Today’s societies have inculcated theories over proper growth of ideas within our educational systems. School districts are mere minor institutions of politics with the wealthy and avaricious reigning on top, ruling their citizens for their own greater satisfaction or to add an extra medal to their career. Education has turned into a ploy of who can make the most connections as students find the best way to achieve a passing letter grade rather than scavenging every crumb of learning their mentors drop. As a student of secondary education, I was blinded, believing every decision made in the district by our generous board members was made to benefit its people, a community made of teachers, administration, and students. However, during my second semester of senior year, the board passed a decision to lay off 119 teachers in the district that awakened me to the truth: the people in power were not there for my ultimate wellbeing. Through the months that led to the final trial, hidden truths were uncovered that only drove the district to a split – community vs. board. As an editor of student journalism, it became my duty, and those of my school newspaper, to speak up for those who were afraid to do so. After countless days of dedicated work, interviewing, and advocating for our educators, all Reduction in Force notices were rescinded on May 10, 2024.

Yet, this momentous result would have never happened without the standing up of our younger student body and the presence of parent involvement. In conversation with my peers after the excitement of our achievement, we all agreed that the layoff of teachers and the instant reaction to advocate for them had been an area of growth and true learning. Some even argued more so than any lesson taught or discussion had within the confines of a classroom. In retrospect, I realized that this immense progress and personal growth would not have occurred had I not read and been exposed to transformative texts over a program in the summer. Learning from these ancient works had taught me how important it was to take my education into my own hands rather than being laid back and waiting for it to be spoon fed to me. In recollection of the impact these philosophers, playwrights, and public justice figures had on me, eventually pushing me to stand up for those who couldn’t and being brought into the light about the injustice occurring in the district, I found it crucial to argue how today’s institutions fail at bringing students to their true academic potential. Plato and Richard Rodriguez argue that true education involves radical transformation and disrupting existing structures, and is not a regurgitation of facts nor cycles of intellectual imitation. Therefore, Plato and Rodriguez would identify my own experience fighting the school system as leaving the cave and being awakened to the possibility of true education rather than false knowledge.

Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” (Plato Book IV) can be used to understand the process by which students began to think for themselves and fight the school system. In his allegory, Plato’s prisoners are chained inside a dark cave, facing a wall, where they see only shadows of objects behind them, cast by a fire. These shadows are the only reality they know. One prisoner is dragged by chains into the light and discovers the outside world, realizing the shadows are mere illusions. He continues to learn from the world around him, becoming more enlightened as he realizes his past was all a lie. Determined to show his previous companions the truth of the reality outside of the cave, he is met with resistance and disbelief to the point where his friends end up wanting to kill him.

In the modern example of the teacher layoffs, the Cave or the Shadows in the story are paralleled with the public not being aware of the school boards decisions or the happenings occurring within the district. Students are driven by the quantity of grades rather than quality of education, living off of the system rather than closely inspecting it. The man that is dragged out of the cave and into the light represents the individuals that were exposed to the news of teachers being laid off. Reality shifts when the students begin to stand up and fight for social justice. Rather than waiting for facts to be freely laid upon us, we were forced to go out and reach for our education and thus pursue a truer and better one by advocating for our teachers.

Because of this, I firmly believe that Plato would criticize the modern education system due to its inability to bring about personal enlightenment. As he states in the Republic, “Education isn’t what some people declare it to be, namely, putting knowledge into souls that like it, like putting sight into blind eyes […] But our present discussion, on the other hand, shows that the power to learn is present in everyone’s soul and that the instrument with which each learns is like an eye that cannot be turned around from darkness to light without turning the whole body” (Plato 190). Educational systems now assume that students are ignorant about their specific subjects. However, Plato assumes that the pupils actually know and that their innate knowledge just needs to be focused and redirected. Institutions are prone to teaching their pupils ideologies instead of teaching them how to formulate their own thoughts. “[Education] isn’t the craft of putting sight into the soul. Education takes for granted that sight is there but that it isn’t turned the right way or looking where it ought to look, and it tries to redirect it appropriately” (Plato 190). Students already have an inherent knowledge, thus it becomes more enlightening if students are educated on how, not what to think, so they can create their own opinions rather than spitting out recycled ideals.

