Plato

Hello! My name is Plato, and I was a thinker who lived in a beautiful city called Athens a very, very long time ago, in a time we now call Ancient Greece. I was born around the year 428 BCE. Most people called me Plato, but that was actually a nickname! My real name was Aristocles. I grew up loving to learn. In my city of Athens, there were so many exciting things to see and so many smart people to talk to. It was the perfect place for a curious boy like me who was full of questions about the world.

When I grew up a bit, I met a wonderful teacher named Socrates. He was the wisest person I knew! Socrates didn't write books. Instead, he would walk all around Athens talking to people and asking them big questions. He would ask things like, 'What is courage?' or 'What does it mean to be a good friend?'. I became his student around the year 407 BCE and followed him everywhere, listening to every word. He taught me that asking questions was the best way to learn. Sadly, some powerful people didn't like his questions, and he was put to death in 399 BCE. It was a very sad day for me, and I decided I had to write down all his amazing ideas so no one would ever forget them.

After my teacher Socrates was gone, I traveled for a while, but I eventually came back to my home in Athens. I wanted to create a special place where people could keep learning and asking big questions, just like Socrates had taught me. So, around the year 387 BCE, I started my very own school. I called it the Academy. It was in a peaceful garden where students could come to study everything from numbers and stars to ideas about fairness and government. One of my students was a young man named Aristotle, who grew up to be a famous thinker, too!

I kept teaching and writing for my whole life. I lived to be about 80 years old. Even though I lived thousands of years ago, people still read the books I wrote. They study my ideas about how to make the world a better and fairer place. I hope my story reminds you that it’s always good to be curious and to never, ever stop asking questions.