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Learning as Lifelong, Worldwide and Values-Deep
Dear Learner,
I hope you don’t mind me calling you a learner. I call myself one too. This is the first in a series of letters intended to share ideas and stimulate reflection on the role and nature of learning in our lives.
Lifelong learning is an important topic and it amazes me how often we take it for granted. Our highly developed ability to learn is the most significant characteristic of what it means to be human. Through learning we control our lives and achieve our goals. It stands to reason that insights on how we learn, why we learn and what it means to be competent, can be valuable and empowering.
Throughout my professional career I have been concerned with these questions. For many years I was a college professor and Director of the Centre for Education and Lifelong Learning at the National College of Ireland. Prior to that I worked in the early days of e-learning and in educational television. What I write here comes from that background, and I hope you will find it useful.
For each of us our life experience is a valuable resource that can be harvested for insights on how we can learn better. How do you think of yourself as a learner? You may be a parent, carer, worker or student keen to build your knowledge and develop new skills. You may, like me, have retired from full-time work but are still hungry for fresh ideas and new competences.
Wherever you are in life, the impulse to learn is a vital part of being alive. Most of the time we do not notice it. Learning just seems to happen.
Think back to one year ago and compare how you’ve changed over the intervening time. In a year you will have encountered situations, solved problems, met new people, and known familiar people in new ways.
Through these experiences your mind has adapted and changed. You will certainly have learned a great deal in that time. Learning is inevitable and we learn all the time. Whenever we are conscious, we are learning. When we read a newspaper, listen to the radio, or watch television, there is learning. We learn from conversations, browsing the internet, walking in the woods, or playing a musical instrument. We learn especially well in communities and through collaboration.
The phrase I use to capture the expansive nature of learning is ‘learning as lifelong, worldwide, and values-deep’.
So, you may ask, what does that mean for me?’ The implications are more significant and useful than you may first imagine. Let me touch briefly on what I mean.
Lifelong is perhaps the easiest to grasp. From our earliest moments until the end of our days, learning is with us. It is bound up with consciousness itself — to be human is to learn.
At different stages of life, the tasks and orientation of learning changes: the child learns through play, the adolescent explores identity, adults tend to focus on the challenges of work and family, while while mature adults may place more value reflection and renewal.
Lifelong learning reminds us that no stage of life is without opportunities to grow.
Seeing learning as a ‘lifelong’ process puts us and others at points on a journey of continuous development. As adults we may doubt ourselves as learners. These negative feelings often stem from our school days. Recognising that learning is a lifelong process allows us to deal with our past and to move away from defining ourselves by what we achieved in school. Lifelong learning acknowledges the on-going quest in each of us to give meaning and purpose to our lives.
Worldwide points beyond our own circle of experience. All too often we are fixed in our perspective. What we experience is a tiny fraction of the world and we often overlook the wide array of contexts in which people grow and learn.
It is easy to assume that our schools, colleges, and workplaces are the template for everyone, everywhere. Yet learning takes many forms across societies. It happens in oral traditions as well as literate ones, in villages as well as cities, in times of conflict as well as peace.
To see learning worldwide is to remember its universality, but also its diversity. The way people learn is shaped by culture, history, and circumstance, and that diversity enriches our understanding and tolerance of others. We cannot really know ourselves as learners unless we appreciate how other people have learned to see the world differently. This is the essence of human collaboration and activity. Importantly, local and community education are part of this worldwide picture. We learn best while collaborating for a common purpose, be that ‘men’s sheds’, ‘tidy towns’ or ‘rural links’.
Values-deep reminds us that while everyday learning builds our knowledge and skills, there is also a form of learning that challenges us at a deeper level. It shifts our values, our assumptions, even our sense of what is right or wrong. This is what education scholars call transformative learning — often triggered by difficult experiences that cause us to question ourselves and see the world differently. Such learning may be described as deep as it reshapes our identity and values.
What does that mean for each of us? Consider your own values and how they’ve come to shape the way you live. Did you always have these same values? We often say we are ‘nurturing our values’ and we try to instil values in young people. So, it is reasonable to argue that values are learned and if so, then surely they can change as a result of new experiences and insights.
I’m not suggesting that values are fickle and easy to change – quite the opposite they are deep convictions that are usually taken for granted and unquestioned. But every so often in our lives, or in the lives of people we know, we face an unexpected problem that challenges our assumptions. These experiences may be disorienting and lead us to question our deepest values. Appreciating that this as a learning process helps us carry through these unsettling transformations.
