The Empty Vessel

I have been thinking a lot about a certain phrase that pervades much of the way people think in education. This saying has been around since the Ancient Greeks and it still holds much weight in today's society. The phrase I'm thinking of is "empty vessel." We as educators try to fight against this notion of the teacher being the one with all the knowledge and the students are the ones who must be filled with the knowledge and tools that enable them to be successful. But how can a vessel full of knowledge, whether it was teacher-filled or student-filled, be any use to others in a community or society? A vessel is a place to store knowledge, but once it is filled, what happens? It sits for a while, stagnant, not progressing or evolving, until it is carried to a place to be emptied, dumped out, waiting to be filled again.
We are on this constant quest for the acquisition of knowledge, to read as many books and wrestle with as many ideas as we can, but unless we do something with this knowledge, it stays stagnant with us and does us little good except for the use of quotations.
That's why unless we are active in our thinking and action, it does little good to anyone to just be full of knowledge, no matter how brilliant it may be. Woodford comes back to the notion that democracy is headed by the educated few, but I think it is more apt to say that democratic institutions are led by the educated few who are willing to be the agents of change, to make a difference in the way that we think and act. It is so dangerous to be blindly governed; it should be everyone's personal responsibility to become as educated and active as possible in our daily lives. It is the only way to really foster growth in a helathy way where we all have the tools to become better citizens.