A Gift of Wonder

Is education the filling of a bucket or is it the lighting of a fire?

Mainstream education is frequently characterised by high-stakes testing and anxiety and Kim Allsup feels that it sees the child as bucket to be filled up with knowledge. Conversely, she proposes that we should instead be trying to light a fire in children.

This book is, however, not a polemical treatise or academic argument. It's a story of a teacher's six-year journey with her class. But through the funny, poignant, relatable and finally life-affirming stories, this memoir gently shows the way to an educational approach that is worthy of childhood: one rooted in wonder.