Is ‘Learning’ for a Reason, Season, or Lifetime?

Posted on September 15, 2011 | 1 Comment

A quick answer: Yes! Although this response depends on what ‘learning’ means for different people. Learning how to read, for instance, could mean something different from learning how to rap, text, or even write a blog. With countless examples like these, people can come up with all kinds of reasons for learning.

Same goes for the seasons for learning. They are timeframes that could range from months in a year, years of age, or an age and era representing the sign-of-the-times. It would follow that a lifetime for learning includes learning that never ends and continues throughout every stage of living.

So why the question? Well, simply to highlight the power of choices, but the limitations that comes with decisions. The question, “is learning for a reason, season, or lifetime” can suggest a selection that must be made between them. If made, at that very moment, learning is limited by that decision. In fact, learning is even limited by posing a question with only three options.

So I leave you with a thought: What would learning be without limitations?  Imagine if we never had to make up reasons for learning, such as having to wait next Fall to start school,  or planning for milestone ages of 30, 40, and 50-years-old as new opportunities to learn more.  

If learning was limitless and without these options, what would you choose?        

 

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Posted in Adult Learning, Higher Education, Lifelong Learning, Uncategorized

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Working Value of Education

Posted on September 2, 2011 | 3 Comments

“Who says you can’t put a value on education,” points a friend illustrating a chart by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The results favor the relationship that the higher the education, the lower rate of unemployment.  Yet, these numbers do not give any more comfort to those who may have a job with less education, and especially to those who are currently jobless or under-employed (educated with more schooling or not).

Yet this chart raises some important questions about the connection between education and work. So what can we learn about this issue?

First, maybe we need to start a different discussion. For example, some philosophers have questioned the ‘centrality of work’ and its dominating role in our society. Other thinkers see work as giving essential meaning to our personal lives.  Nevertheless, because many people still need to work, these kinds of discussions can come up empty if not tied to real-life solutions. 

Here is where the role of education is critical.  I would agree, it doesn’t help a jobseeker to hear that he or she must take more time, to spend more money, to get more education without any guarantee of a job waiting at the end. 

Therefore, there must be a closer link between education and the certainty of work. One of the drawbacks to selling the need of education is that it looks like an isolated pursuit, disconnected from the real world and current issues. More education requires a measure of time, patience, and money that appear unavoidable, yet conflicts with our technological, high-speed, microwave era.

Simply there’s no time. People want their degrees now, expressed as wanting to  learn what’s needed today-in-a-day. Offering alternatives may devalue the traditional process of education and undermine the efforts of those who have put in additional time and effort.

But what if education was apart of the job?  Not just continuing professional training for people with some level of experience and expertise; but rather positions for those with no experience, where jobs are created upon changing needs and connected to local schools, colleges, and universities for approved instruction and support.  

A suggestion in this different discussion would be for us to turn the old expressions such as ”hands-on-training” and “learning on the job” into serious strategic approaches to pursuing work while getting an education:  Sort of working internships for adults where a person who has a job, or looks for one, is fulfilling the needs for more education, satisfying the requirements for current credentials, and hopefully securing the paths for continued employment.

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Posted in Uncategorized, Experential Learning, Community Engagement, Reform & Improvement, Money, Work, & Lifestyle, Experiential Education, Organizational Learning, Prior Learning Assessment

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Lifestyle Change for Lifelong Learning

Posted on August 12, 2011 | 1 Comment

The best, top-ranked, and most popular blogs on lifelong learning, continuing education, and adult learning are often passed over. Not because of their importance, but just being hard to find in most media and blog directories. If you wanted to browse these topics on Yahoo! Huffington Post, or Technorati, just to name a few, there is no specific section dedicated to the education or learning of adults. To be fair, you might find some related clip on DIY (do-it-yourself), still all of them are lumped into a catch-all category called ’Lifestyle.’

Lifestyle suggests a preference and choice rather than being essential. Perhaps this explains why education after high-school has become an option and not a given right.

Some argue for ‘lifelong learning’, but it can also suggest an individual’s role to find bits of information in the same way of deciding what clothes to wear, movies to watch, or cellphones to text and never talk from.  These other choices are indeed lifestyle preferences; should creating an education also be one of them?

