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John Gatto used to send his 7th grade students out into the real world, to learn from adults doing real things. He would have them write a report about what the

John Gatto used to send his 7th grade students out into the real world, to learn from adults doing real things. He would have them write a report about what they'd learned. [1] [1] http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/ http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/ Real learning is achieved with context. Government schools mostly teach theory without context, which is why the students have such a hard time. The local paper once had a story about the challenges faced by teachers of children who were learning English. The story told of how the class was reading a book abou a dog. Some of the kids didn't get the word 'panting', so the teacher imitated a panting dog. I wrote a letter saying that languages are actually easy to learn, and that a human acting like a dog is no substitute for a trip to the dog park.

cableshaft 10y ago
At the same time, you can't realistically just take a trip anywhere you want to demonstrate every single individual concept as a teacher of a bunch of students. You need parental permission, a way to transport kids (probably via bus, which costs money and has to be scheduled), and extra people around to help watch the kids and make sure they don't wander into trouble. Parents, especially nowadays, are extremely litigious (or call for a teacher's resignation) for such minor things nowadays, that trips in general become risky. I'm sure most teachers schedule as many of these trips as they can get approved, but they probably only get one or two approved per class. Sure you might not like all the red tape, but it didn't appear out of nowhere. It's the school protecting itself and covering its ass, just like every other industry out there.