Do you ever find yourself saying the “real world” is
different?
I have referred to the “real world” idea many times in my life.
As a performer, I used to live on a bus touring and remind myself what I would
be doing in the “real world."
Being a graduate student, I find myself in “the space”
typing away, reading away, grading away, anything away…and on the hard days I
think to myself, “when I get back to the real world I will _______” or “what is
the ‘real world’ like outside these walls that feel like prison on some days?"
Wow, okay that sounds a lot more depressing than I thought
it would. To make that sound
better…what I am trying to say is we are all at that point in the semester when
we are in the downhill slope, which sounds nice – but terrifying knowing what
needs to be accomplished the remainder of the semester.
As teachers, do we believe our classroom is an example of
the “real world?"
Better yet, if I am constantly curious about the “real world,"
what world am I living in?!
According to Fassett and Warren (2007)...
“The
world of the classroom is not a false world, but rather a microcosm of all the
worlds we know, intersecting and interlocking in metonymic relationship to one
another” (p. 62).
“In making reference to the ‘real world,’ we
neglect something very important about communication. Communication creates all
possible worlds; we render our experiences sensible through language” (p. 62).
THIS IS WHY I LOVE COMMUNICATION. “Communication creates all possible worlds”
(p. 62). With this I say, that no matter
how often I (we) think of the “real world," the truth is, more than any other
field or study, we have the power to bring the realness of the world into our
classroom. We are teaching our students
the power of words, and if we continue to think we are living in a false world
of the classroom, our students will never realize how to bring what we teach them into
their lives, and into the one and only real world that we are living in today.
I love it! I have often found it funny to think of "the real world" as something other than where you are? College is real. If you don't do well in college, you have real consequences. Situations that occur in a college classroom are real. Words that are said in that space have an effect on people. That is real. I think this a concept that I will reiterate to students at the beginning of the semester next year. Your life is nothing if it is not real. Every situation needs to be thought of that way. It adds gravity to the situation, but, after encountering some students who have the laissez-faire attitude, maybe they need a little gravity added to their real lives. ;0)
ReplyDeleteI really like the quotes you picked out for this one. We learned earlier in the year that everything in life is a social construction. Discourse doesn't reflect reality, but instead creates it. The power of language and rhetoric is incredible, and the classroom is a place where knowledge is consistently being created and re-created. By honing our communication skills in the classrooms, the work we do can be exported out into the real world. In this sense, education should be transformative, not just for the student, but the world. Dewey explains that when he discusses the role of educational institutions. Communication can, and should change the world.
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ReplyDeleteI have use the “in the real world” line so MANY times when relating the different concepts we discuss in 1010 to ways the students may use the concepts outside of class. Never once did I think using this phrase created a false existence of the classroom, but after reading Fassett and Warren I will never use that phrase again. The classroom is the real world, somewhere throughout my academic career and working within the UNT I latched on to a “this isn’t the real world” mantra. Maybe so that I could give myself something to look forward to outside of the sometimes prison like walls of academia. A few times Jesse has mentioned that he tells his students that in 1010 we are just putting names to things you already do. I think this is a much better way to describe why the material matters and I have adopted it to replace “in the real world”.