Relevance: The importance of making learning related to students’ future/career
By Daniel Barone
EDI 17 Psychology & Development of Adolescent Students
School of Education
Long Island University, C. W. Post
April 14, 2009
After reading chapter 11 in Understanding Youth, I had feelings of hope, confidence and determination, especially for my future students as a prospective teacher. I found this chapter to be extremely important and significant because one of our main goals as teachers is to prepare our students for their future, particularly college. It is our job as educators to take a strategic approach in order to make school more relevant to work and career aspirations for our students.
I thought it was very powerful how the author said; “learning for its own sake” is not enough for students whose economic well-being hangs tenuously in the balance. This is extremely true because as educators we need to realize that there are so many different types of students and we need to take all of these students into consideration so that we can appropriately guide them towards a successful future. Such types include social-class status and other influences such as ethnicity, gender, and orientation.
I completely agree with the author on how he says that we need to be supportive of our students and their ideas even if they seem irrational, because they are still in the process of creating, experimenting, and exploring their options. As the author and Vygotsky suggest, “our minds grow through connections with other people’s minds.” This means that we as teachers need to connect more on an intellectual level with our students and try to learn to understand one another more because “connection” is the key to success, no matter how diverse or different our students are. Overall, we as teachers should focus more on career-development and learn to incorporate it more into our lessons because the future of our students is what is most important in the long run.
Long Island University, C. W. Post
April 14, 2009
After reading chapter 11 in Understanding Youth, I had feelings of hope, confidence and determination, especially for my future students as a prospective teacher. I found this chapter to be extremely important and significant because one of our main goals as teachers is to prepare our students for their future, particularly college. It is our job as educators to take a strategic approach in order to make school more relevant to work and career aspirations for our students.
I thought it was very powerful how the author said; “learning for its own sake” is not enough for students whose economic well-being hangs tenuously in the balance. This is extremely true because as educators we need to realize that there are so many different types of students and we need to take all of these students into consideration so that we can appropriately guide them towards a successful future. Such types include social-class status and other influences such as ethnicity, gender, and orientation.
I completely agree with the author on how he says that we need to be supportive of our students and their ideas even if they seem irrational, because they are still in the process of creating, experimenting, and exploring their options. As the author and Vygotsky suggest, “our minds grow through connections with other people’s minds.” This means that we as teachers need to connect more on an intellectual level with our students and try to learn to understand one another more because “connection” is the key to success, no matter how diverse or different our students are. Overall, we as teachers should focus more on career-development and learn to incorporate it more into our lessons because the future of our students is what is most important in the long run.
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