Return to your list of brainstormed topics for your educational narrative and think about how they relate to the experience of Plato’s prisoners and/or to the freed prisoner. Write a paragraph discussing any connections between Plato’s allegory and your own experience. These connections might reflect a positive experience, a negative experience, or both.
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If I were to find myself in such a situation, I’d want to be the person who escapes. Yes, I agree that it’ll be painful and it’ll take some getting used to, but I’d rather that–then stay in the dark all my life. Coming back to tell the prisoners of what I’ve discovered and found might be impossible, and it’s no secret that I’d get made fun of for it, But I feel like it’s inevitable. In all the discoveries we have in this world, I know that there had to be some people who laughed or deemed it impossible..but does that mean that it wasn’t. I’d rather be enlightened and take the pain that comes with it.
It’s interesting that the allegory seems to really give us no choice but to want to be one of the freed prisoners, and also prepare us for the challenge.
I feel like many people have experienced a similar moment described in the allegory of the cave in their transition into adulthood. As the brain develops we begin to understand more about our world, we begin to see past the shadows and into reflections, and eventually into the objects themselves. A vivid moment of this occurring began in the beginning of middle school. I had taken everything that occurred in my life as fact, as things that were just happening, never once thought about the causes or the effects. That all changed, as I slowly began to see the situation that me and my family were in. The happy family I’ve always thought I was in was indeed not what society would see as a happy family. I had a single mother, I lived in a very small apartment, we couldn’t afford any new technology and usually had to rely on gifts for clothes or toys. I noticed more and more how there were reasons for this and many other things that had happened in my past, how the interactions I’ve been in were not coincidence but rather the results of my living situation. The rotting walls, the crowded bedrooms, the sudden hour long trips, the expectation for me to succeed in school, the reason my parents didn’t get along, so many things about my world were suddenly shown to me in the light…. And I despised it. Of course I found new things to pursue at this moment. The knowledge I now had about my situation began to serve as motivation to push me to succeed in academics and to go after, with every new discovery fueling me to push to greater heights, whether I’ll reach them or not.
This sounds like a promising experience to write about for your education narrative. Is there “light” in your experience, I wonder? The details you decide to focus on should really help your experiences come alive (so to speak).
Both of my experiences relate to Plato in a sense where I perceived my educational experiences in a whole different way than others did. Since I was always in 01 classes the pace was always fast and we were supposed to understand/know everything that was being taught to us. As other classes (the outside world) were able to grasp and take their time on topics. Throughout my life I always thought I had to know things and fake it till I made it to keep up in class, which is why I never spoke up when it came to english. I was afraid of being wrong and not understanding because in my environment what I knew as real was perfection. There was no sight of confusion or mistakes from what I was capable of seeing at such a young age. And now thinking of it, maybe many other kids were as confused as I was, but all we were used to seeing was the teacher’s ideal of perfection which was going fast and having all the students understand the work without having to go over it a couple more times. It was not until I got to middle school, maybe even high school, that I was introduced to an environment that I was no longer afraid to ask questions and not understand. The teachers made it very clear it was their job to teach us and allowed us to be confused. I was at the age to understand the teacher’s job and that they were there to help me no matter the class I was in. The transition from staying quiet while I struggled to speaking out loud about it was a struggle but when I realized I academically do better when I spoke up it was impossible to go back to the other world I used to be in. The only struggle that I still battle with is feeling the need to keep up with the pace and know everything, but it is getting better.
This seems like a really promising idea and experience to write about for you paper. I like that you compare the confusion you felt to the ease and relief that it’s okay to be confused, especially if you feel free to ask questions.
When comparing my experiences with the story the allegory of the cave, got me thinking about my own experiences in my childhood. Always in the past I would feel the pressure from my parents and their constant comparing with other kids my age as learners in school. Always would they tell me about how other kids are learning faster than me or are better at doing something. This constant treatment and environment remind me about what transpired in the cave, always was I shaped by how my parents wanted me to be, these cookie cutter outcomes that my parents wanted me to be. To me these expectations were all that I knew, my parents would always berate me when I get low grades on assignments, saying that my intelligence was the sole reason to blame. Soon I became hesitant to even raise my hand in class or even talk about troubles I had in school, because of how they might view me in the class, that I should always do well in everything even if the image that they view me doesn’t really stick with me. This continued till the start of middle school, when they dropped those expectations and constant reminders about how other kids were always better than me. I began to slowly see improvements in my academics and progress was finally being made. I started do things at my own pace, and in my own way. However, this wasn’t so easy at the start, getting used to do things on my own accord was hard at first and things didn’t go smoothly, sometimes when I still don’t get concepts that I go over it would ignite this frustrating feeling in me that would tire me out. However, this hasn’t stopped me from continuing to keep learning. Finally, when I started high school is when I finally stepped out of the cave and see things more clearly. I began to see how it felt to be free from any other external pressure, the constant comparing and ridicule that I would get from my parents, and I finally began to enjoy going and being at school. I started to appreciate the new things that I would learn, I began to see myself in a new light, I stopped hating myself for not getting something the first time, because I would practice it until I got it right, and this feeling to me is irreplaceable. Being able to understand something after being stuck not grasping it in the past is a great feel, it is exactly how a prisoner released from the cave would feel if they saw the outside world from the confines of the cave. In the end, I kind of relate a lot to the prisoners in the cave, once I saw learning as a predefined thing set up by other people to fill specific models, they wanted to see you in, but once I was released from those confines I began to see learning in a completely different light. Overall, Plato’s allegory of the cave, reminds me of the struggles of my childhood and the growth I have experienced since then.
One of my experiences that relate to Plato’s story would be how I am the freed prisoner who was able to escape some of my self doubt over the years. I most definitely relate to how I once would just look at something I am given and not go out of the box or strive to be different. But later on I learned how to escape my enemies and my negative thoughts.It’s not just me being able to escape my own negative thoughts but also being able to have a lot more freedom that I lacked when I was younger. One thing I plan to write about in my educational narrative is how I managed to find my own talents and skills over the years and not keep doubting myself and my capabilities.