In this letter I have only touched the surface. I hope it gets you thinking about learning in all its forms: the everyday and the transformative, the personal and the global, the lifelong thread that ties our human story together.
In future letters I intend to provide more details and useful insights from the scholarship of learning and my own experiences. We can regard each letter as a conversation starter, so your comments and responses are especially welcome.
To facilitate this I have prepared a list of Self-Reflection Questions below. I encourage you to take a moment to consider your response to each question; they are designed to develop your critical understanding of learning.
I have also developed a Discussion Space where you can register, comment and engage in constructive dialogue about this topic.
I invite you to walk with me on this journey, as fellow learners, open to whatever the world has yet to teach us.
Your partner in learning,
Leo
Self-Reflection Questions for
Learning as Lifelong, Worldwide and Values-Deep
1. Looking back over your last year of life:
Think carefully about how you have changed in the past twelve months — in your thinking, in your relationships, in the way you see yourself. This is a way of noticing that learning happens continuously, not just in school or college. By taking stock of how you’ve grown, you are practising the habit of recognising yourself as a lifelong learner.
2. Revisiting your school experiences:
Most of us carry memories of our school years, and often these memories shape how we think of ourselves as learners today. Some people left school confident, others left doubtful or discouraged. Ask yourself: how much do those old experiences still influence the way you approach new learning? By reflecting on this, you can begin to separate who you are now from the labels or judgements of the past. This is an important step in adult learning: reclaiming your capacity to keep growing.
3. Considering learning from a worldwide view:
Our own culture, community, and workplace strongly shape what and how we learn. But learning takes very different forms across the world. Try to imagine how someone your age in another country or setting — perhaps in a village, a conflict zone, or a culture with oral traditions — learns and grows. This exercise widens perspective. It reminds us that learning is not only personal but also cultural, and it helps us appreciate both the diversity of human experience and the common thread that connects us as learners.
4. Reflecting on a time when your values were challenged:
Think of a situation when you questioned what you had always taken for granted — perhaps about fairness, right and wrong, or your own assumptions. These are moments of values-deep learning. They can be unsettling, but they are also powerful turning points. By revisiting one of these moments, you can see how learning can reshape not only your knowledge but your identity. This kind of reflection helps adults to make sense of change and to grow stronger from it.
5. Bringing the three dimensions together:
Now ask yourself: of the three ideas — lifelong, worldwide, and values-deep — which feels most relevant to you at this point in your life? Why? By making a choice here, you clarify your own priorities as a learner. This final step helps you set a direction: it could be continuing to build confidence as a lifelong learner, opening yourself more to global perspectives, or working through questions about your values. This is how reflection turns into action. -
Education, Lifelong Learning and the Transformation of Society
There is much anger in the world today. People rage against injustice and inequality. Tempers flair as we struggle to protect the planet. Societies change and evolve and our values are transformed over time.
Many practices such as slavery, colonialism and capital punishment were deemed acceptable in the past and considered abhorrent by today’s standards. Our current laws on discrimination and tolerance were hard fought and did not come about without argument and persuasion. Even with these, we know there is still much to do.
The progressive process of transforming values in society is essentially an educative endeavour. Consider how our collective values have changed, even in the course of, for example my own lifetime: My eldest sister had to leave her job when she got married, it was ok to hit children in school, homosexual acts were deemed criminal offences and university fees excluded many from achieving their potential. The situation today is not perfect but it has improved considerably.
However, we do not live in some privileged time when our values have evolved to a pinnacle. We continue to question how we live with each other and strive to make it better.
In this vein, it is not unreasonable to assume that at some point in the future our understanding of the purpose of education and the nature of lifelong learning will be transformed.
Today, many people think of education as simply a process of preparation: as the preparation of the young for adult life, or the unskilled to become competent, or of human capital in the interests of the supply of labour. Despite its prevalence, this is an impoverished view of education and a flawed model of learning.
Education involves more than preparation; as we learn we are already participating. Our world is transformed by journeys from peripheral to central areas of practice, from novice to expert and from passive acceptance to deep questioning of shared values.
Two significant UNISCO reports, Learning to Be (Faure 1972) and Learning: The Treasure Within (Delore 1996), affirm the transformative power of education on the lives of individuals and societies as a whole. The so-called ‘four pillars’ derive from these documents:
Learning to know,
Learning to do,
Learning to live together,
Learning to be.
These statements go beyond the purposes of education to embody the values that underpin the transformative power of lifelong learning.
