Education and Vocational Education have many roles in todays schools. Vocational education focuses on the future employment of the student, by using practical application. Vocational education gives students the opportunity to learn with hands-on experience. This can help in several areas of gaining an education. Most notably, this gives the student the opportunity to find out if this is what they want to do. Students will get a real-world experience very early on in their education. This experience can greatly enrich a students education by giving them the opportunity to become involved in activities that are relevant to their lives, therefore, becoming a source of motivation. Education provides these same experiences to a certain extent, but the connection to real-world experience is much less defined. I believe it is the obligation of an educator to help create lifelong learners out of our students. Three key elements need to be present for this to take place. Confidence, relevance and motivation must all be present. Students need to have the confidence to try and succeed, or try and fail. This may sound like a trivial example, but I believe it is essential to success. Without knowing and understanding failure, students will not be able to appreciate success and what it takes to succeed. Confidence will be gained through the trial and error that takes place in the successful business educators classroom. Relevance is the next item. The application of the material in the classroom must be relevant to what the student has set his/her sights on. Business education is all about relevance. Taking the simulations, applications and exercises from real life examples allows the students to see and understand the challenges they face. When the students see they are learning relevant skills they will become motivated to succeed. Motivation can come from a variety of sources, but I believe the business education teacher can...
