We have reached a challenging junction at which, on the one hand, teachers and schools face increased pressure to prepare students for standardized tests, whereas, on the other hand, they face a generation of students who regard the school curriculum as largely irrelevant to their own lives. It has become all too common to develop curricula and teach domain content distinct from the people, places, and situations through which the content has meaning. While it is expected that the information learned will somehow, later, be connected to those situations in which it is useful and meaningful, this is rarely what occurs. All too often the knowledge students “acquire” in schools remains inert (Whitehead, 1929), something demonstrated on a test in a school context where it can be traded for a grade but not applied to a situation in which it has intrinsic worth (Lave, 1991, 1997; Wenger, 1998).

Unless we begin to engage youth in rich situations that add meaning to disciplinary concepts – as part of the learning process – the content of schools will be perceived as a thing to be acquired and exchanged for a test score (having exchange value) and not as a useful tool that has direct functional value in the world or to the learner.