do due

Topic: "What we learn to do, we learn by doing." Aristotle

I have been involved in education, athletics and activies my entire life. There are people with exceptional gifts such as the Savant that just do. There are gifted students who absorb knowledge and there are musicians who simply pick up a guitar or sit down in front of a piano and just play and there are kids who pick up a baseball or football and throw it further than anyone else. These people are exceptions to the rule (our quote). The rule is truly about the student of academics, music or athletics and the professional teacher/coach who instruct them. These people who with a passion or desire apply themselves and learn the rules for participation and activity. Then through hard work and perseverance learn to do the object of their desire and become technically proficient or maybe even subject matter experts. But there is also a whole group of people that don't know what to learn or that learning is advantageous because they have no experiences to guide them. These persons need someone to guide them where they need to go and give them the needed experiences along the way. This is the professional teacher, the mentor and guide whose first duty is to prepare a student for life.

This is where a true teacher can change the landscape for many students. I spoke with a teacher recently, who says Content Standards be damned, she teaches her students some life skills within a unit on Economics. This lesson has been taught for the past 15 years. She teaches her students the hands on of household budgeting, bill paying and balancing a checking account, and along the way also provides a healthy dose of "reality check". She relates going to school with going to work. Every student begins with a job that is part time in that there is no sick leave or vacation pay and raises or bonuses are earned through hard work. In your magical checking account you get paid based on how many days you came to school during the pay period. Students had to decide the kind of car to buy and actually afford it, rent an apartment, check insurance rates and MPG for cars they purchased; they get bills for utilities, phones, car repairs and other items. Students have to grocery shop and bring in a receipt or they pay the same as the teacher's bill at the grocery for the week. Students have to go shopping with a parent. They learn that food doesn't just appear in the refrigerator. They have to buy gas and they are assigned mileage and then pay gasoline based on how many miles they drove/mpg of the vehicle purchased. The teacher listens to her students talk during the week and assigns them recreation bills for going to a movie or buying a new game or going to shopping mall. I could go on and on.

To this teacher these students need to be prepared and they cannot be prepared by being lectured to. If they don't come to school for a day they don't get paid for that day. Students will not walk out of any Senior High school and walk right into a well paying job with a boss who won't care if I stayed up all night playing Halo and didn't make it to work or if they woke up feeling bad and got to school 3 hours later than the start time. She believes this reality check about life needs to be intentionally learned and is only learned by doing. She is firm in that the only way to learn to do is by learning through doing.

Isn't that the most important and truly authentic assessment- That the student can and does use appropriately the information you the educator is trying to impart.