Which is the real world?

By Tim Middleton | Jun. 1, 2025

Rory Duncan

In a recent interview before a league match that preceded a European Final in which his club was competing, the manager of Tottenham Hotspur, Ange Postecoglou, stated that “in a normal world, we would play our best players”, but on this occasion he did not want to risk playing his better players in case they got injured before the big Cup Final. Apart from the fact that it clearly was not a normal world (as his club had not won a major trophy for decades — or has that become normal?), it does beg the question: what is the normal world?

Similarly, people often claim that education is a “preparation for life”, but again we must query; if pupils in our schools are simply being prepared for life, what are they doing now? Are they not in life now? No, of course, they are, people will respond quickly, but children do not live in the real world, we are told. If it is not the real world in which they are living, what sort of world are they living in? Is it a fake world? An unreal world? An abnormal world? A lying world? A pointless world?

Then we must ask further questions. If the children are not living in the real world (therefore they are living in a fake, false world), why do we allow it? If they are only being prepared for life, why are they not already prepared for life? Why do we run schools the way that we do if it is not real? Why do we not make schools more like the real world that is allegedly so different out there? Surely if they are to be prepared for the real world, then they should be experiencing it all the time?

Taking that further, if the world of school is different from the world post-school, why do we allow it? Why do we not make both worlds the same? If we are to make the child’s world like the real world, why do we not make the adult world more like the child’s world instead? People in the real world will think that life is much tougher in the real world (unless, of course, we happen to be living in the fantasy world) so why do we not therefore make the real world like the world of schools, make it easier for adults? Is that not going to be welcome by all? Instead of making school more like the real world, make the world beyond school more like school.

But then we have to ask: what exactly is the real world like. There is a piece attributed to Bill Gates (but previously written by someone else) entitled “11 Rules for Teenagers”, where the first one stated bleats out, “Life’s not fair: get used to it”. In the real world, he claims life has different rules, that people are not interested in how we feel at work, bosses are tougher than teachers, many nerds will be bosses, there are less holidays, there are winners and losers; and so on. If that is the case, we are not preparing them for the real world, so is he saying that schools should be places where life is not fair, teachers must be tougher, pupils must work through without long holidays, children must stop making excuses and blaming others. Teachers must show no concern whatsoever to how a child feels. If we are to prepare children for the real world, then that is what we must do; the ‘real’ world must be in their school world. Do we make the real world easier or make the school world harder?

Of course, some might argue that a lot of schools are already doing all of that; they are making life miserable and unpleasant for the children. Yet when they do, then we complain! So what exactly do we want? Do we want them to saunter through school without a care in the world, living in effect a dream life, not real life, or are we truly wanting to help them? Is Reality TV really real?

What we also must consider is this: if the real world is indeed tough, hard, uncompromising and more, is that what we really want? We are preparing children for that so-called ‘real’ world but why are we not instead training them to change that world? If we are trying to do that (which in truth we generally are), why is the real world as it is? The ‘real’ world, the right world, should be what is being done in school and the world beyond school should be a reflection, a continuation of that. We need to make what we see as the life after school to be ‘unreal’, not ‘real’.

In truth, there is a massive disconnect between what is happening in schools and what is going on outside of schools. The two ‘worlds’ should be exactly the same, if we are preparing children for the real world, for life. They are living life at school – and that life should continue if our education is working. In a normal world, we would do that. But welcome to the real world? Can we do nothing?