The “real world” of learning

Apologies, but I’m a bit cranky, and my patience a bit thin, all over the casual use of “real world” to distinguish life outside a school or university. It smacked me three times in the last week, and I can’t shake the furrow out of my brow.

Its timeliness coincides with one of the quirks of Australian federalism – inconsistent term lengths and dates. Some states are just starting their school term break, some in the middle of it, and some returning for Term 2 – regardless of where you are in this puzzle, this week’s reflection is about real life in education.

The first instance of aural assault came courtesy of a media commentator postulating that school violence, recently the focus of some media, needs to be dealt with comparably to the “real world”. By which I think he must have meant locations that are not a school campus.

Then, a university graduation occasional speaker shared with graduands that, after studying for a doctoral degree at that very same university, she thought she should grow up and go out into the “real world”. By which I think she meant other paid employment in an environment where she could apply the skills and knowledge developed while studying at that university.

Finally, “real world” learning was invoked by a social commentator as the panacea to Australia’s woeful declining academic standards. By which I think he meant something, but it was too ill-defined to be sure.

I can appreciate some of the sentiments (albeit with too many reservations and qualifications for this space), but want to challenge the unhelpful assumptions and connotations, particularly at a time when our profession needs honouring and supporting, not belittling and diminishing.

The easiest low-hanging fruit is sheer numbers. The Australian Bureau of Statistics reports that on census day (10 August 2021) there were approximately 6.2 million people engaged in an educational institution; 79.3% of them (i.e., over 4.9 million) were studying full-time. Remarkable – 1 out of every 5 Australians is not living full-time in the “real world”! So many are lost for so long in the shadowlands, marking time before they can finally embrace real life. Now THAT truly must be a national shame! But that’s too easy a target, a cheap shot.

Then I thought about the news story that teachers should be even more responsible for teaching about sexuality because some parents either can’t or won’t. What a curiosity! When some parents seem angst ridden with delicacy about gender, sexual violence, and consent, do they foolishly trust imparting such important knowledge and skills to those who are so disconnected from reality? But that seems a bit facile, an outlier, an extreme example.

Then I came across the news that university researchers (those who evidently are most disconnected from the “real world”, hiving off in their ivory towers behind machines that hum incessantly in the background or periodically go “ping”!) have found a common backyard mould is able to eat the disposable plastic that bedevils our over-consumptive materialistic culture. How drole! What possible use could white-coated nerds have to the “real world”?

Then I realised I was just being mean…

And yet…

Discomfort with the discourse of the “real world” sticks in my throat.

Parents and caregivers entrust the lives of their children to educators for 13 years (mostly). How is that not the “real world”? If not to these extraordinarily committed and generous people, to whom should a parent impart the care of their children? And what is not “real” about that?

How many teachers have taught students to share, to care, to include, to forgive, to respect, to celebrate others, to hope, to be grateful, to persevere, to wonder? How many new worlds have they opened for students to explore through literature, mathematics, science, history, geography, language, creative arts, technology, sport, culture, religion, community service, otherness? How is this not the “real world”?

And how many teachers’ lives are insulted by the notion that “those who can, do…and those who can’t, teach”? For many years, I challenged such critics to come and teach a double period on Friday afternoon after lunch (I was a secondary teacher), especially 26 Year 9 boys! Perhaps not unremarkably, no one took up my offer.

To be gifted with the care of one life is remarkable, a rich distinction to be treasured. To hold the futures and aspirations of dozens, scores, hundreds, is an unfathomable privilege. This is, in so many ways that space does not permit, the “real world”!

Or what of myriad discoveries and insights that flow from the academy? Curie, Pasteur, Einstein, Turing, Hawking, Tolkien, Lewis – just a few of the non-“real world” enigmas whose ideas have fundamentally shaped so much of the way we experience and understand the world. What a pity they didn’t have a “real” job!

But my sarcasm must cease.

As we return to our work – term, or resumption of semester duties – our world is real, our work crucial, and the sloppy discourse of others should be shunned.

Thank you. Bring life and reality to all who are entrusted to your care.