"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."

"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." - William Butler Yeats

Ah, Mr. Yeats' famous quote - undoubtedly a favorite among the homeschoolers I read. I've seen it in many a book and site header.

Will I get thrown in the Heretic Homeschooler's Club if I say I disagree with Mr. Yeats?

Well, only half disagree. You see, I think the quote should really go something like this:

"Education is not JUST the filling of a pail, but ALSO the lighting of a fire."

(And as Smokey the Bear always told us, you should have water handy when building a fire. Right? Moving on...)

As my child's teacher, yes, I want them to want to learn. I want the Kiddo and the Munchkin to be excited about learning. I love it when Munchkin sits down with a book and proceeds to ooh and aah over the cool new piece of information she just learned. I even love when the Kiddo checks out books as big as his head on computers, as long as he doesn't try to tell ME every last detail he just learned. (Sorry, techno-babble is boring. Can't help it!) I want those fiery moments of education to burn their whole lives.

But would I be a fully competent teacher if I didn't also make sure that their pails are filled with stuff they might not learn on their own? A large part of my loves the concept of unschooling. In fact, we've pretty much unschooled for the last year or two for various reasons. But part of being a good mom is knowing my children - and one of them, at least, has no desire to learn anything but the one subject that is currently of highest importance to them, and also has no desire to learn anything else if it is the least bit hard. No challenges, please. That's no way to live life, and it's no way to become educated.

So, I'm working on filling those pails. We've been away from it for a while, but I am working my way back to "sit-down" education rather than hit or miss unschooling. If one of my children were suffering from a nutritional deficiency that might affect the health of the rest of their life, you can be sure that I would address that issue forthwith. And so I will do with their educational health. I will endeavor to light those fires as often as I can, with as much enjoyment as possible. But I will also fill those educational pails with as much as is needed to insure that they can live full and productive lives, not missing out because they don't know something. Yes, as long as the love of learning is present, they can always find out what they missed the first go-round. But how much easier will their lives be if they're not always playing catch-up!

I just need to be sure not to mix the metaphors too badly. Otherwise, I'll have a doused fire and an empty pail. And, well, that's just no good! ;-)

Be sure to visit "Heart of the Matter" for more thoughts on this subject!

(Be sure to come back on Monday - I will be participating in the winter Bloggy Giveaway sponsored by Rocks In My Dryer/Bloggy Giveaways and will be giving away an exclusive homeschool goodie!)

Labels: Heart of the Matter

posted by Homeschool Help Web at 8:12 PM |