Lighting a fire or filling a cup?

Editor’s note: This commentary from Kelly Smith, founder and CEO of Prenda, a company that helps people run microschools for K-8 students, is an exclusive to reimaginED. Smith is the author of “A Fire to be Kindled: How a Generation of Empowered Learners can Lead Meaningful Lives and Move Humanity Forward.” 

While everyone else on the internet is talking about Artificial Intelligence and the robot apocalypse, it’s the perfect time to go back 2,000 years to visit the ancient philosopher Plutarch. In case you need a refresher, Plutarch was a Greek and a Roman, and the author of works like Parallel Lives and Moralia.

Plutarch is famous in education reform circles for the quote: “The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.” I love this quote so much I used it as the title of my book. It posits two distinct metaphors for how humans learn. Depending on which metaphor you choose, you may take very different approaches to education.

Let’s start with the vessel to be filled. Imagine the simple act of pouring water into a stationary cup. Predictable, deterministic, routine. You can spill water with a shaky hand or a loss of focus, but these are errors and imperfections in an otherwise orderly process. It’s like a manufacturing line, where each part is shaped within tiny tolerances to become the exact version called for in the plans.

The “filling vessels” paradigm is very appealing for adults trying to help children learn. It’s comforting to think about a fixed outcome, like X minutes of instruction, or Y% coverage of a given standard. This framing provides a sense of control, that if we can execute the correct series of actions, the child will learn and become what we intend.

What’s wrong with the vessel to be filled? As Plutarch points out, it’s just not the way the human mind works.

Instead, we should look to the other metaphor: a fire to be kindled. Chaotic, spontaneous, thrilling. A flame ignites with the right combination of fuel, oxygen, heat, and randomness. If you’ve ever tried to start a fire without a lighter or matches, you know the exultation of that magical moment when, after minutes or hours of rubbing sticks or striking flint and steel, the sparks catch, the smoke builds, and a flame appears. It’s magic!

This is the metaphor Plutarch recommends for how we should think about learning. As educators, it’s terrifying to release our grip on the controlled environment and predictable outcomes. Even when we are completely convinced that Plutarch was right, we prefer the predictability of filling vessels over the chaos of kindling fires.

If our true goal was to kindle fires in the minds of young people, how would we design learning environments? I’ll share three suggestions here. They all stem from the idea of agency, the inner will that separates humans from computers and other animal species. If students make a decision to learn, there is nothing that can get in their way. And if they make a decision not to learn, there is very little we can accomplish with carrots and sticks.

Prioritize connection by actually caring. The classic quote (mis)attributed to Teddy Roosevelt is even more true when it comes to adults working with children: “Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.” Young humans are masters of reading adults, implicitly detecting whether we are annoyed with them, labeling them, dismissing them, or simply tolerating them. There’s really no way to manufacture psychological safety through tactics taught in a professional development seminar; we either see our students as humans with value and potential, or we don’t.

Tie learning to a bigger purpose. I’m not talking about empty statements (lies?) that “you’ll use these conic sections formulas when you’re an adult.” If a student believes that you actually care about them, they might open up about dreams, interests, curiosities, fears, and all the complex things that define human existence. Understanding someone, you can help them see the connection between their daily learning struggles and their desired destination.

Give children choices. There are so many places in education where it’s almost as easy and significantly more impactful to let the student choose. What book to analyze? Which article to debate? What format to present the research? As a general rule, I try to give students as much autonomy as I can, within the confines of a given system.

Of course, these concepts are tough to put into practice. One reason I like microschools is the flexibility in the environment and structure that makes student autonomy more achievable. But regardless of your environment, you’ll have a deeper, more lasting impact by focusing on student agency. It’s the secret to kindling a fire for learning.


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BY Special to NextSteps