Plato Reflection Paper

Through Socrates, Plato explains that the role of the teacher is to instruct, but equally important is the role of the student who is to have the desire to learn and gain knowledge. At first glance it would be difficult to imagine that I could identify any similarities between my twenty-first education and the writings of a Greek philosopher from 380 B.C. However, after contemplating deeply about my educational experience, I believe there is relevance between Plato’s writings in The Republic and my education. For Plato, the desire to learn, or seek the truth, is a person who is facing the sunlight. As I evaluate my own education, I have come to understand that it has taken me many years to turn into the light and become a seeker of knowledge. Prior to high school, I was a reluctant student and I stood with my back to the sun. I did not possess a quest for knowledge or understanding. In high school, the teachers had a great care for their disciplines and guiding their students and ever since I have been facing the sunlight. For me, high school was a

From the sun, which is the ultimate form, the individual realizes the form of the good is the foundation of all other forms and the basis of all goodness. Truth and exquisiteness of the world and helps an individual reach an understanding, which is the uppermost stage of the cognitive mind. The entire purpose of the allegory of the cave is to move beyond it. The main motivation of the individual is to acquire experience outside of the classroom to get a better idea and image for themselves and to have their own opinion. If one can move beyond the cave and into the light of day then that prisoner can possibly go back into the cave and clarify to the others who are in there what there is beyond the cave. But these individuals will most likely misunderstand him because he will be contradicting everything they have ever understood to be