Notice how they build and connect with each other. “Learning to know” is perhaps the most obvious and commonly associated with the preparation model of education. In recent times we are increasingly aware of “learning to do” as an important function of vocational and professional education. However, it is only when we connect these with “learning to live together” and “learning to be” that we grasp the progressive nature of learning.
In ‘learning to live together’ we are challenged in a different way – to recognise and respect all other people and to share our competence and collaborate for a better world.
Through these actions – learning to know, do, and live together – we move toward the goal of ‘learning to be’. Each person achieving their full potential.
This is the ultimate aim of education and lifelong learning. Perhaps at some time in the future these values will be shared by everyone. That’s the power of transformative learning!
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We Need New Stories in Education
The Seven Basic Plots is an interesting book by Christopher Booker, the main argument is clear from the title; we have a limited number of story lines and regardless of context or medium, we like the familiar, predictable and comforting. Fairytale, folklore, epic novels and modern film scripts all use variations of basic narrative structures; resilience in the face of onslaught, heroic journeys, monsters and dragons and of course, the struggles of good and evil. The argument is not unique, many thinkers have pointed to a form of collective intellectual comfort blanket. We welcome stories that reinforce pre-existing assumptions and avoid those that challenge our biased views and require re-jigging our model of the world.
The ‘basic plots’ phenomenon is much in evidence when we talk about education. Whether it is media reporting, policy discourse or public commentary, we return time and again to the familiar blandness of the comfort blanket.
I’m tired of hearing about the epic journey of the Leaving Certificate, I’m done with the struggles of the science and engineering to attract and charm the young people of today, I no longer need the wisdom of employers, I’m fed up with tales of cash strapped colleges, disgruntled unions and skills deficits. It’s time we moved on from the great myths of technology and unsupported open learning. I know these stories and I’m sure they will be around for a while but isn’t it time we introduced some new topics and debates? We need new stories in education.
So here is my suggested starter list of four new stories in education. When I say they are ‘new stories’ I am not suggesting that they have not been around before now – far from it, many are as old as education itself, what I mean is they seem absent or under-represented in the public discourse. So here they are, first as a list and then a short paragraph on each:
- Education and Democracy
- What Do We Mean by Learning?
- What Makes a Good Teacher?
- Learning Throughout Life
Education and democracy – now more than ever we need to discuss the connection between these two ideals. Is it possible to have a functioning democracy without open, informed and truthful discourse among the citizenship? Perhaps we are so busy ‘training’ people to develop instrumental, economically viable skills that we overlook the ‘skills of democratic participation’ such as reasoning and critical literacy. Trump, Brexit, far-right movements … need I say more.
What do we mean by learning? – We use the same word ‘learning’ for the many ways in which we extend our knowledge and develop skills and this variety in itself often leads to confusion. We need to develop a better way to bring the conversation about learning forward. Nobody has all the answers, especially academics, but we do need a common language and fundamental framework for understanding what we mean by learning and how to make it work better. In this way we can have sensible debates and together we can learn-about-learning for our own sake and that of our children.
What makes a good teacher? – Teachers are everywhere not just in schools. I don’t just mean this as a trite point to make us feel better; it is more fundamental than that. If we were not good teachers we would not survive as a culture and civilisation. All societies are concerned with the means of passing on from one generation to the next, the ‘way-of-doing’. So what makes good teaching? Is it specialist knowledge and deep expertise? Is it about passion and inspiration? Is it about explaining and making things easy? Is it about inclusion and bringing everyone along. Is it empowerment? And what makes a teacher ‘good’? Is it a moral value or a technical skill?
Learning throughout life – Learning has traditionally been associated with nurturing the young and as preparation for life and work. However, it is better to regard learning as part of life itself, it is something that we continue to do so long as we live. Learning may be regarded as a gift we give to our future selves and so long as we have a future we will need to learn.
Let’s talk about the issues and questions outlined above. They are important and I’m sure there are many different viewpoints to be considered and many new stories to tell.
Time to move on.
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Comments on the ‘Action Plan for Education 2016 -2019’
The Government’s new Action Plan for Education is a very welcome document that contains clear aspirations and detailed actions to be achieved over time. The overall vision is that we (Ireland) become the best education and training system in Europe. This is excellent news and like many others who work in education, I think it is a highly commendable goal; it is realistic and achievable and the Action Plan is an important statement of intent.
In that spirit I would like to make some suggestions and identify areas of improvement. This is not to overlook all of the good stuff and positive actions contained therein. Rather, it is to contribute to our thinking so we can achieve the goals to their fullest extent.
