I also strongly dislike how school has been differentiated against "other"
activities, but see school as being unique not so much in its isolation
from "real life" but its role on looking at that life in a different way.
In this sense calculus or other areas of math should not so much be
approached at making them pertinant to activity outside of school, but
allowing us to see that activity in a different way. Maybe the so lets
make everything pertinant to real life reminds me of Lysynko a little bit.
A way of thinking in which theory (schooling) is judged by how well it
pertains to practice (real life). A idea of school that allows us to
reflect or refleX, a play on letters from the praxis discussion, on or see
activities outside of school in a way which would be difficult within the
activity itself. I guess I lean towards a unity in contrast to
subordinating education to the imaginary of real life.
This kind of uniqueness may be more difficult in math but I would not rule
it out. Awhile back I took a geometry which was approached in a somewhat
historical fashion in which we focused on algebra type problems by only
using geometry. While this course was a struggle it did open up a new way
of viewing math in another way besides algebra. A machine shop is another
example in that while one could bypass geometry, geometry allows one to
view a machine shop in a radically different way.
Nate