This is precisely why Plato claims that it is crucial for each individual to experience true education by achieving personal transformation and enlightenment: “In the knowable realm, the form of the good is the last thing to be seen, and it is reached only with difficulty” (Plato 189). The purpose of a true education is being able to identify the good and recognize injustice when it occurs. However, because today’s institutions focus instead on students who have the highest GPA, are involved in the most extracurriculars, and carry leadership positions, they lack the quality of education that is able to transform a person. “Once one has seen it, however, one must conclude that it is the cause of all that is correct and beautiful in anything, that it produces both light and its source in the visible realm, and that in the intelligible realm it controls and provides truth and understanding, so that anyone who is to act sensibly in private or public must see it” (Plato 189). How can we not expect today’s societies to be full of corruption and people who will do anything to increase their social status to stay on top if they were never taught true education while at school? In achieving personal enlightenment one can begin to identify between the good and bad and therefore become a better person fitted to help others. The purpose of gaining truth is ultimately for the purpose of our community too, for if we transform ourselves, we can be the cause of greater change within our cities.

In his autobiography Hunger of Memory, Richard Rodriguez describes a prime example in which education brought forth his own personal transformation, allowing him to reach public independence. If we continue utilizing Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” to compare to Rodriguez’s life, we can immediately identify that his cave was his home. As a Mexican American, Rodriguez grew up in a world encapsulating the Spanish language. Home was where he could speak Spanish comfortably, interact easily with his family, and freely roam around like a little boy. School was a frightening place with a scary new dialect: English. At school he was shy, quiet, reserved, and constantly wished to be at home. Yet, it wasn’t until his family and the nuns at school reached the point where Spanish was banned at home that he was pulled into the light and forced to learn the English language and culture. Though the little boy remained pained and devastated at the inevitability of leaving his home behind, Rodriguez was able to achieve independence through reading, writing, and speech. In his argument against bilingual education, Rodriguez argues that “they do not realize that while one suffers a diminished sense of private individuality by becoming assimilated into public society, such assimilation makes possible the achievement of public individuality” (Rodriguez 26). By leaving his own cave, learning how to speak English and thus rejecting Spanish, Rodriguez loses a sense of home and belonging, but achieves the first step towards achieving personal transformation.

Yet, with this public individuality, Rodriguez also emphasizes that he did not quite achieve true education. While being in school, his form of education, much like now, would be to gain approval from his educators, causing him to seek learning only for facts, ideologies, and praise rather than personal enlightenment. “In these various ways, books brought me academic success as I hoped that they would. But I was not a good reader. Merely bookish, I lacked a point of view when I read. Rather, I read in order to acquire a point of view” (Rodriguez 68). In his autobiography Rodriguez emphasizes this improper way of learning through Richard Hoggart’s description of a scholarship boy, much of what modern students can compartmentalize into: “The scholarship boy is a very bad student. He is the great mimic; a collector of thoughts, not a thinker; the very last person in class who ever feels obliged to have an opinion of his own. In large part, however, the reason he is such a bad student is because he realizes more often and more acutely than most other students–than Hoggart himself–that education requires radical self-reformation” (Rodriguez 71-72). The scholarship boy does not wish to fully accept a true education because in becoming radically transformed, he must keep choosing academic achievement over spending time with his family. Eventually, Rodriguez realizes the truth and fully accepts the transformational education he is able to receive through research and reflection. He understands the purpose of gaining an education is not solely to achieve higher social status, get a better job, or meet people with impressive connections. He learns that it involves radical personal transformation, allowing him to gain an enlightened perspective of both the intellectual world and the one at home so that he may share his knowledge and help his community.

Through Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” and Rodriguez’s autobiography it is shown that a true form of education is only achieved with radical transformation. Learning facts and dates or being focused on achieving a greater GPA for prestige is what is emphasized in today’s schools when these education institutions instead should be focused on how they can bring forth personal enlightenment within each of their students. I, along with a few other students, was fortunate to receive such an education. By realizing that I had to take my own education by the hands and going out to pursue the truth, I was able to gain a richer and deeper understanding than any lecture or in class lesson could have taught me. Furthermore, an enlightened education is one that is able to benefit the community and identify between the good and the bad. Not only does Plato state this and Rodriguez’s life portray it, my own situation allowed me to stand up against injustice and be able to bring balance back into a rocky system built on lies. Therefore, as Plato and Rodriguez both argue, a true form of education is only achieved through radical self-transformation in order to achieve enlightenment, not a regurgitation of facts as today’s educational institutions preach.

Works Cited

Plato. The Republic. Hackett, 1992.

Rodriguez, Richard. Hunger of Memory. Bantam, 1983.