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ELA 5: The Cave 52 Views


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Description:

Today we're going to learn about how you're all trapped in caves, waiting for people like Shmoop to drag you out...or so Plato says anyway.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:04

[Coop and Dino singing]

00:13

The “Allegory of the Cave” sounds kind of dark and ominous. [Girl reading allegory of the cave book]

00:17

And, well, it should. In fact, this story literally begins in the dark. Bring your flashlight,

00:22

kids.

00:22

In this allegory…or “symbolic story”…Plato uses a long, extended metaphor to talk about [Plato talking about education]

00:28

the importance of education.

00:30

The story starts by telling us about a race of people who have been trapped in a cave

00:34

all their life. Like we said: dark stuff. Not an upper.

00:38

These prisoners are Plato’s metaphor for people who have never had a real education. [Arrows point to prisoners]

00:42

Now, behind these people is a fire.

00:45

And in front of the fire is a wall. A sort of…firewall. That joke will kill with computer

00:50

nerds. [Computer nerd laughing at a joke]

00:50

Anyway, on the fire-side of the wall are people holding up statues of various creatures, almost

00:55

like a puppet show. [Prisoners holding statues of creatures]

00:56

Because of how the prisoners are chained up, they can’t turn around. All they can see

01:01

are the shadows on the wall in front of them. And so they assume these shadows are real

01:05

creatures.

01:05

But then the story starts to get really interesting. Plato says, “Now imagine one of the prisoners

01:11

is released…”

01:13

… and turns around. He would see the statues, and realize that the shadows of the statues [Prisoner looks at statues]

01:17

are not the same as the statues themselves.

01:19

So yeah…this is a metaphor for the first step in the learning process.

01:23

Now…this prisoner thinks that the statues and the fire make up all of the real world.

01:28

But then Plato drops another bomb. He has the freed prisoner dragged out of the cave… [Man drags prisoner out of a cave]

01:33

… and into the sunlight.

01:35

Here, the freed prisoner sees the real objects that the puppet-statues were based on…

01:40

… and the sun in the sky that the fire was representing.

01:43

And now at last he understands that the shadows were only imitations of the statues and the

01:48

statues were only imitations of the actual things. His whole life has been one big scam. [Prisoner walking freely]

01:54

He finally understands what reality really is. Mind: blown.

01:58

In Plato’s extended metaphor, he now represents someone who has received an education.

02:03

Plato believes it’s also his job to return to the cave and help free – or educate – the [Man returns to cave and lights turn on]

02:08

others.

02:08

He’s hinting that this is also the goal of education: to drag other people into the

02:12

sunlight – or, in other words, bring students into the world of understanding. [Man drags boy into classroom]

02:17

And hopefully there will be very little actual dragging involved…

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