Hill

Jacob Hill
English 220
Ms. Alapin
1/29/15
Plato wrote an allegory about the education of his time and his
vision for the future. The allegory has three main parts, from inside a
cave of entrapment, next a man is freed from the chains that held him
back and let to discover a whole new world, and then lastly he
describes his vision for the future. Hundreds of years later connections
can be made from his allegory to today. Education transcends many
generations but the problems Plato describes in his allegory are some
of the same faced today.
The book opens with a description of a cave with many men
chained, as it is described in the text, chained foot and neck since
childhood. The chains keep them in place and prevent them from
turning their heads, so that they can only see forward (Larson 175).
The only thing these men can see is the projection of shadows from
behind them. There is a pathway behind these men where people and
animals pass by. The shadows are of royalty, prosperity, and confusion
for these men. Chained all images they see are of distorted and
magnified persons.

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Connects can be made between the harsh imprisoned conditions

of the cave and the chains people today are chained with when it
comes to the classes the population of today are subjugated into. The
separation of wealth and privilege has always been a defining problem
in society, in the fact that we are treated differently depending on our
status. The people in the cave who are chained are a metaphor for the
lowest class in society. Chained so it is incredibly difficult to move up in
the world or out of the cave in this instance. In terms of education it is
evident that there is a strong link between socioeconomic status and
educational success. According to Carla OConnor of the university of
Michigan status plays a major role in achievement. She says, it is a
matter of how structures of opportunity and constraint come to bear on
the educational chances of the poor to either expand or constrain their
likelihood of achieving competitive educational outcomes (165). Also
according to author Eric Jensen, Children raised in poverty rarely
choose to behave differently, but they are faced daily with
overwhelming challenges that affluent children never have to confront,
and their brains have adapted to suboptimal conditions in ways that
undermine good school performance (Chapter 2). Both of these
quotes show the constraints that Plato was referring to are the same
that OConnor is suggesting.
In the cave was pathway that was backlit by a fire so whoever
would cross the bridge would cast a shadow to the chained people

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below. These shadows which greatly over represented reality were the
only thing that the chained people got see other than their normal
world. The shadows symbolize the nobility or the classes that were
above the enchained people. The people on the bridge had freedom to
do as they wish and go where they wanted, which I doubt the prisoners
could even imagine such freedom. This freedom must have seemed
like inhuman or not of themselves because the shadows were so
greatly enlarged and ill-defined. The text refers to this as well by
saying, such prisoners would ever see anything of themselves
(Larson 175)? This relates to education in the way that more education
a person has the more freedoms they enviably receive. An example of
this would be a person who was chained by there education as a
child, is less likely to move in class so their children are not chained
like they were.
The text brings up an interesting point to the cave story. Suppose
you take one of these people out of their chains and out of the only
environment they have ever know what would happen? All of the
things they thought would totally be different. The sun and light and all
the people who they thought were much larger and different from
them would turn out to be the same. Although the freedoms would be
totally immense and awesome to someone who has been chained their
whole life. This can relate to education in that if a student from an
underprivileged school or area were to transfer to a school or area that

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had all of the resources it could ever need it would feel night and day
to that student. A case is to be made that the student who was chained
but is no longer would catch up and become equal to the people
walking across the bridge the whole time. This would not be achieved
easily because the above ground world would be unquantifiabley
different and changeling to the new comer because it has never known
a world like this.
If the man were to return to the cave the prisoners who did not
see the world for what it actually was they would never believe the
man and his stories because the cave is all they know. Their brains do
not have the power to think of such realities. This is the same for
education. If a student made it out of poverty and became educated
then returned to their home. It is unlikely that anyone from home
would accept the student because that is not what he or she knows to
be true.
The text explains the virtues of being educated and the success
that it could bring. Plato compares knowing many times as something
divine and virtuous, the power of learning inheres in everyones soul
excellence of understanding it seems, is definitely something more
divine; it never loses its power (Larson 179). Knowing he says
education is something common which all skills, knowledge, and
thought use. He means that education is the base for which we all use.

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Plato threatens that the uneducated have no target in life and would
be unable to climb and see the good. In todays society a vision or a
target is so important. Education is still something common which all
skills, knowledge, and thought use. This is true because a person can
be anything they want but one must know how to do it. Plato says how
important teaching everyone at least a little of a few different subjects
could be to their society. Todays society demands perfection and
education should not be any different.
In conclusion this parable for its age brings up many points about
a complex subject of education. Beginning in the cave of lower class
and people chained by their status, then to freedom of being able to
see what the real world is an can provide, and complexity of returning
to where one comes from, then finally the promise of an educated
public. Plato described being uneducated and chained and imprisoned,
today being poor or in a lower class has the same effects as Plato was
describing many generations ago. Education would be the art of
turning this organ around in the easiest most effective way- not of
implanting sight, which it already has, but contriving to turn the organ
around to look where it should.

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Work Cited
Carla OConnor, "making sense of the complexity of social identity
in relation to achievement: Sociological Challenge in the new
millennium." Sociology of education extra issue 2001. Web. January 29,
2015.

Jensen, E. Teaching with poverty in mind: What being poor does to kids'
brains and what schools can do about it. Alexandria, Print, 2009.

Platos Allegory of the Cave: Implications for Education. Blogs

commons Georgetown, 06 Mar 2009. Web. January 29, 2015.