ABSTRACT

In traditional Western formal schooling in the United States, students' learning is often confined to the classroom, where they have few opportunities to engage in “real-world” endeavors (Dewey, 1900; Lave, 1988, 1997). Students are segregated from many mature community practices, such as work (President's Science Advisory Committee Panel on Youth, 1973). As Dewey (1900) noted long ago, “Knowledge in schools [has been] isolated and made an end in itself. Facts, laws, information have been the staple of the curriculum” (p. 101)—a characterization of school learning that still applies today.