Students as "Freakish Sponges"

I was watching this video about Project Based Learning created by students at the Minnesota New Country School. Towards the end (at 27:10), a student at the school describes traditional schooling like this

They spit a bunch of facts at you. You absorb it like some kind of freakish sponge and squeeze yourself out on a test and then forget it a couple of weeks later.

I thought it an apt metaphor. (Is it a metaphor?)