a bright idea

This sounds like a facetious title, but actually it's not. Gathering just from the news story, Vine Street School here in Bangor conducted a project recently that integrated math, social studies, and phys ed. What the students did were, in groups, chose (or were assigned, not sure) countries which they were to study, the history and culture and the like. This was the social studies portion. Then, they "represented" these countries in their own Olympics that ran concurrently with the Winter Olympics recently held in Vancouver, British Columbia. This integrated the math and phys ed portions. Whoever dreamed up this idea is an educational genius. The kids got actively engaged in the study of their prospective countries and had fun competing in their "Olympics", which allowed them to perform some physical activity and get much needed exercise, especially during the months where kids generally don't get that exercise. You think we can come up with some similar ideas for integrating subject areas and genuinely show how what we study in school is applicable in the outside world? This is how we should be teaching our students, not putting a bubble sheet in front of them and making them take multiple-guess assessments and using that to measure their performance. They won't be taking these exams when they're in the real world solving real-world problems.