This weeks Booking Through Thursday is a question that I’m guessing most everyone has asked at one point or another in their life, but how many of us have stopped to actually answer it? (Something to think about, huh?)
Suggested by Barbara H:
I am paraphrasing from a friend’s Facebook wall her question:
“How would a teen-age boy who is going to work with his hands ever use Literature of England in his work?”
The age-old “How am I going to use this in real life?” question. How would you answer it?
A little background, on a very general scale – I’m certainly guilty of asking this question, especially throughout certain high school and college classes I have taken. I wondered why I really needed to take Algebra in high school when I knew I would be studying psychology and therefore using statistics more so than anything else in my chosen field. Or, for example, I wondered what the point of learning about the respiratory system would be for me when my real interest in the workings of the brain. Goodness knows that there is so much to learn out there, why should I spend my time on something that has little, if anything, to do with my chosen interests. Narrowing it down now…
When it comes to reading and learning in general and applying it to real life, I think it is important to consider life as a whole. When we think only about how reading The Outsiders in eighth grade is going to help us in our future careers, you’re missing a huge part of the picture. Part of life is work, sure, but there is also family and friends, hobbies, and a load of other things that could be mentioned. Books are good for several things, but at the top of that list is the evaluation of life. There are so many life lessions that can be explored through the written word. Books have been used to dicuss everything from big time topics such as morality, ethics, and the state of the world to the smaller scale negative impacts of judging others too harshly or intentionally causing pain to others. You name it, something can be written about it.
We all read for our own reasons… escapism, curiosity, expansion of the mind… state your reason, but it’s still important for us to look for the lessons encased in these books that we read and say to ourselves, ‘You know what? I’m going to make an active attempt to treat people nicer,’ or ‘I’m going to judge others less on first impressions and instead give them a chance.’
Using all those topics in books – or even in your schools core cirriculum – is something that we have to actively think about and apply to our day to day lives – all aspects of those lives… it’s not something that is just going to happen or someone is going to figure out for us.
(I know what I was trying to say there, but feel free to yell at me for clarification…)
Among Stories 
A great analysis of why reading is important. Very true. You’ll find mine here.
Good answer. I like what you said about learning the moral lesson of the book
I love your answer. To me reading has much more of an application to real like that any other subject taught in school, because it all affects how we think and perceive.
Yes, reading is in everything and the critical thinking it takes to read through a book and thinking about it deeply, is relevant to every other aspect in our lives. Hooray!
Nice answer and very valid. Life lessons do come from reading.
Wonderful answer. You nailed it.
Here is my BTT: Real Life post!
I actually didn’t like the question…Partly because I didn’t understand it, LOL Partly because I realized I learned nothing from the books I read. Booking Through Thursday
here’s mine http://tributebooksmama.blogspot.com/2011/02/booking-through-thursday.html
Great answer. And sometimes it’s just so much easier to learn from books than to have to learn some of those hard lessons by hurting people in real life. If I can learn to be less judgemental because of the trauma caused by a character in a book, that’s so much more pleasant for all involved!