This book presents a reality-based approach to classroom instruction designed to help learners at all levels achieve lifelong success. It offers teaching strategies, activities, and applications to enhance student achievement, stressing the importance of learning through discovery, creativity, application, adaptation, and high level thinking. It also reiterates the need for a positive atmosphere, rituals, and procedures enabling educators to strengthen students' knowledge and achievement for lifelong success. Nine chapters focus on: (1) "Laying the Groundwork for Learning: Meaning and Memory"; (2) "Fertile Fields for Learning: Supple as Cotton, Rigid as Steel"; (3) "First Get 'Em on the Line--Then You Can Reel 'Em In!"; (4) "Add it Up: The Whole is Greater Than the Sum of its Parts"; (5) "Paint Me a Picture, Show Me the Way: Reconciling the New with the Known"; (6) "Get Real! Transforming Learning to Real Life"; (7) "Who Said It Couldn't Be Done? Blueprints for Student Success"; (8) "I've Got It! Now How Do I Keep It?"; and (9) "Hey, How Am I Doing? Feedback in the Learning Process." (Contains 24 references.) (SM)