The End of Education?
By Mark W.F. Condon, Unite for Literacy vice president
Schools cannot educate for life! Schooling can only provide a foundation for a life of learning. So, school graduation cannot and should not signal the end of learning. Living is for learning. If we aren’t learning, we are just existing.
The richest lives are lived by people who choose to engage with the limitless educational opportunities that life provides. Sources for inspiration can come from our families to others we meet who are unlike ourselves to our jobs and career experience. Every moment can provide us with fabulous paths to what might be some of the best educational opportunities available in our lives. The key is to find something we’re fascinated by and engage with it.
And it’s of primary importance that children be taught, at home and at school, that the possibility of learning something new at any moment is their forever-and-always choice. Recognizing such opportunities for learning offers children the chance to figure out new things about how to live joyfully. “Bored” kids may not have learned yet that empty time is their time, an open invitation to engage with and explore the world and the people in it.
When we were little, my brother and I were arguing in our room about some goofy thing, and our mom challenged us: “Why don’t you two go outside and run around the house a dozen times?!” We actually took her up on that silly suggestion, but after a time or two around the house, our attention turned to some small birds that were squawking and swarming around a hawk that had come near their nest. Before we knew it, we were deep into an inquiry about the two species: “Why aren’t those little birds afraid?” “Can you see the babies in the nest?” “Every time the hawk gets close to their nest, the birds zoom in on it. Why doesn’t the hawk just go after the parent birds?” That day, in an attempt to change our focus, our mother had inadvertently invited us out into the world where we were transformed into ornithologists.
Children from families with a low income or who live in rural areas may be isolated from some forms of educational stimulation; still, as can be seen in my and my brother’s birding inquiry, regardless of their surroundings, there are endless possibilities for learning available to children. And beyond what they can experience directly, most of the riches of the world await every child through the constantly expanding offerings available from their public libraries or bookmobiles, or via the vast and growing number of digtial libraries on the internet.
Reading from any medium provides a universe of unique intellectual paths forward into futures that no child, their parents or teachers, can yet imagine. Invitations like, “Why don’t you take a walk around the library and see what you can find?” or “You’ve been so interested in roly-polies, Maya. You were wondering if they laid eggs. Let’s go online and see what we can learn about them.” This kind of parent-supported, child-centered inquiry can go a long way to encourage habits of lifelong learning.
Before the end of each school day or at home during dinnertime, take time to share with your children something you learned today. Then ask them, “How about you? What did you learn/discover/wonder about today?” At first, kids might be uncertain about the kinds of insights or discoveries they’ve made. But in time, the conversations that ensue will be delightful, and that’s how education becomes lifelong for us all.