Can we please stop saying 'in the real world?'

We are preparing kids for the 'real world.'

This phrase is heard in schools all across the globe in an effort to justify our actions to both students and parents.

To justify as if what we are doing is absolutely critical and vital to the long term success of students in the future.

To the untrained ear, you would almost assume that if we educators didn't do certain things, then kids would surely not make it to the end of the week. Most definitely not to the end of the month...

This 'supposed' level of responsibility and accountability we are working to teach our students comes at a price.

It comes at the price of our students' current lives. It comes at the price of this exact moment in time.

It comes at the price of making our students feel as if what they are doing right now really doesn't matter because it can only pale in comparison to what they will do 'in the real world.'

Maybe it's time to stop saying 'in the real world' and instead start focusing on helping our kids make good decisions to better their lives right NOW.

Let's start sending the message to our students that the work they are doing now and the lives they are living now do in fact matter. In fact, they might be all that really truly matter...

In closing, I think it's rather pompous and arrogant to assume that the lives kids are living right now don't matter when compared to the lives they will live upon completing their artificial learning program, which most have come to know as, school...