In the preamble to the document the plan sets out what it means to be the ‘best in Europe’, it means:
“Harnessing Education to break down barriers for groups at risk of exclusion; delivering a learning experience to highest international standards; equipping learners of all ages and capacities to participate and succeed in a changing world; and allowing Ireland to be a leader across a broad range of fields, scientific, cultural, enterprise and public service.”
(Page 1)
I couldn’t agree more and particularly welcome the emphasis on ‘learners of all ages’ and ‘capacities to participate and succeed’. It is right that we identify learning and education as important means of dealing with exclusion and alienation of certain groups in our society.
Given our big vision you would imagine then that aspiration of ‘lifelong learning’ would feature prominently in our Action Plan. Furthermore, you would expect to find some form of analysis of what we mean by ‘learning for life’ and significant details on how we intend to support all our citizens to ‘participate and succeed’ in our ever changing world. Sadly, there is little by way of detail provided for both these areas.
Throughout the document we find only strategy and policies that regard the purpose of education as meeting the needs of the labour market and hence ‘lifelong learning’ as wholly concerned with the provision of economically viable skills for the working-age population.
And yet, at the high level of aspiration there are laudable goal statements such as:
Education and training services support people throughout their lives. They play a huge part in developing their mental resilience and personal wellbeing. They equip people with the ability to adapt, to work with others, to think critically and to be creative. They give people the skills and knowledge to fulfil their personal goals.
(Page 2)
This seems to be a case of wanting it both ways; goal statements that envision education as a universal process, supporting people of all ages, encouraging adaptability and equipping people with the skills and knowledge to fulfil their personal goals, while the action statements overlook everyone beyond working age and neglect the personal fulfilment needs of carers, stay-at-home parents, community leaders, voluntary workers and the numerous activists and contributors to our sense of citizenship and culture.
One of the most troublesome sections of the Action Plan is that which deals with “Goal 4 To Build Stronger Bridges between Education and the Wider Community”. I would have though this would be the section that would espouse the big vision of education for all. Instead it seems to miss the point entirely. It’s as if there is no community out there other than employers and big science, and the only education that seems to matter is tertiary education. There is nothing there for alienated communities, isolated individuals and those who cannot contribute economically. There is nothing about the values of education to contribute to creativity, democracy, or our sense of justice and community. There is nothing of our identity, culture, our heritage, our shared past or sense of attachment to the land in which we live.
It is not sufficient to teach wellbeing in schools without practising it in society. We will not succeed in nurturing critical thinking in young people unless we ourselves challenge prevailing views and question the forces that shape our world. Creativity in people of all ages will flourish when we share a common sense of identity and belonging.
Put simply, education is a means of participation in society. Participation often includes, but always goes beyond, finding employment. Participation involves giving people a sense of purpose and the feeling of being valued and included.
In many areas the Action Plan gets it right and there are numerous welcome developments. However, if we are to achieve the vision contained therein we will need to extend our thinking. It is worth the effort as the prize is an education system that has meaning and value for everyone and helps us achieve a better, inclusive society.
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We Need New Stories in Education
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Top Ten Insights on Learning
It’s the time of year for reviews. I call it the season of the “top tens”: we have the top ten songs of 2009, the top ten sporting moments, the top ten films and so on.I have decided to step on the band wagon and am now pleased to present my Top Ten Insights on Learning.Here we go:
- Learning is constructed
- People are curious
- We learn best in social settings
- Much adult learning is child’s play
- We have a Learning Identity
- Meet the Digital World
- Adults learn what they want to learn
- Learning can be additive or transformative
- We learn throughout life
- We strive to be all that we can be
1 Learning is constructedThe best analogy is that of a tree with many branches.
We learn through the integration of present and past experiences. As we experience the world we connect new experiences with our past – in other words we construct knowledge.Learning has nothing to do with transmission of knowledge – it about personal construction.
Educators who recognise this focus on process rather than output and encourage students to make their own meaning rather than reproduce the work of others.
2 People are curious
We can use whatever terms we wish: “learning as inquiry” “problem-solving” “achievement goals” – the plain fact of the matter is that people are curious. We can be both mentally and physically curious. We have evolved our higher order thinking skills because our curiosity has provided a competitive advantage on this planet.
Curiosity is at the root of learning – to make learning happen provide conditions where curiosity is aroused.
3 We learn best in social settings
We have created our society and culture by developing systems to share knowledge, organise tasks, transmit knowledge between generations and collaborate with others to solve problems.No matter how clever or knowledgeable a person is – very little can be achieved alone.
When we learn our instinct is to share and communicate with others.
