4 Workshop One : “Out of the Cave”
General Instructions (10 minutes) Read instructions, introduce yourselves, choose a scribe and timekeeper.
For this workshop, you’ll be organized in a Zoom Breakout Room with a group of approximately four students. If you have any questions or concerns, please send a message via Zoom asking for help. I’ll join you as soon as possible.
This workshop has two parts and is designed for 2 hours & 10 minutes, including a 15-minute break after the first hour or so. Please note your start time and end time before beginning.
Although we must use the internet in order to meet, please refrain from using a search engine (e.g. Google) to look up answers to questions while completing this Workshop. If a question arises during discussion that you cannot answer without external research, please bring your question back to the seminar for discussion and/or make a note of the question and do your research outside of class time.
Please do make notes — even if you aren’t the scribe — of your responses to this workshop; I recommend taking your notes on paper, for two reasons: (1) to give yourself a break from the screen, (2) to use your brain in a different way (go analog!). Personally, I like to use grid or dotted paper and a set of colored pencils or pens in addition to a regular black pen for my notes. This allows me to draw diagrams and doodles, which help me , and relax in order to be present for the work.
Please begin by introducing yourselves.
Appoint a scribe to record the group’s conclusions in writing. The scribe will also report those conclusions to the class. All group members should also keep their own personal notes.
Select a second person to be the time keeper. This person should stay aware of the time, and keep the group moving along according to the time allotments on the worksheet. This job is crucial, since without it, the group will not complete the experience which the workshop is designed to bring about. If using a device with internet access, please switch to airplane mode or otherwise disable internet and all notifications. As noted in our course information: Our workshops and seminars are internet-free zones. While our blogs will be central to our out-of-class work, we will maintain an internet-free classroom.
Please remind one another not to check the internet while completing workshops with your small groups. Use the assigned texts and your collective ingenuity to answer the workshop questions. If a question arises during discussion that you cannot answer without external research, please bring your question back to the seminar for discussion and/or use it as a writing prompt and do your research outside of class.
Moveable Part: 15 minutes
At some point during the workshop time, Jody will pop in for a 15-minute chat.
Part I. (60 minutes)
- (10 minutes) Book 7 of the Republic opens with Plato’s famous allegory of the cave. C.D.C. Reeve’s translation of this passage is reproduced in a PDF, downloadable from the blue box above. While two people read this passage aloud — one as Socrates and one in the supporting role of Glaucon — the rest follow along, listening carefully. Get clear on the details. Ask the readers to repeat passages where necessary. Don’t worry about what it means; just get clear on what it says.
- (5 minutes) This allegory is complex; today we will examine only its most obvious dimensions. Start with shadows. List all the adjectives you can think of that apply to shadows. Don’t discuss them, just make as long a list as you can. (Here, as always, the scribe will record and be prepared to report the group’s conclusions, but you should make your own list as well. You may want to refer back to your own notes later. This won’t be the last time we discuss Plato’s allegory of the cave.)
- (5 minutes) What do the shadows on the cave wall stand for?
- (10 minutes) Why are the prisoners fettered? Who or what fettered them? What does the cave stand for? Discuss these three questions together (they are variations on one question) and try to answer them.
- (10 minutes) The allegory represents education as a process of getting out of the cave. What does this image of “getting out of the cave” imply about education? Make a list of specific sentences — as many as possible — to answer this question.
- (10 minutes) After presenting the allegory of the cave in Book 7, Socrates discusses its meaning. Among other things, he has the following to say (again, have someone read this passage aloud):
Education isn’t what some people declare it to be, namely putting knowledge into souls that lack it, like putting sight into blind eyes…. Our present discussion 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. This instrument cannot be turned around … without turning the whole soul until it is able to study … the brightest thing that is, namely [what] we call the good…. Then education is the craft concerned with doing this very thing, this turning around, and with how the soul can most easily and effectively be made to do it. It 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. (Republic 518b-d, emphasis added)
Working individually, think of a time in your life when you had an experience like, or somewhat like, that which Plato describes above as a turning of the whole soul and which, at the same time, felt like an educational experience. Take five minutes to describe your experience in writing. Think about how Plato’s allegory — and specifically the idea of turning the whole soul — characterizes your experience.
- (10 minutes) Discuss your individual experiences and see if you can come to a consensus as a group regarding what Plato means by “turning the whole soul.” Do your best to agree on a coherent interpretation of what this allegory signifies. Try to provide one concrete example (perhaps one of your individual experiences or another that comes to mind now.) The scribe will be asked to report out your collective answer, and example (which may be anonymous), when we reconvene. Have fun and don’t worry about getting it “right.” This is a provisional interpretation as we will return to this question again (twice) by the end of the semester.
Please take a 15-minute break now.
Part Two. (30 minutes)
- (10 minutes) Please read through our COURSE WEBSITE, either individually, (and then reconvene to discuss), or together, with one group member sharing their screen.
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- Please subscribe to follow the class BLOG.
- Look over the Course Information and Assignments.
- Note your questions or concerns.
- Discuss the structure of the class and any questions or concerns. Students who have created and maintained WordPress blogs and/or submitted portfolios for previous courses with Jody — do you have any advice for your colleagues? Please prepare your scribe to report out one QUESTION or RESPONSE to the course information, structure, and expectations, as conveyed via the website.
- (5 minutes) Your Student Contract asks you to identify your aims for this course. In order to develop your answer to this question, please take a moment to reflect now What are your aims for this class?
- (5 minutes) Please share out and discuss your aims for this class with your group. Are your aims similar or different? Does hearing about your colleagues’ aims help you revise or develop your own?
- (10 minutes) Please fill out the OUT OF THE CAVE 2021 SURVEY & CONTRACT
At the end of the allotted time, you’ll be brought back to the main Zoom room for reports from the scribes and our concluding discussion.