The Theory Of Learning By Plato And Margaret M. Clifford...

When depicting learning, books may feature an adolescent sitting in a classroom listening to a teacher lecture for an entire school day, but in actuality, learning is a constant personal discovery through our environment and throughout our entire lives. Learners cannot have information thrown at them without context and personal investment, but rather they should be directed towards knowledge which will spark desire. Plato’s (trans. 1968) Republic and Margaret M. Clifford’s (1990) article â€Å"Students Need Challenge, Not Easy Success† both demonstrate this point, but Clifford takes it a step further to propose that all learners should take these leaps, not just the most intelligent individuals as Plato (trans. 1968) claims. Human beings can not learn by having information drilled into us, but rather we have to be willing to recognize and interpret the world around us without the risk of punishment or failure. In Republic, Plato (trans. 1968) relays his thoughts on learning through the perspective of Socrates, a greek philosopher. Socrates uses an allegory of a cave in order to explain how humans learn throughout the different stages of life and discovery. The allegory begins in the dark where a group of humans are bound in a sun deprived cave so that they can only look straight ahead towards a wall (Plato, trans. 1968). Unbenounced to them, there is a fire which casts shadows of statues of real entities found in nature. But because the prisoners can only see what is projected