Hi everyone. I'd like to get into this discussion as well, as I am
worried about some of the assumptions inherent in the responses to
Russ's comment. In my opinioin, the discussion of real world versus an
artificial school world is really a version of the training versus
educating argument. In this argument, the real world requires training
for specific tasks, and the value of any tasks attempted in school is
measured by the similarities that it bears to the real world tasks.
However, I would resist both sides of this argument and say that
education exists not to prepare the students for the real world, but
rather to help people think through the values and assumptions that they
bring to the real world. Writing is thinking, and therefore our writing
tasks should help students examine these assumptions. The primary
purpose of any educational task, in my opinion, is not to simulate the
real world, but to question it and to help students figure out where
they want to position themselves in that real world. Thanks, Theresa.
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