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How ONE Lesson Changed a Student’s Future

AS
by Ally Silva on

<p><em>By Clint Rodreick</em></p>

<p>I had a former student who graduated 14 years ago reach out to me. He has just recently decided to enter the teaching profession.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>

<p>And for whatever reason, he credits his inspiration and his decision to the impact I had on him during his senior year of high school.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>

<p>Most shockingly of all (at least from my vantage point), it was&nbsp;during&nbsp;my first year of teaching. &nbsp;</p>

<p>When I got curious about what&nbsp;&#8216;did it&#8217;&nbsp;for him, he said it was a lesson from the very first day of class.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>

<p>It was the day that we read excerpts of&nbsp;<em>Plato&#8217;s Allegory of the Cave</em>&nbsp;and connected it to the film&nbsp;<em>The Matrix</em>.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>

<p>We talked about the epistemological implications of the story. We explored and discussed questions like:</p>

    • How do we know what we know? 
    • Where does our information and knowledge come from?  
    • How do we know we can trust it?  
    • What is truth? 
    • In what way does culture blind us? 
    • To what extent are we a product of our environment?

<p>We explored these questions together from a place of humility and curiosity. I,&nbsp;just as much as them.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>

<p>Rather than providing them with answers, I only offered questions.  </p>

<p>But by doing so, it made a lasting impact on this student. He not only said it was the best lesson he&#8217;s ever received. He said it was this lesson that continues to inform&nbsp;his life&nbsp;to this day. &nbsp;</p>

<p>It was this lesson that has inspired him to go into the teaching profession himself.  </p> <p>Here&#8217;s what he messaged me on Facebook: </p>

<p><em>&#8220;Your class was the only one in my K-12 journey that taught me HOW to think not WHAT to think and for that I am eternally grateful. When you taught us about Plato’s cave, that changed me. I took philosophy classes in college because of that.&#8221;</em></p> <p>This is what I believe is the purpose of public education. </p>

<p>To get kids to think, not memorize.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>

<p>To get kids to reflect, not regurgitate.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>

<p>To get kids to question, not provide them with answers.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>

<p>Because answers are not only quickly forgotten; they aren&#8217;t internalized unless they are cultivated from within.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>

<p>Students need to be given the opportunity to own and discover their own beliefs and what is true for them.  </p> <p>This student was given permission on my first day of class to do exactly that—to not think like I or anyone else wants him to think.  </p> <p>No agenda.  </p> <p>No indoctrination.  </p> <p>Just uncertainty.  </p>

<p>That and the willingness to question the world that he was born into and the beliefs that he inherited (just like the one prisoner in <em>Plato’s Allegory of the Cave </em>that was willing to question the cave he was born into, and the shadows that he was conditioned to believe were real).</p> <p>This is why I&#8217;m proud of this student. Because he remembers this fundamental epistemological truth 14 years after it was introduced to him.  </p> <p>This is the kind of learning that can&#8217;t be measured on a standardized test.</p> <p>Neither is it the kind that should be.    </p>

<p><em>Clint Rodreick is a history and economics teacher at Phoenix High School in Phoenix, OR. He serves as a member of the Bill of Rights Institute Teacher Council.&nbsp;</em></p>