To learn is to immerse oneself in the education that real-life generates. Earth is a canvas for learning. Each time you step outside, through every new person you encounter and every new country you visit, learning is occurring. It is repugnant how schools have brainwashed our students to believe that learning only takes place within the confines of school buildings. Schools should not be the only place for learning. By designating a specific forum for learning we alienate all other forms of learning. Even before the 17th century, before schools were formally created, humans found ways to advance their knowledge, to innovate, and better their lifestyles through hands-on experiences and interacting with their surroundings.

Why have we abandoned our raw human instincts of learning? We have grabbed students by the necks and have tossed them into a classroom to sit for seven hours expecting them to learn. However, true learning happens outside the classroom, outside those walls. Students will not be in the classroom forever, after college students will have to make their own mark in the real world. Surviving in the real world is the real test of life. If students are not prepared mentally and physically to interact with the environment around them and actually learn from them, then it is like sending a bunch of fish into a tank full of sharks, they won’t survive.

Instead of just teaching science in a classroom, take students to an environmental center, or to a forest where they can physically interact with the species and plants that are being discussed in the classroom. Instead of just teaching math, take students to places where math is essential so they know how to apply that math to real life. We must take the lessons that were meant to be taught from a book and use the earth as a landscape for those lessons to be thoroughly experienced. Students who are physically and mentally present in the world that they are in will gain more knowledge and be able to easily adapt to the changes within this world and succeed.