I thoroughly enjoyed the guest lecture by Brendan Knight on Plato’s Cave. The story of Plato’s cave is that there are men bound to the cave facing the back wall. The light coming in from the entrance causes shadows to be displayed on the wall. These shadows are caused by things in the outside world – ‘reality’. These shadows are all that the men have experienced and therefore they believe it to be reality and are entirely unaware of the real world. The point is that you can only know of things you have experienced. Then one day one of the men breaks free and goes outside the cave. He is then faced with the real world and becomes aware of many different things he did not know before, for example – form, texture, colour and size. He was only able to know of these things through experience. He then tried to get the others to break free and embrace what he had saw but they did not want to go and were afraid to leave what they thought was their reality.

I think this relates to education as a metaphor for learning in the sense that those who are sceptical about learning certain topics can’t fully engage with them unless they step outside of their comfort zone (out of the cave). They can’t fully understand what they are learning (the reality) until they are taught and are become engaged and involved in the topic (experiencing the world outside the cave).

This can be applied not just to topics but social learning also.

Children who don’t engage socially or take part in the classroom are unaware of the benefits of it. If children are encouraged by teachers and brought out of their shells they will see the classroom and education in an entirely different light. This could change their outlook on education but also develop their social skills within the classroom and allow their behaviour to improve as a result.

The idea of Plato’s cave allows teachers to realise they have to allow children to experience and engage with things before they will fully understand both the benefits and the downfalls. And that the best was of learning is to experience.

This relates to be earlier post on ‘why teaching’ – that learning must be fun and exciting and involve physical activity in order to consolidate the learning. They must experience what they are learning in order to fully understand it.

You don’t teach the rules of netball and then expect children to know how to play the game. You must allow them to play and experience the rules in action so that they will fully understand it.