Plato's Allegory Of The Cave: Unrestrained Learning

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave poses an ancient challenge: design education systems of unrestrained learning. Until society learns unfettered, we remain “strange prisoners” living in caves of educational impediment. Now, as then, we must change the way we teach so students “grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world”. They’ve risen to a new era once enhanced learning permeates student habits of study. To visualize what happens in a future of liberty, look at literacy. Literacy acts as a symbolic gateway to greater learning. It illustrates the power handed an individual to stride beyond past limitations. Malcolm X, a famous civil rights spokesperson, ruminates on literacy and incarceration, “months passed without my even thinking about being imprisoned…I never had been so truly free in my life…when this new world opened to me, of being able to read and understand”. Yet literacy alone, however primary, eliminates none of the other bottlenecks students encounter. Apprehending the imperative to pave the way for accelerated learning of this type

Carol Dweck, a Stanford psychology professor with expertise in motivation, has documented success with school age children around developing what she calls a “growth mindset”. An intervention workshop ran 7th graders through an eight-session study. Those receiving lessons in the growth mindset and guided in application to their studies showed a marked performance advantage to those covering study skills alone. Such a result strongly shapes the outlook for future development of study skills along a tightly coupled framework. Naturally, her growth mindset advance, with its “focus on the learning process and [demonstrations to the children of] how hard work, good strategies, and good use of resources lead to better learning,” suggests an advantageous and proven