real life learning

i am writing up a research report about the importance of engagement with real life experiences outside of the formal classroom context - trying to shake some sense into educators that think they can continue to control children's learning with an island mentality through a transmission of information model that operates in isolation from the rest of the world - somehow we have to influence formal educators towards a pedagogy that embraces life as meaning making activity :

‘Learning power depends on developing certain dispositions, qualities and capabilities; but, as with all other knowledge and know-how, these are embedded within a shifting intuitive sense
of when, where and for what purposes they are best employed ……Knowledge and know-how that are learnt intellectually have to be re-embedded through reflective practice in the functional networks of the brainscape before they can turn into fluent expertise.’ (Guy Claxton 1999;338-9)

we only really know something when we use that knowledge in real life - so the process of learning should be less about accumulating and rehearsing knowledge and much much more about developing our understanding in response to the problems and challenges of real life - the phrase 'use it or lose it' comes to mind !