What Did You Learn in the Real World Today?

Practice, praxis, traineeship, internship, or practicum, are all names for the specific arrangements where students from universities engage in real life experiences; in arrangements where they leave the secure tranquillity of the university and enter into the chaotic world of work. Practicum is a very good way of learning, and it can be very interesting for all parties involved. The students like it, even if it is cumbersome, frustrating and requires a lot of work -- work that is different from what they know from their previous encounters with the education system. In this book we ask a simple question in relation to practicum, paraphrasing Tom Paxton's song: "What did you learn in the real world today?" The question is asked without the irony of Paxton's original one. Neither are we indicating that the university is not real, but the question is simply asked in order to find out what is learned in the practicum. Students learn and they learn a lot. But the question is what is learned. In the chapters in this book we try to shed some light on this simple question. And it turns out that there is no simple answer. In this book we have confronted the question from philosophical and pedagogical perspectives and in addition to this we also investigated a number of cases of students learning in the real world.