Peter Roberts

Project 3
English 120

My Educational Manifesto
The ability to learn and turn true fact into knowledge is more important than a teachers
curriculum. The most significant piece of work I have worked with during my first semester of
college is Platos Allegory of the Cave. The passage had many lessons stitched in the text, but
one stood out to me more than any other. To be educated you have to allow yourself to learn, and
to be wise you have to take what you lean and understand it in pure context. Students in America
have access to selective education that doesnt teach you how to understand more so than what it
is. So many concepts taught to me throughout my educational career that I only considered the
surface. I now question the level of bias and perversion that the opinions and knowledge that
were fed to me by my society had. Education is attributed to schools and tests, but every aspect
of society has the potential of leaving a lasting mark on your thoughts and conscience. This is the
truly dangerous part of our generation. We are void of the ability to break free of what we know,
because our judgments and actions were to some degree, mapped by our predecessors.
Imagine the feeling of the realization that everything you have ever known was a
perception either developed by your mind or taught to you. Pain is not real, ambition and goals
are not real, the government in essence is not real, order and chaos are not real. This feeling
would shake the earth below you and suddenly everything looks different. This is the experience
a prisoner who is allowed to escape the chains of perception feels. In Platos Republic, there are
men chained and forced to watch shadows dance across a wall, that are manipulated to by puppet
masters that the prisoners never see. Sounds are nothing but echoes, and the shadows are the only
thing the prisoners have ever known. In essence they are only seeing a shadow of a shadow of
what is actually happening. One of the prisoners is set free and forced out of the cave. The light
blinds him, and he is frightened and immediately would rather go back into the cave. The
prisoner would have rather sit in darkness, and ignorance. Once the prisoner had left the cave he
could no longer go back into the cave to be chained to the wall. He had seen the light and he
could never un-see it. This experience is an analogy for enlightenment. Before the prisoner could
be released from his bonds he had to understand that everything he knew was a lie and the world
he lived in was not as it seemed. The prisoner had to step out into the light, and once he had done
this he could see the world for its true beauty. With knowledge comes responsibility. The
prisoner ventured back into the cave to tell the rest of the prisoners what he had seen. When he
came in to the cave though, all the prisoners could see was his shadow, and hear his echoes.
They no longer recognized him, and he couldnt tell them to come out of darkness. This is an
allegory of Socrates life. He experienced enlightenment and when he came to tell his peers they
rejected and eventually killed him.

So often do I mix up what I know with what I dont. I go into classes with
misconceptions and completely different ideas that I had acquired in years before. This prevents
me from learning material. After reading the Allegory of the Cave though I understand that I am
genuinely ignorant. It was difficult at first, but I can now walk into class and learn with a fresh
slate and am able to learn material without dilution. After reading Platos Allegory of the Cave I
become more familiar with his Theory of Forms as well. Plato believes that everything has a true
form, and no matter how many have variations of an item or idea can be conceived they all root
from one essential form. This form is the original idea. Its the purpose. So many things that I
was taught in school were perverted. The idea of truth is diluted, and the truly difficult part is
seeing through the perceptions and opinions. Once one is able to proceed with only the
understanding of truth, as well as the ability to understand truth, can he/she take true fact and
begin to turn it into wisdom.
Wisdom is the ability to learn and relate it to your own personal experiences. Its when
you truly understand something and can apply it to three-dimensional applications. Its the ability
to commentate and build with thought. Wisdom more often comes with experiences and not
education. Schools teach opinions and facts, but cant take it and create a new idea with the
information. They cant in some way relate themselves too it. If schools taught students how to
conceptualize material and make it their own, retention would increase and education would be
more valued.
Our generation has problems with thinking. We have issues with problem solving as well.
Its in part due to how our education system is set up, and in part to our access to multitudes of
information at the tips of our fingers i.e. the internet, communication, etc. Instead of learning
the material, most students can Google the answer and never have to even think about the
question. This access to information has slowed our ability to conceptualize and solve problems,
because instead of understand it for ourselves, we can use other peoples opinions, and
information. Our educational systems have lost sight of the importance of free thinking and three
dimensional zing. Often times my teachers didnt understand the lessons they were teaching us
outside of the text book. They themselves understood only the surface, and nothing about how it
was discovered or in what context ideas were created in. We are influenced by media, education,
society, religion, etc. These are all perceptions taught to us that we selectively ever take a
second look into. This type of society has led to a generation of unthinking masses, who read
more incredible articles on Facebook than they will ever read in school. If schools had
curriculums more oriented towards how to think and understand, our ability to solve problems
would improve, and lead to a higher cognitive ability.
To truly be an effective student one must have the ability to learn, and expand. My father
once told me if you find a love of learning, you will never be a pour man, and Im not just
talking about money. I take this true to my heart and have tried to understand how to think.
Thinking allows one to take true fact and turn it into knowledge and wisdom. If schools could

incorporate more thinking into curriculums than it would lead to a wiser generation. My
educational manifest lies with the ability to learn more so than what you know.