Where Is the Real World?

Listen to educators long enough, and chances are you’ll hear them talk about teaching kids to work and live in the real world: “It’s important for students to know how to multiply fractions, so they can use it in real world applications.”

Several years ago, Dr. Eugene Maier wrote a lively article about the “real world” that stuck with me. Among his many good points, Dr. Maier says: “I suggest we abandon our attempts to contrive ‘real-world’ problems for the classroom and concentrate on presenting ‘real’ problems. By that, I mean, problems that are instructive and interesting; problems that students will put energy into investigating.”

I highly recommend you detour to read the full article.

I often wonder how students feel when we talk to them about applying what they learn in school to the real world. Isn’t school part of their real world? Isn’t the teacher working in the real world? Maybe we would better serve students and educators if instead of referring to life outside of school as the real world, we recognized the variety of worlds students encounter—the school world, the work world, the family world, the friends world, the play world. Together, all combine to define the Real World.

As an educator, I want learners to see mathematics as a part of their real world—both in and out of the classroom. I want them to perceive that what they do in school is as important as what they do outside of school—when they play with their friends or do their chores. Maybe then, as they move from their school world to their work world, they’ll find that what they learned in one has meaning and application in the other.

Dan is executive director of MLC.