Learning in Our Everyday Lives

Mr. Fisch's blog post today about how we can go the extra mile, so to speak, in our learning really got me thinking. I commented about how sometimes I would consider going back and commenting on the blog and trying to do research, but I either didn't have the time or the energy (or both) to do it, so I wouldn't. However, that made me feel really guilty. Not all teenagers have the opportunities that we do here at Arapahoe and we should be taking advantage of them. So I started to think (partly to re-deem myself in my eyes) about the difference between learning and school-work. School-work can be exactly that; work. Work isn't always that fun and most often we just try to get through it without taking the time to reflect on what it's trying to teach us. Even if teenagers were finally able to snap out of their age-old custom of slacking off in school (seriously - how many of you reading this right now haven't, at one point in your education, found yourself slacking off in class? Didn't think so), not many of them would really, realistically, want to devote all their time to learning. To do that, they would have to stop spending time with friends, playing sports, and doing other extra-curricular activities. Or, they could change their mind set on learning. They could, instead, take every opportunity in their life as a learning experience. They could start to change the way they thought about work. Work, by definition (courtesy of Answers. com), only means to put time and effort into achieving a goal. That doesn’t sound so bad now, does it?

So my question to you is this; Do you agree with what I've said above? Why or why not? I really think this could bring up an interesting discussion on how our society views education, so feel free to comment on anything changing-education related that you want. Whether or not you agree, would you be willing to change your mindset and thinking about school and education? Why/why not? How? What obstacles stand in your way? How do you think we, as students and learners, could get around such obstacles?