Hi All :) .. To YOU: Is EDUCATION THE FILLING OF A PAIL, or the LIGHTING OF A FIRE? :D?

Question

Explain your answer............ Use examples if you wish........
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Thanks, for answering in advance! :-)

*Have a nice day/night* :)

Thanks for sharing............

Take care!

Thanks, Jason :)
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I Ain't Your Momma, thanks :)
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You're welcome, Hy003002 :)
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Thanks, Zingis :)
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Both are allegories, Psychic Cat :)
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No, Psychic Cat, you didn't blow anything :))
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Mandragorin and Q-ball, thanks :)
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Answer 1

Education is more appropriate in lighting a fire. It is in education where we get our knowledge. Education enriches the inner lives of numbers of valuable human beings and rescuing many from the poverty of sanatorium life.

Answer 2

It all depends on how you look at the metaphor. You can look at each one as being the wrong answer or the right answer. Yes a fire can mean the spark of learning and as the flames spread it symbolizes the growth of knowledge, but it can also mean knowledge that leads only to destruction. For example: the terrorists of 9/11 went to school to learn to fly jet liners, but then turned around and used that knowledge for death. So in that aspect fire could mean that knowledge just brings conflict and maybe if we were without knowledge then there would be less of it. Now, if you look at the pail being a small tin pail that can only hold so much knowledge then most the answers given would be true. But fortunately a metaphor is not so single minded. Here is two other ways to look at the pail: the pail can be of infinite height and infinite depth to where no amount of knowledge could ever overflow. Now imagine the pail of water as being the knowledge to put out the flames of 9/11. Water is one of the most destructive things on earth, though most people do not see it as that. The most dangerous and destructive storms on earth or in the ocean. Water at an extreme velocity can tear a hole through steel. But at the same time water nurtures plants to life; humans depend upon it to survive. I find all the answers already given to be insightful for there are so many ways to look at a question such as this. Thanks for such a mentally stimulating question! Your neighborly adviser, Mandragorin.

Answer 3

Hi Friendly Kim!!
Mmm - anaother of those double edged swords . . . (I love the word play, by the way . . . very clever!)
99% of the time it is mere filling an empty cavity . . . sometimes a bottomless pit, sometimes a leaky pail - going in one end and almost immediately leaving the other end . . .
And I suppose we are all guilty of this, depending one our needs for the informations passed on by the educator. Many times one has to sit through lecture after lecture with the hope of gaining SOME useful information (I've just returned from a newspaper seminar where this exact same thing happened - one of those mandatory events one feels oblidged to attend, simply because "everyone else" is doing it . . . ) and right at the end, if you are fortunate, one small snippet of information turns out to be valuable and educational.
Yet - THANKFULLY - every so often, that same small snippet of educational information, stimulates your thinking to the extent that it DOES spark a fire in your soul!! When that DOES happen, it was all worthwhile! Ynfortunately, that doesn't happen often enough!!!

Answer 4

Nice metaphors..

First the pail has to be solid, able to hold that which it receives. If there are holes, first they need to be patched.

If it's a poor education, it's half filling a pail with the holes still in it.

If it's an average education, it's filling a solid pail, hopefully to the brim.

If it's a superior education, it's a pail being filled with pure alcohol, waiting for that spark to form and an unquenchable fire to ignite.

Peace (don't try this at home, kids :)

Answer 5

Education is both the filling of a pail and the lighting of a fire. Why?
Because the lighting of the fire will fuel the search for knowledge.
Knowledge will question the established order of the world. Our leaders, political and spiritual, need the full pail in order to quench the thirst for knowledge.
When reason ends belief begins - hence religion...

Answer 6

Lighting of a fire. Filling up a pail means that you are done when you reach the top. Anything extra flows over and is lost. A fire grows as it's added to, and becomes brighter.

Answer 7

Philosophically, the pail can never be filled; & there are always new fires to be lit.

Edit. Hmm. Did I blow it? Or, isn't an allegory something that illustrates a moral principle, (philosophy), but primarily in which the moral isn't stated, but left to the hearer to discover???

Answer 8

Since I am way over the hill, it would be a waste of time and energy.
Kind of like emptying the pail or putting out the fire.

Answer 9

It's the lighting of a fire.
If it was to be the filling of a pail
then it would become burdensome;
you would have to carry it (lug it
around) with you and eventually
tire out from it.
But if it's the lighting of a fire then
you are inspired; enlightened; ecstatically filled with passions.
And this fire..this flame..it would
lift your spirits; and elevate your mind;
and carry you through the throes of life with the greatest of ease.

Answer 10

When we are born we are an empty pail and as we learn our pail fills up with the fuel of knowledge.... when we learn about the wrong kind of things it can become the lighting of that fuel!