A pedagogy of curiosity, agency, productive struggle, and understanding through direct encounter with the world

1. Purpose

Reality-First Pedagogy is an approach to learning built around a simple premise:

People understand deeply when they first encounter a meaningful problem, feel the need to solve it, and then acquire the knowledge, tools, language and abstractions required to make sense of it.

Instead of beginning with terminology, theory, definitions, or a prescribed sequence of content, the learner begins with something real: