School work vs. Real work

I subscribe to a lot of educational blogs and websites. One of these blogs, Basecamp, is written by Christian Talbot and focuses on innovation in schools. Talbot’s most recent post (click HERE to read) talks about what you learn in a classroom/school setting and the challenge of applying what you’ve learned, including the underlying values, when faced with a real-life situation. At MJDS we are consistently focused on threading our core values and beliefs into daily life at school. We also provide many experiential opportunities for students to practice what they’ve learned, aligned to our values, in a real-world setting.

We believe the ‘why’ behind each decision is the most important aspect of education and at MJDS our why always starts with our core values and beliefs. The world is in flux and it is essential that we support the development of young people who will choose to engage the world with empathy, focusing on facts and able to debate and disagree without demeaning the beliefs or ideas of others.

2 thoughts on “School work vs. Real work

  1. Thank you for this link and for reinforcing the importance of *values* in the context of using knowledge and making decisions in the real world. Thankful my kids are at a school where this is recognized.

  2. I have seen this in action with our kids at school. As described by my 4th grader in her blog, the 4th grade led kindergarten on a scavenger hunt to learn about Chanukah. Her blog demonstrated reflection- how did it go, what was learned, how did it feel to be a leader, what would you do differently next time. Simple lessons of a holiday were turned into an opportunity for personal empowerment and growth. This is really exciting!

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