This explains why I prefer using the expression, ‘lifelong education’: Simply to promote and advance a discussion about how our community colleges, universities, even professional, technical and vocational schools have a societal role and responsibility to be continual partners in our educational need.

In the meantime, I would suggest a re-classification, a proverbial ‘lifestyle change’,  in how lifelong learning and continuing education is grouped in media outlets.  Who knows, it might not only change our choice of living, but also our style of learning.

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Posted in Lifelong Education, Lifelong Learning, Money, Work, & Lifestyle, Technology & Networking, Uncategorized

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Linking Music Lyrics to Learning

Posted on August 1, 2011 | 2 Comments

Many have different tastes and styles about the best music for reading or studying. Melodies like classical or light jazz are occasional suggestions, but there is something about hearing words, lyrics, and turn-of-phrases that teaches the experiences of living and learning. 

I think musical lyrics are often ignored lessons for learning and education.

In fact, I have a couple of questions for you:

First, what’s your favorite song or best lyric, verse, or title?  I mean the kind of song that you can remember without assistance from karaoke or concert.

Next question: Why is it remembered?

For me it depends on the specific lesson that the song brings. This can be the way the singer captures a moment that explains my whole life; or a key verse that teaches me something about society I won’t find in books.

We as listeners learn stories from music and its lyrics.  Stories about singers, situations, and solutions summed up into 3-5 minutes.   I argue these harmonious snapshots consist of our continual ups-and-downs, either personally, socially, or even spiritually. Sort of reminders of thoughts, choices, and actions seen through the mirrors of music.  Certain lyrics speak to us and lead in transforming our thinking, in how we treat others, and in the kind of life we would like to pursue. 

If all of us can agree that music teaches, then why not feature it in classrooms too.  In lectures, conferences, and discussions as well as exams, essays, and other forms of evaluation.  As adults, in addition to crafting a resume for employers, what about building a portfolio of learning music for yourself, linking lyrics to lessons learned that teaches others about who you are and in what ways you  have grown.

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Posted in Lifelong Learning, Money, Work, & Lifestyle, Reform & Improvement, Self-Directed Learning, Teacher Development, Uncategorized

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Emotions of Education: A Passion for Reform

Posted on July 15, 2011 | 2 Comments

Many agree that emotions can rule over all reason and sense. Emotions can also encourage and drive us to achieve enormous feats. They are a power with a wide range of potential. 

Now what if emotions were targeted toward education? I mean, what would be the emotional range that we could learn from?

I can think of three in particular: Pain, Pleasure, and Passion.  These emotions when geared toward education can reveal some surprising insights. For instance: What is it about education that brings us pain? Some are failing grades, tuition, student loans, finding the right schools, filling out entrance applications for our children or ourselves, and so on.   

What about the  pleasures of education? Some can identify with receiving great grades, degrees, diplomas, even ‘aha moments’ from learning something new or seeing someone grow in understanding and perspective.

Lastly,  there is the emotion of passion in education.  This is arguably the most misunderstood.  On one hand, we think about passion as a desire, pursuit, personal calling, or profound interest in an area or discipline.  Along these lines, experiencing passion in education would be a welcomed thing that helps define our purposes and pursuits.

On the other hand, passion relates to endurance. In fact, a Latin version of passion ties to patience and ’suffering.’  Remember the ole saying: ’Patience is a Virtue’? Well in this case, patience is having the passion to endure, suffer, and even overcome the circumstances.

Which leads me to a final insight for those who claim to have a passion for education: teachers, school boards, politicians, governments, and learning institutions such as schools, colleges, and universities. 

Can all of them match their desire to pursue education with the suffering and endurance that is necessary  to change it for everyone, especially for those who do not know educational reform and improvement must take place.   

My worry is that many are distracting us with superficial solutions for educational pains, promoting unearned pleasures, while ignoring the most important and emotional impact of advancing a full passion toward a lasting and lifelong education.

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Posted in K-12 Education, Literacy & Language, Money, Work, & Lifestyle, Reform & Improvement, Teacher Development, Uncategorized

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