That’s how I feel sometimes when I hear and read all of the inspirational talk out there about the future of education. What it needs to be; where we have to go; the life skills that we should be developing in students; what they should be able to achieve; and my favourite “we’re training students for jobs that haven’t even been invented yet”!

But there don’t seem to be any guidelines or tools or rubrics or formulas. I have come to realize that there aren’t going to be any because what we need to teach is ever changing, it is life. Education inspires real life ~ real life inspires education.

So, where does this leave us?

The kids you have in front of you today are different from the kids you had last year or the kids you’ll have next year.  So why are you teaching them the same thing? It’s true, the PLOs haven’t changed but the things that make the PLOs relevant have…hmmm now that’s interesting. The world keeps turning. So look at your PLOs and look at a newspaper. See how you can make what you’re teaching relevant to what’s going on in the world regardless of the age of your students.

Give your students real world problems to solve as they relate to your curriculum. You’ll be surprised what they come up with.

Oh, and one more thing. If you’re having a really good discussion, please don’t say “We have to stop now because it’s time for math!”

Please share how real life inspires education in your classroom so that together we can create some rainbows!