The rantings of a teacher who retired from the classroom but not from education.
I think this it is more than important to make what we teach relevant to our students. I run out of body parts counting how many times I asked myself, and my teachers, "When am I going to use this in real life?" and getting the answer just as often, "Oh, you will. For now, just learn it for the test." There is no way students can gain long term memory, or be expected to want to retain information for longer than the test, if they do not see the relation it has to their lives. I'm in my third year in college and am learning a lot about keeping education relevant and am even learning how to put this into practice in my Methods courses. I'm glad you blogged about this because so many teachers put it on the back burner because as long as the tests are being passed and up to state standards, then who cares?
Well said Brie. I am glad to know that there is that focus at the college level.
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