Relevant Learning
What do you think schools can do to make learning more relevant to you and your life after school?
5 Replies
If schools allowed for earlier specialization, students would be able to learn things more relevant to what they are going to be doing in their career. This would also build a strong background in the career field.
I agree with Michael - why should young people who want to specialize in engineering be made to take culinary classes? Or, for that matter, why should higher levels of math be required for careers such as social work or journalism? If the education system wants students to be successful and engaged, schools need to be less institutionalized and more personalized.
Hmm its weird to say that we should specialize earlier because then we become very narrow minded learning different things is a good thing at least thats wat I think, wat I'm saying is learning that is more made towered life learning do you have any ideas for those?
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YA
Life learning is a good point. All the theoretical knowledge in the world won't help you if you can't get out into the world and put it into use. Maybe, instead of "specializing" 21st century schools, we should concentrate less on theoretical knowledge and more on preparing students with the skills they need to apply the things they learn in school to the real world. An example of this would be learning abstract algebraic equations in the classroom, but not having any idea how we would ever use this knowledge in real life. It's nice to know that x=8y, but what situation would call for this particular skill? How could we put this knowledge to use?
I completely agree with amblerk with the experience vs. theory. There are people that are booksmart, and there are people that are "streetsmart". The booksmart people can spit up dates and facts, but cant really put it into a real-life application. The "streetsmart" people may not exactly know when the French Revolution, but they can solve a problem that they have never encountered before. So if schools put the theory into practice, there will be more people that have both the booksmart and the "streetsmart" qualities.
Williamsonm
Mar 1, 2011 at 11:57 AM