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Miguel Sanford
23 June 2014
English 220
Instructor: Ms. Alapin
Project 1: Plato and Education in the Modern World
In Book VII of Platos The Republic, Socrates claims that, the excellence of
understanding, it seems, is definitely something more divine; it never loses its power, but
becomes useful and helpful or useless and harmful depending on how its turned (Plato 179).
This statement comes from the famous Allegory of the Cave, and I believe it is intended to
express the importance of being able to impart true knowledge from educator to pupil. In the
allegory, the cave is filled with chained prisoners who remain ignorant of the outside world. No
means of communicating genuine knowledge and understanding exists for these prisoners. They
are forever doomed to remain unenlightened. As humans, we are all prisoners in a world defined
by the duality between light and dark. An excellence of understanding can be attained in either
light or dark pursuits, depending upon how the soul and its organ is turned. But if you can
suppose that most humans strive for goodness, then achieving an excellence of understanding has
more to do with pedagogy, the art of instruction, than morality. Socrates hoped to improve the
standard of education and create politicians or Philosopher-Kings by exposing them to both light
and dark, sharpening their vision and improving their understanding of reality. Those educated
men, having been properly exposed to the light and its forms, could then possibly find
themselves in a position to create peace and civil order and design laws for social and political
justice. The result could be the reduction in the amount of chaos and destruction caused by greed
and civil war. In order to achieve the purpose of establishing a new generation of moral
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Philosopher-Kings, I believe that twenty-first century technology can be implemented with
Platonic ideology to improve the educational process at a fundamental level.
The twenty-first century began with a vast array of technological discoveries at its
disposal which have the opportunity to improve fundamental methodologies of instruction and
learning. The ability to communicate, interact, and assimilate new knowledge through electronic
mediums has shifted the paradigm of the former learning environment. Many degree programs
can now be fulfilled either partially or entirely online, yet the capabilities of these technological
advancements and their ability to harmonize with the art of pedagogy are still undetermined. As
communication becomes symbolized electronically through Facebook or YouTube or the
television media, a cultural shift occurs. In The Rise of the Network Society, Castells explains:
the new communication system radically transforms space and time, the fundamental
dimensions of human life. Localities become disembodied from their cultural, historical,
geographical meaning, and reintegrated into functional networks, or into image collages
(Castells 406). The emergence of globalization in the Information Age has increased the pace of
production and distribution of goods and services worldwide. Competition fuels the demand on
technology to improve our ability to manage time and accomplish more and more tasks within a
single day with greater precision and efficiency. Like a prisoner being led outside of the cave,
our notion of time is changing alongside the methods of communication. Educators must be able
to recognize and adapt to these cultural shifts in order to create learning methods that are
revolutionary.
Humans are like the prisoners in the cave because their reality is constantly being
constructed through the use symbolism and interpretation. Symbols convey knowledge which are
then interpreted, somewhat subjectively, by the viewer. In 2014, reality is being constructed
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electronically through networks which transmit images, text, sound, and music, and news to us
on an ever-increasing level. All realities are communicated through symbols. And in human,
interactive communication, regardless of the medium, all symbols are somewhat displaced in
relation to their assigned semantic meaning. In a sense, all reality is virtually perceived (Castells
404).A version of reality can be created electronically at faster and faster speeds, but is it
somewhat displaced from its true origin?
Plato was skeptical of the communication tool of his time: the alphabet and the practice
of writing. in Phaedrus he makes clear that writingthe burgeoning technology of his day
is a poor substitute for the lively, give-and-take exchange of face-to- face dialogue (Roth 125).
The increased reliance upon writing created the fear that the knowledge originating from oral
tradition would be forever lost from memory. It is comparable to a work that is translated from
one language to another. There is always an amount of knowledge and meaning that is lost in
translation. Writing is an aid to memory, not memory itself, a passive medium that instills in
readers the appearance of wisdom but lacks the qualities to teach true knowledge (Roth 126).
By that reasoning, the advent of electronic communication could lead to a massive amount of
knowledge that is lost from memory. For example, why force yourself to memorize all of your
friends and familys phone numbers when your phone or mobile device can perform that task
for you? Do our digital cameras remember moments in time better than we can? If modern
technology is allowing the strength of our memories to weaken, then perhaps it must be viewed
with the skepticism that Plato held for writing.
Platos advice is that teaching and learning should be interactive, personalized and
holistic, and courseware systems offer us a way to ensure this (Roth 127). Plato was in favor of
the dialogue form of education, which was essentially networking on a personal level, allowing
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everyones voice to be heard. This allows for a more vivid, expressive, and memorable
experience that can be educational. Technology is bridging the gap between cultures, places,
beliefs and ideologies. It is shortening the amount of time it takes to share someone elses
experience. The availability of access to networks is on the rise and technology like YouTube,
Skype, and Facebook is making it possible to capture and share experiences that are becoming
increasingly vivid and memorable. While Plato realized that writing was necessary to reach
larger audiences, we too must realize that our modern technology must be adopted in
advantageous ways that do not leave knowledge, in its purest form, lost from our collective
memory. With a proper amount of awareness and the correct tools for learning, we may utilize
the transitions between light and dark for the benefit of our souls education.

Reflection: I had never read The Republic or the Allegory of the Cave before and I found it to
be intriguing. The way in which Socrates describes the prisoners and their understanding of
reality is something that humans can relate to at any given era in history. I perceived the
transitions between the light and darkness of worlds to represent a confusing educational
experience. I reject the idea that the outside world is any better than the one within the cave, for
those these are all subjective. I wasnt sure how to approach the multimedia aspect of this
approach. I knew I wanted to incorporate music somehow, and I realized how many various
ways there are to learn music in the present day. Technology has really opened up a lot of doors
in that regard. The capability of reproducing and creating all new sound and vision in a digital,
electronically transmittable format has changed all the rules of education. I think the possibility
for more interactive, vivid and memorable learning experiences has yet to be fully realized.


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Works Cited

Castells, Manuel. The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture. Oxford, England:
Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. Web. 15 June 2014.
http://indahwidiastuti911.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/manuel_castells_the_rise_of_the_
network_society_with_a_new_preface_volume_i_the_information_age_economy_societ
y_and_culture_information_age_series__20101.pdf.

Plato. Republic. Trans. Raymond Larson. Wheeling: Harlan Davidson, 1979. Print.

Roth, Adam D. "Following Plato's Advice: Pedagogy and Technology for the Facebook
Generation." Journal of Philosophy and History of Education 59 (2009). Web. 15 June
2014.
http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.libproxy.unm.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=8cde3e20-
eaf0-4fb1-94d7-78f0237d7f5f%40sessionmgr4003&vid=1&hid=4108.