Life-long Learning & The Information Age

Here's a big rant....

I came across this recent article in The Age: Teach Your Children Well

It is great to see an article that speaks in such an encouraging way about natural learning and the fact that we are life-long learners.

I have always considered myself a life-long learner because for as long as I can remember I have sought out information and experiences relating to whatever has interested me. All of my learning I consider of value I attribute to self-directed learning, even from a very young age. I read for many hours outside of school....Enid Blyton books, the Nancy Drew series, a series of magazines called 'The Joy of Knowledge' that mum allowed me to collect each week until I had around 20 volumes (I particularly liked the forensic science, human body, and animal-related topics), and a whole assortment of other fiction and non-fiction, magazines, and so on. I taught myself to draw and do various crafts by reading instructional books and simply experimenting with lots of trial and error (as I am currently doing again). Over the years I have read widely and in depth about various 'new age' topics and spirituality (I suppose in response to the eternal questions: 'Who am I?', 'Why are we here?', and 'What is my life purpose?'), arts and crafts, photography, education, home education, natural learning, parenting, finance/money, small business, and much more. I have pursued short courses in photography, Australian Sign Language, oil painting, and study skills. I have earned an associate diploma in nannying but never been employed as a nanny. Despite this, I found the course valuable as it gave me confidence when I became a parent. I have earned a Bachelor's Degree in primary education but never been employed as a teacher (only a few hours of casual supply work). Despite this, I feel fortunate to have done the degree because it gave me the initial confidence to begin home educating the children (without this I doubt I would have trusted that I could do it - even though I didn't need a teaching qualification). It also allowed me to develop an in-depth understanding of how children learn (much of which was studied extensively in my own time over and above course requirements), which I have been able to compare and contrast with my exploration of the 'natural learning' philosophy (finding that the two are actually complementary - the learning that is desired in school can truly happen in the real life context of living and learning naturally).

The only valuable learning I can recall happening at school happened because it was something I found personally interesting and relevant. These were not 'academic' things either. I remember enjoying solving picture puzzles, doing word searches, sewing, and learning songs. Some of the least valuable learning that happened in school was figuring out that if we kept making disruptions in our highschool History class we wouldn't have to read the textbook, as the teacher would spent the whole lesson waiting for us to be quiet. I also learned to fear oral speaking, that I was slow to complete things, that I wasn't exciting enough to part of the 'cool' crowd, and so on.

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Here are some relevant quotes:

Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.
- Isaac Asimoc

And so we discovered that education is not something which the teacher does, but that it is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being.
- Maria Montessori

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
- Mark Twain

What children need is not new and better curricula but access to more and more of the real world; plenty of time and space to think over their experiences, and to use fantasy and play to make meaning out of them; and advice, road maps, guidebooks, to make it easier for them to get where they want to go (not where we think they ought to go), and to find out what they want to find out.
- John Holt, in "Teach Your Own"

People would be busy doing interesting things that mattered. Doing them, they would grow more informed, competent, and wise. They would learn about the world from living in it, working in it, and changing it, and from knowing a wide variety of people who were doing the same.
- John Holt

Every child is born with this generic language predisposition. Just what they do with it depends on the culture into which they are born. Research four years ago carried out by the Kellogg Foundation in Michigan into what are the best predictors of success after the age of 18 showed that it was the quality and quantity of dialogue in a child's home before the age of 5 that was four times more significant than any other factor, far more significant than either the primary or secondary school. In reality our ancestors knew this long ago. St. Augustine was said to have remarked "I learnt most, not from those who taught me, but from those who talked with me." That monk understood the proper balance between formal teaching and spontaneous learning. This is the balance we have to regain.
- 21st Century Learning Initiative

It is not what is poured into a student but what is planted that counts.
- Hildebrand

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Learning is a natural process but because of the focus on school as the place to 'receive an education, it is often seen as something separate to real life (an not very enjoyable at that!). I think the term 'education' is also deceiving - it comes across as something to 'get'. The word 'educate' originates from the Latin 'edu cere', meaning 'to bring out'. I believe that this means bringing out the curious nature of the human in their endeavour to seek answers. Education is about fostering the desire to find out about ourselves and our world. I feel sorry for those who think that their 'education' stops when they leave school. Learning is a life-long process and, I believe, our ultimate purpose in life.

If learning is a life-long process, then there is no need to learn particular things by certain ages. The reason this is done in school is purely for managing the masses. If a person can interact in the world by talking, reading, inquiring, discovering, calculating, and being able to access information if and when needed, then they are 'educated' with life-long learning skills. You know the saying:

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life.

We are no longer in the Industrial Age, but in the Information Age, where there is easy access to information on any topic and from anywhere in the world. Where 20 years ago someone would learn about another country from a book and being told an assortment of facts, today anyone with an internet connection or phone can converse directly with people all over the world....look at what I am doing here...I have a world-wide audience. There is so much information in existence, and the rate of multiplication is growing all the time, that it is no longer plausible to have a set curriculum and to base learning on facts or set bodies of knowledge. What IS important is knowing how to seek out answers to questions...where to find information and HOW to learn, being flexible, thinking critically (not all information out there is valuable), and being able to solve problems and think creatively.

One of the most valuable aspects of home-based learning is having the time and freedom to discover your individual learning style, to daydream, to get to know yourself. Just look at the outcome of sending children to school for 13+ years where they learn not to trust their own instincts and have no encouragement to develop their individual strengths....they end up being 40 year olds who realise they don't know who they are, what their dreams are, and they certainly don't believe they could make a living doing something they love. The school system raises children to get a job...that is it's purpose no more and no less.

I want more for my kids. They deserve to know who they are, to be able to play with the world and all it offers, to take risks and believe they can do and achieve whatever their hearts desire, and to be free to live life authentically rather than learn about it while it happens outside the school fence.