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Is Education Wasted on the Young?

Personally and professionally speaking, I am reborn as a result of finding purpose and focus with my informal learning. Interactions with my personal learning network (PLN) made me realize that my informal learning time was more relevant and authentic than what I had experienced in the classroom, or through forced professional development offerings. My interest and research in heutagogy and life-wide learning clarified two important revelations.  

  • First, I have been associated with schools and education nearly my entire life, yet I don’t recall anyone taking extended time to help me learn how to learn.  
  • Second, this graphic provided by the US Department of Education alerted me to the fact that we spend two-thirds of our life, and sometimes more, learning informally.
informal_learning.jpg

These two revelations combined with my own recently found informal learning experiences made me take pause and ask...

“OMG! If we aren’t feeding our students with the passions and the skills needed to maximize their own informal learning, then aren't we committing educational malpractice?”  

It took me two decades beyond my college education to rehabilitate and find my learning stroke. Where could I have been? What guidance and wisdom could I have provided my students, athletes, and colleagues with knowing what I know now? Maybe George Bernard Shaw’s old adage is true “education is wasted on the young”.

Can informal learning be incorporated into the classroom? If so, how?

Related Reading

5 Tools to Help Students Learn How to Learn - Mindshift, Katrina Schwartz


Mobile Enables Informal Learning - Upside Learning, Amit Garg


Image credit - Jay Cross

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Location: Libertyville, IL, USA

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