Education is a Fire

John
 September 22, 2007, 02:09 PM posted in General Discussion

I just thought I'd share this quote by William Butler Yeats that sums up our philosophy at Praxis language pretty well:

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

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TaiPan
 September 22, 2007, 02:18 PM

"Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life." Terry Pratchett

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MexicoBob
 September 22, 2007, 03:01 PM

We were just talking about this on the Praxis Blog. Henning mentioned that it is a teacher's job to instill enthusiasm. I really like that word "enthusiasm". It comes from the Greek word "enthousiasmos" which means "to be inspired by God" or "God within". For me, enthusiasm inspires hope and hope is what drives us forward.

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Joachim
 September 22, 2007, 06:51 PM

I thought we were driven by our appetites ... I have probably missed the leap from natural evolution to cultural and technological evolution ;-) @ TaiPan: I quite like your quote. I like it second best to "Intelligence is like four-wheel drive. It only allows you to get stuck in more remote places."

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mark
 September 23, 2007, 05:46 AM

My fire is aleady lit. You just need to stoke it some.

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Kyle
 September 23, 2007, 07:44 AM

Yeats is the man.

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babliku
 September 23, 2007, 08:19 AM

Taipan for the win!

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TaiPan
 September 24, 2007, 12:27 AM

Joachim, Brilliant quote! Any idea who to attribute that to?