Not the Only Way: Authentic vs. Compliant Learning
Not the Only Way: Authentic vs. Compliant Learning “Authentic learning is not discovered in a textbook, but rather at the crossroads of contemporary societal issues and student passion.” - Aaron Duff When I (Joshua) tell people that I am a middle school administrator, I usually get the same responses. “God bless you!” “I could never do that!” which eventually leads to, “Have schools and students changed much?” Often, after hearing this line of questioning, I wonder how it would be to be a middle school student now. As a middle school student, I viewed my school as an irrelevant and inapplicable entity due to the extremely monotonous exercises, which lacked an explanation of real world application. Each class was a carbon copy of the other and the classrooms, teachers and students participated in similar traditional patterns and rituals. Students were observers of a dictated, fact-based instruction, which relied heavily on the use of teacher lectures, p...