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Molly Giles
Maya Alapin
English 220-007
02 March 2015
The Original Western Views of Education: A Walk in Platos Shoes

What does education mean to you? To me, education is the key to success. Education,
today, brings people respect, status, and an overall better understanding of our world. Without
education, only a select few will rise to the top and snatch a chance at their dream job. Because I
am currently in college, and go to my classes consistently, I am lucky to be able to say that I
learn something new just about everyday. However, what about the people who do not have the
privilege of saying that? Do you think it has a negative effect at them, or do you think it effects
them at all? The Allegory of The Cave is a story many students are exposed to throughout their
educational career. For me, it was in my junior year of high school. Although there are many
ways to analyze this allegory, I am going to be analyzing it through the lens of education. Plato
believed that without education, people were not using their full potential. The Allegory of The
Cave is an example of how difficult it is to explain the purpose and positive effects of education
to the uneducated.
In order to understand what Platos views on education were, you must first know a little
bit about Plato himself. Plato was believed to be born in the year 427 BCE, and is most
commonly known as a Greek philosopher. Plato worked closely with other Greek philosophers
around that time. He was believed to be highly influenced by his teacher, Socrates, and later
Plato became the teacher of Aristotle. One of his greatest achievements included founding the

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Academy of Athens. The Academy served as a place for higher learning and was an institution
that covered a plethora of subjects from religion to love. However, Platos Academy was not a
typical school such as we have today. Instead, he would bring up and discuss problems in the real
world, and use a variety of mediums to decipher them.
In addition to having some background knowledge on Plato, it is necessary to understand
the allegory itself in order to analyze it through the educational lens. First lets start with the
prisoners. There are a group of prisoners who have been locked up in a very dark cave for the
majority of their lives. They are chained by their arms, legs, and necks, restricting them from
looking in any other direction besides forward. Behind the prisoners is a flaming fire, which
causes shadows to be projected onto the wall ahead of them. People can put on puppet shows,
and cast any type of shadow they want, and that is the only thing that the prisoners are exposed
to. To them, the shadows that are being casted is what the real world is like, beyond the cave
walls. Imagine being in the position of the prisoners. What would you think of all the shadows?
When analyzing the prisoners through the educational lens, I imagine that these prisoners
represented the uneducable and closed minded. Their visions of reality are false and confused,
and they only have one way of looking at things. They are therefore unable to have different
perspectives. Because of the way the prisoners are chained up, they do not even have the ability
to look at themselves or others. This means they do not even know their own identity, nor do
they know their peers. Plato is not only alluding to the fact that the prisoners represent the
uneducable and closed minded, but also that they do not understand their full potential or
abilities as a human being. Connecting this back to Platos biography, he probably felt this way

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about people who did not want to attend the Athens Academy and who did not share the same
craving for knowledge as him, Socrates, and Aristotle.
Lets now take a closer look at the shadows being cast on the wall. The people in the cave
deliberately casted shadows of objects onto the wall for the prisoners to see. To the prisoners,
this is all they know the outside world to be. Unfortunately, this perception of the real world is
false and misleading. To Plato, this could represent the uneducated now knowing what the world
of knowledge to be like. Although the prisoners were believed to be able to guess what the
objects were and what they were used for, they had no way of knowing what their true purpose
was. Looking at the shadows through the lens of education, we can infer that the objects
represent a world with educated beings, thriving with knowledge, and the shadows represent the
misconceptions of the educable/ uneducated.
Since we have discussed the prisoners and the shadows, we should now focus on the
return of the released prisoner. After being entrapped for a good portion of his life, one of the
prisoners is released to experience the real world. When he first enters the world, the sun is
blinding compared to the dreary darkness he has been exposed to for years. The escapee also
realized that the blinding, warm yellow sun was a key component to life. After getting a mere
glimpse of what the world outside of the cave, the former prisoner decided to return to his prison
mates in the gloomy cave. Through the educational lens and Platos views, he could be alluding
to an educated, stubborn person deciding to free their mind and learn their full potential and
meaning of their existence in the world. Ultimately, I believe Plato feels that people in this world
are meant to be educated, and that it is the job of the educated to share their experiences with
their peers.

