I will be starting my PhD program soon, and I already have a full plate of reading, writing, and research ahead of me.
I’ve noticed that there are distinct differences in the ways I talk about “Education” with my colleagues in academia versus the people I know who are in the classroom everyday.
Academics talk in terms of characteristics, variables, outcomes, ideas, hopes etc… When I talk with teachers or parents of children in public school, they speak about schools being unsafe, how kids just don’t want to pay attention or do their homework, how there are so many mandates placed on teachers that even if they completed all of their requirements in a day they’d still need 1.5 more hours than they have, how curriculum is standardized and there is no room for teachers to be teachers….
I guess my point is, as I begin my PhD studies I am painfully aware that I am still unable to bridge these two worlds (academia versus “reality”), and I wonder how I will be able to do that in the next 4 years of my time studying, researching, and working.
