Can you remember the world of movement, wonder, and intense sensation that you lived in when you were six years old? Does education mean filling a bucket or does it mean lighting a fire?

In today's predominant educational environment, where high-stakes testing and anxiety reign, it's clear that the goal, though implicit, is to fill buckets. Kim Allsup would like us to start lighting fires--to stop treating children like empty buckets. She sees that the vital essence of education has been sucked out of most schools today; that we must strive, above all, to it bring it back; and that the...