homeschooling would probably object that outside interaction is not necessary for proper education and development. Although I grant that homeschooling could be a very well way to educate a student, I still maintain that interaction and dialogue with other students and/or educators is the proper way to educate someone so they are not only seeing and thinking of life just through their consciousness and their homeschool educator. You can gain more knowledge and a deeper consciousness by communicating with more …show more content…
The curriculum needs to become more centered on the students. It does not make sense that students will be able to become independent learners if they are told what they need to know and that they need to store the knowledge somewhere in their brain. You can not learn to be your own person if you are always told what you should and should not know throughout your whole life. Students should have some power to what they get from their education. But not all the power goes into the students’ hands. Teachers need to incorporate the students’ views with their peers to create more communication than narration. This very much connects with Friere’s solution of “problem-posing” education in which, “The teacher presents the material to the students for their consideration, and reconsiders her earlier considerations as the students express their own.” In his solution, the teacher is creating, with the students, how a common belief is concealed by true knowledge. I believe by having a student-centered curriculum, students will gain a deeper consciousness of being in the