This summer, my students and I read and discussed Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. Our discussion led us to consider the fact that there might be a series of allegorical caves out there. As we journey towards enlightenment (however that looks), might we not be simply leaving one cave for another? What cave are we in now? What does the next cave in our journey look like, and how do we get there (clearly, as Plato said, it will be a painful process of being dragged out of the darkness and towards the light, and we won’t believe what we see for quite some time)?

When the same group of students began considering the history of public school education in this country, they found themselves thinking about the caves that folks were in during earlier periods of history. For example, in colonial times, only white landowning men were considered citizens in the full sense of that word. Women, people of color, and children were not thought of as full citizens (and, in the case of the first two, could never be full citizens).

Some people look at the most recent presidential election as a sign that we in America have come a long way. An African American man has become President of the United States. A woman almost became the presidential nominee for her party, and now holds one of the most powerful positions in our government. Yet while these are certainly significant milestones and achievements, incidents like the ones my friends and I were discussing over dinner remind me that, as a nation, we still have a long way to go.