PLATO
Plato (427?-347 B.C.) is the first link in a long
chain of educational thinkers to have impacted our society.As the first link,
in many ways he also provides an 
of
his writings, they reflect themes that have continued to be emphasized in
Western educational thought.Ideas of learning through questioning, of the
innate worth of the individual learner and the sanctity of his thoughts, and of
the roles of the teacher as also a learner and the learner as also a teacher
have provided the basis for modern concepts such as student centered
learning.Plato believed that all children should receive a basic education, but
that only certain young adults who show special promise should be trained in
the highest art: philosophy.Because this philosophical training formed the core
of Plato’s educational theory, I have focused on it in the first person
selection below.–Karen Larsen
In my view, education for the
philosopher has two interconnected aims, one personal and the other social.The
first aim is to help the individual to achieve knowledge of the pure concept of
Good.With this knowledge, the learner will be able to live his life wisely.The
second aim is for the learner to use his knowledge of the Good to become a just
and wise ruler.I will share with you a parable that will describe something of
my meaning.
Imagine that there were several people
that had been chained inside a cave since their birth.They are facing the cave
wall and are unable to move their heads.Light shines into the cave from the
entrance, reflecting shadows from the outside world onto the cave wall.Do you
not agree that seeing the shadows these people would think they had seen
reality?
Now imagine that one man is released
from the cave and moves out into the light.At first he will be blinded by the
light and will see worse than when he was in the cave.Gradually, though, he
will become accustomed to the light and will realize that the world he now sees
is far superior to the one he knew before.Later, he will perhaps return to the
cave to try to release his fellows.Yet when he returns, he can hardly see any
of the shadows played on the cave wall.The other prisoners may ridicule him and
will certainly refuse to believe that they could see more if they left the cave.
To me this is a metaphor for the search
for truth.Almost all people in the world are really living in darkness, only
the philosopher who has diligently sought after truth has really begun to see
in the light.Unfortunately, when he tries to show others the darkness and
ignorance that surrounds them, most of them will ridicule and even persecute
him.I should know, I lost my beloved teacher Socrates to such an ignorant mob.
I would
like to now go into more specifics of the educational method that I use at the
Academy, a school I founded in Athens.First I choose students who demonstrate
high moral character, who love learning and who have good memories.As a teacher,
I consider myself a kind of midwife, helping the students in the process of
giving birth to understanding.As such I use Socrates’ method of questioning
students as to the precise natures of important virtues like justice, courage
and wisdom.I will not allow them to give trite answers but will continue to
question until they get to the root of the true identity of the virtue.I also
give regular lectures at the Academy, but I purposefully avoid the practice of
preparing notes.This is because I want my students to spontaneously raise the
questions that come to their minds, Then we can think through the questions
together.Sometimes my students bring up questions that I cannot answer, and if
this happens I tell them frankly that I do not know the answer.I see myself as
a learner along with them.Sometimes my students’ questions also help me to
understand something more fully, and so I consider them to be my teachers as
well as my students.This is closely related to another point I want to
emphasize, that is we are all travelers on the path to true
understanding.Perhaps we will never reach a true knowledge of the good, the
important thing is that we came closer to it than we were before.As a result we
will be better people, better citizens and finally better rulers.For me this is
a very important point: the enlightened man must go back to the real world just
like the cave man went back to the cave in my parable.Knowledge would be
worthless if we never used it to help create a better society.
Karen
pointed out earlier that many modern educational ideas share something in
common with my teaching philosophy.She is right, but I would also like to point
out that there are some fundamental differences between your ideas and
mine.First, as I mentioned before, the end purpose of my educational method is
to attain to what I call “The Good”.I taught other subjects, mostly mathematics
only to train my students in the discipline of truth, which leads to the final
Good.You, on the other hand, teach course material either as an end to itself
or more importantly, as a means to another end.I am greatly saddened that so
few people seem willing to spend their time searching for the Good. that is, so
few people in your time could be called true philosophers.You may want to
consider this as the root of some of your political, social and environmental
problems.