Higher Education Observer

My Franklin Covey planner's quote for the day is "Education is not the filling of a pail.  It is the lighting of a fire." I like the quote.  It looks good on a poster or a Franklin Covey planner. Academics by nature don't accept things on face value, at least I was not trained to, so I am scrutinizing this.  It is by William Butler Yeats, a great poet (I used one of his in my first novel) but I don't know if he ever taught.  There's a big difference between making pronouncements about education and actually teaching day-in, day-out. Paolo Freire took up this theme with the idea of the banking model of education, which I call the tea pitcher model (I live in the South, but it's not sweet tea).  We of course don't just pour knowledge into students' heads. They do construct some knowledge themselves, but not without access to what has come before, which, well, was poured in. No model or quote or metaphor can encompass everything about learning

Hopefully this isn't behind a password, because it's the best thing I've read on higher education practice in a long time. https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2016/08/05/defining-students-nontraditional-inaccurate-and-damaging-essay?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=6e820cc26b-DNU20160805&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-6e820cc26b-198482621 Today is the last Friday I am off due to our college's "no Friday in summer" policy.  I am glad for it, because it was a rough week. But I was doing some errands and went to the bank.  One of my former students (I have thousands of those) works there and came up while I was dealing with an account issue.  I recognized him and was trying to do my "Oh, let me remember you" game and I had to be reminded of his name, and it was only a year ago. He is having a hard time getting the classes he needs to fit around his work schedule due to our college's behindness to online co