Students who work together through group work will learn much more than the task at hand: they will have to listen, discuss, debate, concede, collaborate, co-operate and share. These are really usefull skills.
4 Much adult learning is child’s play
I said above that people are curious both mentally and physically. Curiosity can be very dangerous if it is left unregulated.I could be curious about what its like to walk on the central partition of the motorway, manage an international bank or pilot a 747 but I’ll never do these things.
However, through play and imagination I can experience these actions and their consequences.
Many talk about “lifelong learning” I think we should call it “lifelong playing”. These day’s I’m playing with the Italian language.Teachers should let students play – this is also important in 3rd level: role play, simulations, gaming, problem-solving, apprenticeship and peripheral participation can be regarded as adults at play.
5 We have a Learning Identity
We all have a Learning Identity and I have written about this in a previous blog post.In my own research on how adult’s go about learning digital skills late in their careers I found that Learning Identity loomed large whenever educational endeavour was considered. I would ask “why do you want to learn computer skills?” and people would respond with “well I was no good in school…”
Perhaps it’s because society places such a high value on schooling and educational qualification that those who have had difficult experiences in school feel so inadequate when it comes to learning in later life.
It’s as if what they learned in school was that they were not good learners.Educators and trainers should not underestimate learning identity. It’s not just about praising and encouraging (although we should do this all the time) it’s about being aware of social comparison, fear of humiliation and genuine exam anxiety. The big message should be – this is not like school.
6 Meet the Digital World
Your first thought might be that the digital world is “out there” in the places where people are using technology to make things happen. But what I want to talk about is the Digital World that’s “in here” – I mean inside your mind!
We all build the world in our mind and through this process we organise, ascribe our values, assumptions, unquestioned beliefs and preconceived patterns of thought about aspects of the world.
For me its the Digital World but for other people it may be the world of the literate, of the wealthy, of the workers, of the young or of the future.
The important point is critical awareness. That is the learning task: to be cognisant of our assumptions, prejudices and patterns of thought.
7 Adults learn what they want to learn
This should be written on the wall of every training room and college classroom.Learning decisions are often neglected. I find this a fascinating area of inquiry: why do people choose to learn at a particular point in time?
We can pack our children into a classroom and somehow get away with telling them what they need to know but there is no way this will work with adults.Connecting usefulness and application is integral to the learning task for adults.
8 Learning can be additive or transformative
Of all the learning typologies this simple distinction is the most useful. We tend to think often about adding to our bank of knowledge but we seldom describe learning in terms of reorganising our thinking about something.
One of the characteristics of transformative learning is that it it involves loosing something (and this can be disconcerting) and rebuilding or putting something new in its place.
I think that transformative learning can take place at a societal level also. Imagine the upheavals caused by Calileo’s assertion that the Earth orbits the Sun or when Darwin described the Origin of the Species. It wasn’t so much that we rejected the new ideas but we also had to face the reality that to do so involved moving away from preexisting, more comfortable, beliefs.
Transformative learning can take people outside their comfort zone and challenge ‘the way we’ve always thought about things’. This is not always an easy experience.
One example of transformative learning that I frequently encounter is the process of college students moving beyond a positivist view of the world to become more comfortable with uncertainty, different perspectives and and awareness of their own subjectivity.Teachers who challenge students to think differently, to appreciate other perspectives and to self-reflect on practice will create conditions for transformative learning. When students argue and critique we know we have accomplished.
9 We learn throughout life
We tend to compartmentalise our short existence into a series of stages each with its own tasks and challenges. We are born and grow in childhood developing of motor, language, thinking and communications skills. As teenagers, we build our identity and later we are tasked with our partner relations, parenting and success in the workplace. Later still, we face the challenges of ageing and the fragility of our bodies and finally we face the fact that we are mortal.
We need to learn as we go – there is no point of arrival where we have all the we need to confront the challenges ahead. This is why learning is often described as a journey, this journey parallels the journey of life.
People of all ages look for meaning in their life, learning is one way to give meaning. Senior learning is often regarded as “nice” – in fact it is much more, it is essential. Lifelong learning is also learning for a long life!
10 We strive to be all that we can be
This is the so-called drive for individuation. One way to think about this is in terms of a desire to be competent no matter what the field of activity.
This is not the same as wanting to be good at everything. To strive to be ‘all that you can be’ is to take account of opportunity, capability and circumstance.But what you need to be good at is: who you are – you need to be the best “put your name here” possible. As we grow this guides our approach to learning and life.
We learn to be all that we can be.
My pictures are from Christmas Day in Maynooth 2009 when Maire and I took a walk by the canal.
