It’s time to question our assumptions about “lifelong learning.” What does the term mean? What could it mean?
As individuals in a complex pluralistic society, we need to pursue a bigger vision of lifelong learning. By learning how to learn from our own everyday social experiences—knowing what to look for in our interactions with others, and the lessons to extract—we can develop a habit of identifying more than chance, superficial takeaways. Over a lifetime, the practical daily wisdom we actively seek will continuously feed our development as a whole person.
You are not a kit of parts
Formal training courses—online or in-person—are the default prescription for lifelong learning. But disconnected doses of training over a fifty +/- year career will not be enough to thrive in the future. We cannot expect instructor-led courses to fill every gap in our knowledge: if we always expect others to identify our learning takeaways, we’re bound to miss a lot of life’s lessons.
Let’s also look beyond simplistic “Top 10 Skills for 2024” (or 2030!) lists. Complex humans are not an assembly of discrete parts and specifications; our social skills and personal qualities are integrated and inseparable.
For instance, negotiation is often listed as a “Top 10 Skill.” We negotiate every day—each time we reach a decision with another person. Good negotiators draw on every skill typically cited on the Top 10 lists, plus personal capabilities and traits not found on the lists. Is it enough to be an “active listener”? Are you also able to pay attention to what may be unspoken, read between the lines, and question your own biases? How much do you learn from your experience as a negotiator? What are your daily takeaways?
And why is “problem solving” commonly found on such lists, but not “problem preventing”? When can we expect “wise reasoning” to suddenly appear as a hot skill? Hopefully before it’s too late to save ourselves.
In real life, knowing how to extract more takeaways from our everyday experiences makes a big difference. Let’s think of lifelong learning in terms of growth as a whole person, not as an arbitrary checklist of skills.
A model for takeaway learning
Technical skills can be taught, but habits of behavior are absorbed and developed (or not) over time. How can we consciously nurture this growth as a person throughout our decades-long careers?
Social learning clubs—a sort of Toastmasters for daily human interactions—are a model for cultivating this kind of self-reliant, lifelong development. They offer a supportive, inclusive home base where anyone can practice the art of extracting nuggets of wisdom from their own everyday life. In providing an open, non-judgmental forum for examining our own experiences and those of others, social learning clubs foster a spirit of curiosity about human behavior and increase our understanding of how other people see things.
In other words, social learning clubs are places where we can gain the human insight and everyday wisdom that act as antidotes to the unhealthy conflicts, tensions, anxieties and self-esteem issues that plague us at work and add stress to our lives. And by helping us thrive as individuals, social learning clubs can also help us to collectively build a better version of the complex, pluralistic society that David Brooks describes.
Above quote: David Brooks, The New York Times, “This is How Scandinavia Got Great: The power of educating the whole person” (paywall) https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/opinion/scandinavia-education.html and re-posted here.
VanderPalette 