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A crucial part of The Allegory of the Cave is the return of the former prisoner. The former
prisoner did not absolutely need to go back to share his findings with his peers, but he chose to.
Once the former prisoner returned to share his knowledge of the outside world, they could not
understand what he was trying to tell them. This reminded me of another topic in history. Many
famous people in our past had ideas that were censored for being too extreme. For example,
Copernicus and Galileo were two scientists who were the first to state that the Earth was not the
center of the universe. Copernicus and Galileo were both members of the Catholic Church. Both
men had collected evidence that then proved that the sun was actually the center of the universe,
and all planets revolved around it. They then took their evidence to publish books, that of course
only educated people could read. Although there were a good amount of people at that time who
were not educated, and did not have reading skills, the Catholic Church was furious. They did
not want people to lose faith in God, and refused to believe Copernicus and Galileo, regardless of
all their extensive scientific research. The Catholic Church has always preached that God was the
creator of the universe, therefore everything in our solar system should revolve around it. The
Catholic Church censored Copernicus and Galileos findings, fearful that it may cause a societal
distrust in the Catholic religion. What Copernicus and Galileo went through can be related to the
way the former prisoner felt. The prisoners would represent the Catholic Church, because the
majority of them were uneducated but of course very stubborn. Copernicus and Galileos lives
were at risk after their publishing of their books. Similarly, the prisoners in the cave threatened to
kill the former prisoner when he offered to set them free, fearful of what would come next.
Another example of censorship that can be compared to Platos Allegory of the Cave, is
Thomas Jefferson, and the Jefferson Bible. Thomas Jefferson is often argued to be one of the

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most distinguished, and celebrated men in American history. However, many people do not know
of the issues he had with the Christian faith and the Bible. Thomas Jefferson actually took a
Bible, read through it, and cut out all the pieces he agreed with. He then took those pieces and
pasted them in a blank book of his own. This book of his creation was then titled The Jefferson
Bible. The Jefferson Bible was obviously looked down upon by the Church, and many people
found the Jefferson Bible extremely disrespectful to the Christian faith. Therefore it was
censored by the Church. In this case, Thomas Jefferson can be related to the former prisoner, for
his creative thinking and open mindedness. Although religion is a personal belief system, and
cannot be necessarily proved wrong or right, Jefferson had his own reasons in why he believed
what he did. The Churchs closed mindedness and action of censorship can be compared to the
prisoners. The prisoners not only did not want to listen to the former prisoner, they were so
stubborn and uneducated, they did not have the ability to understand him anyway.
In my opinion, this is where the moral of The Allegory of the Cave is. The prisoners
display distrust in their peer, but looking through the lens of education, this could represent a
distrust in society and teachers. However, the fact that the prisoners are not only distrusting, but
threatening to take the life of their former peer is wretched. I believe Plato was trying to
demonstrate a reality that was occurring during his lifetime, but harshly. This problem still exists
in this world, making the lesson of this story still prevalent.
Now that we have analyzed The Allegory of the Cave, let us now connect this to the
modern day education system. It is evident that the majority of the population needs to attend
college and graduate with a degree in order to be financially stable and obtain their dream job.
People who are educated are highly respected in America, and around the world. However, are

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people going to college for intrinsic or extrinsic reasons? Do you want to attend college? Are
you eager to further expand your intellectual abilities and work toward your dream job, or are
you going to school because your parents want you to? How do you thin you will feel after you
attend college? I believe that Plato would approve of your college experience if you are took
classes outside your comfort zone, and experienced things that challenge you in all aspects of
life. Because I am an education major, I believe it will be my responsibility to inspire my future
students to rise to their full potential by taking advantage of the many educational opportunities
our country has to offer. If I do not make my future students fall in love with learning, and
encourage them to WANT to keep going to school, I will consider myself a failure. If The
Allegory of the Cave taught me one big idea it is never to take education for granted. Like I
stated before, education not only gains you respect and status, it also allows people to think
outside of the box, and sparks curiosity. Overall, there are many positive ramifications to
receiving an education, and I firmly stand with Plato and his ideals.

Works Cited:
"Plato - Biography." Plato. The European Graduate School. Web. 3 Feb. 2015. <http://ww w.e
gs.ed u/ libra r y/p lato/b io grap hy/>.
Cohen, Marc. "Allegory of the Cave." Washington University Faculty. Washington University, 7
Nov. 2013. Web. 3 Feb. 2015. <http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/cave.htm>.
"Plato: The Academy." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy. Web. 3 Feb. 2015. <http://www.iep.utm.edu/academy/>.