School is a place to learn. This is the simple fact, the cornerstone to which the very institution is built around. At times it may play the role of a social club or hub for athletics and sport, but even those aspects of school are, at their core, centered around learning. These core elements of learning that comprise the place of school prepare us for the future. However, school can seem removed and out of place from the real world. Our real lives will not function the same way school subjects are presented to us. Abstract concepts can lead to a disillusionment between concrete real world experience and the feel of an academic environment. Students often crave a real world connection and the kind of learning that will give them access to different experiences that will prepare them for a variety of future interests.
Enter the RW master course, a single course with the goal of giving students the accessibility they are looking for in gaining real world experience. RW being a real world departure from the more abstract concepts taught in AP classes. The course would be offered as an elective option and would bring different professionals from a full range of fields into a classroom setting. In this setting, professionals can teach students the guidelines of their professions including basic skills and lessons that are applicable to students lives both in and outside of the classroom. Electricians and mechanics will teach students through models and machinery rooted in home appliance, giving students insight on how to solve problems they may come across in their daily lives on a more rudimentary level while also offering a brief glimpse of the profession as a whole. The range of professions covered in the RW master course would vary from mechanics and electricians to financial advisors, who could giving students important information and instruction on how to manage money, guidance on investment and maybe even a tutorial on doing your taxes. This is real world skills and real world application in a friendly learning environment.
Some may argue that the school already has career based courses, especially in the ROP program. ROP offers in depth exploration for students who are interested in a certain career path. However, what about those students who don’t know what path they are interested in exploring yet. The master course will offer those students a way to explore many possible career paths and give them a full collection of practical, real world skills.
Give students who are hungry to learn a way in which they can see the variety of possibilities that are waiting for them beyond the abstract concepts of school. Give them an elective option that offers skills grounded in practicality, skills necessary in the world outside of school. If students are given the practical skills necessary in the real world, there will be more space in their lives for the abstract that is taught throughout traditional education.
