At the beginning of each semester, I make sure to ask my students if they know the difference between wisdom and knowledge. I always get a variety of answers.

Once the discussion gets going, I usually hear some form of the following statement: “Knowledge is having facts, but wisdom is knowing how to use the facts.” Or, “wisdom comes from experience; knowledge comes from books.”

For those who are still unenthused about acquiring more knowledge, let alone wisdom, I often talk about food. That always seems to get their attention. I could say, “Knowing how to make a banana pudding is knowledge, but wisdom is knowing if others appreciate your efforts.” (I’ve had a few banana puddings that I didn’t want to finish, and I’ve had a few that I couldn’t stop eating.)

They usually get the point I’m trying to make, but then I take it a step further so that they can apply it to what we will be embarking upon during the upcoming semester in our pursuit of knowledge and wisdom. All teachers want their students to grasp the material, but they also want them to see the value in what they are going to learn. What would be the use of students reading a poem if they couldn’t appreciate who wrote it and why? What would be the point of their being able to dissect the imagery, the tone, the rhyme scheme, and the figures of speech if they couldn’t then come up with the main idea and confidently apply it to real life?

Much of education today seems to be focusing on acquiring facts and knowledge with little or no regard for how to use that knowledge responsibly. How many facts do I remember from my own high school days? Not many, but I do remember some vital information about several authors, and I can still recite part of the prologue to the Canterbury Tales in Middle English, thanks to my senior English teacher, Jim Rodgers, one of our local teaching legends. And as a pre-teen, I was the lawn boy for another legend, the indomitable Lorraine Gray, who started the whole Canterbury Tales thing in the early 1940s. The undisputable “Queen of Teachers,” she had come to Kannapolis from New York State as a graduate of Columbia University. I often wonder how she must have felt leaving the Ivy League to come down South, where most of the people knew more about poison ivy than Harvard or Yale.

Because of teachers like Jim Rodgers and Lorraine Gray, hundreds of mill town kids were prepared for college. But they also had immeasurable support from the parents of their students. My mother’s parents were some of the wisest people I’ve ever known, even though they only finished seven or eight grades of formal education. They came down from the Brushy Mountains to the Piedmont to work in a cotton mill, not only for the steady paychecks, but for the good schools. As a result, they were able to send their three children to Wake Forest, then a small Baptist college, on textile wages and faith.

Ironically, education doesn’t promise wisdom. I’ve had college and university professors who weren’t nearly as wise as my grandparents. They never read books on how to succeed in life because they were too busy working alternate shifts in the mill so one of them could always be at home with the children. Success to them was not measured by bank accounts, but by personal integrity and character. They defined success; they never sought it. Working hard and raising their family to the best of their ability was simply common sense.

The British poet William Cowper said, “Knowledge is proud that he knows so much. Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.” Diplomas don’t mean a great deal if people don’t know how to use them to make the world a better place for others. A good education doesn’t guarantee a successful life if we don’t teach our students that what they learn is a privilege, but it is also a responsibility. Rotten bananas will surely ruin a good pudding, no matter how good the meringue looks.

Larry Efird teaches at A.L. Brown High School in Kannapolis.